H.R. era quite fond of sports in his student years: basketball in the school team, soccer games with friends, quiet mountain circuits with the bicycle, the classic period in which he hardly left the gym, running from time to time,... All this was gradually abandoned due to work, family commitments and a certain reluctance that he does not quite remember where it came from.
Until one day she discovers in the mirror an incipient (or already prominent) belly that she had never worn before, nor did she want to. She also finds it difficult to climb the stairs 2 by 2 as she has always done and even to keep up with the rhythm of her children's games in the park, phew, they seem to have been wound up!
This is over, she is planning to start jogging tomorrowrunning has been pointed out to her by a colleague at work); 3 days a week is enough and at most 40 minutes, as running is so boring. He puts on a pair of tennis shoes, his old basketball shorts, "that's as comfortable as it gets", and a cotton T-shirt to soak up the sweat.
The fact is that H.R., like so many others, is hooked, he is running longer and longer, he has already lost those extra kilos and some more (too many according to his partner), he has bought some good running shoes and technical clothing, he has signed up for one race, another, a half marathon that he faces with great respect because it already seems a long distance to him... and finally a marathon, of course.
He has not been running to lose weight for a long time, now he runs because he likes it, because it makes him happy, that's what moves him, but he also wants to improve his times, why not? He competes against himself: from the neighborhood race to the Berlin marathon in which he has finally got a race number.
Now, of course, although he improves day by day, he knows that this progression will not be indefinite, there will be a moment when he will have reached his limit, his ceiling.
And when does this happen?
The world's great asphalt athletes have, in many cases, followed a similar trajectory: after crushing the track and achieving great marks even in middle-distance running, over the years (usually in their thirties) they have moved on to longer events, without forgetting the agonizing distances or cross country, but making the most of the marathon.
Without going any further, Haile Gebrselassie achieved his second marathon world record at the age of 35 with 2h 03m 59sec, having achieved, among other feats, running the 1,500 meters indoors at the age of 25 in an incredible 3m 31sec 76, the second best indoor time of all time.
There are exceptions, of course, some as striking as that of the Ethiopian Tsegaye Mekonnen who managed to win in Dubai with 2h04m32sg in his marathon debut at the age of 18! and without boasting spectacular marks in short distances beforehand.
By the way, what will the athletic life of such a precocious phenomenon be like? Will he have the progression that one might predict based on his age and his personal best?
The best age to break records
The maximum oxygen consumption capacity of all runners normally reaches its peak between 30 and 35 years of age, this being the key to performance over long distances, together with the proportion of slow twitch muscle fibers (type I) to fast twitch (type II) and other factors, some more or less subject to debate such as the famous genetics of Kenyans, making it very difficult to continue to shave seconds off the stopwatch in the professional world after this age.
But leaving aside those who fly low, returning to us mortals and speaking clearly, with the years comes a time that no matter how much we grit our teeth and try with all our strength, that we take care of ourselves with food, rest and other components that make up the training, we can not get the same rhythms that some time ago we dominated. We notice it mainly in short races and series training: we have lost that spark, those seconds per kilometer and there is no way to get back to them.
There is no specific age at which we all overcome this turning point in our performance, indeed, like the great international figures, there will be several; first we give the best of us in short distances, but we will still be able to improve our marks in others, such as marathon, until we finally have to settle for fighting to lose as little as possible and the slower the better.
As for the popular athletes who have become hooked to this world when they are already 35 or 40 years old, their best times, on the other hand, can arrive in some cases even in their fifties, since we all need some time from the beginning of our athletic life (experts speak of about 7 years) to develop through training our maximum aerobic capacity, the primary basis of the preparation.
Experience is a degree
And on the other hand, those years of kilometers and kilometers, that experience and knowledge of oneself as a result of training and races, weeks of sweat and Sundays of bibs, nerves in the warm-up, joys and disappointments, .... all this plays in favor of the performance that over the years we manage to get in the competitions compared to the preparation that we have been able to complete: many of us have been able to stay close to our marks, especially in long distances, not being able to reach the same rhythms as a few years before, but getting real oil our body from each of the workouts and getting the best results on the D-day.
Now, it doesn't matter if we are one of those who insist year after year to keep fighting against the stopwatch or if we are one of those who have other less competitive goals, because what we can never master, no matter how many years we have been burning shoes and how many times we have heard the sound of the starting gun, are those nerves that precede any race and take hold of us as the first day.
And may they never leave us!
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