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Older Marathon Runners Show Greater Improvement Than
Younger Ones
Women lead the way in proving senior citizens have greater potential
Aug. 25, 2004 - Marathon runners 50 and older, and
female athletes in particular, are showing greater improvement in
running times than younger runners and appear to have greater
performance limits than expected, according to a new study that looked
at runners in the New York City Marathon over 17 years.
The researchers examined the running time, age, and
gender of all of the runners in the New York City Marathon from 1983
through 1999. They also evaluated the performances of the top 50 male
and top 50 female finishers by age categories. There were 415,000
runners in all. Master athletes were classified as those 50 and older.
Women marathon runners 50-59 improved their average
race time by 2.08 minutes per year, which was substantially greater than
men runners of the same age, whose running time improved on average
about eight seconds per year, according to Peter Jokl, M.D., professor
of orthopedics, who co-authored the study with Paul Sethi, M.D., and
Andrew Cooper, all of Yale School of Medicine.
The older male runners, in turn, increased their
running time at a much greater rate than younger male runners. The
younger runners, male and female ages 20 to 30, did not significantly
improve their running times during the period studied. The most
significant trends in improved running times noted in the top 50
finishers in the male category occurred in age 60-69 and 70-79, and for
women, in ages 50-59 and 60-69.
"Our data reflect the potential for improvement of
the general health status of our aging population," Jokl said. "It is
not surprising that the number of participating master athletes
continues to rise. There is a general trend towards increasing numbers
of our aging population who are in good health and physically able to
participate in these types of strenuous competitions."
He said the performance limits of master athletes
appear to be greater than predicted by previous physiologic studies.
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