news is that it’s not all bad news. The sports science gurus have done all manner of study on people from their 20s on up. They’ve even looked at people in their 90s. Here’s a list of just some of what we’re all in for: Changes in the intervertebral discs may be seen at age 20. For some of us, this will cause problems, but for most of us it won’t. Lots of people have slightly herniated discs and don’t experience any back problems. Changes in the meniscus are seen by age 30. The meniscus is a cartilage disk that acts as a cushion between the ends of the bones that meet in a joint. When people talk about the meniscus, they’re usually talking about the knee. There is a decrease in tensile strength of the meniscus. This helps to explain why older individuals tend to tear the meniscus more frequently than younger people do. There is a decrease in the overall water content, a decrease in the matrix proteins and cellularity, and certainly a decrease in the vascular supply. Changes in the anterior cruciate ligamentstart between 25 and 30 years of age. These are ligaments that run crisscross under the knee. The tensile properties of the ACL decrease by 65 percent from age 25 to age 70. That is onacontinuum so that as athletes age, there’s a greater propensity to tear the anterior cruciate ligament. VO,max begins to decline at age 25 (10 percent per decade). A9 to 10 percent per decade loss of VO,max has been suggested from studies of untrained healthy men.

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By the time you reach 50, you will have lost 40 to 45 percent of the muscle strength you had at age 30. It is primarily the fast-twitch fiber (a.k.a. “Type 2”) you’ll be losing.

By age 60, you begin to lose motor units. Nerve conduction times increase with age, and reaction time decreases. There’s a decrease in synaptic connections, as we actually begin to lose anterior horn cells with age.

All this is going to happen, and you can’t stop it. It’s written in stone. No Fountain of Youth out there yet. You can slow the process down, though. (Yes, I feel as if I’m preaching yet another reminder that exercise is good for you, but it does help to know this stuff, so bear with me.)

THE SCIENCE

Ina 1996 study called “Elite Distance Runners: A 22-Year Longitudinal Study” conducted at the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University, Dr. David Costill and others collected data on highly trained male distance runners 22 years after doing it the first time. They divided the group of 53 men into four categories:

1. Highly trained: guys who ran a lot of miles back in their day and who still do.

2. Fitness-trained: guys who ran a lot of miles back in their day and now just run to stay healthy.

ning shoes for good. (Guys like former world-class 800-meter runner Don Paige. I met him in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic trials as he was heading out to a local golf course. He said he hadn’t run a step in 10 years.)

4. Fit/older: men who were 20 years older than the rest of the group who ran for fitness.

I’ll spare you the details, but the study came up with a few interesting conclusions.

Across the board, VO,max declined but only by 14 percent in the highly trained group. In fact, two members of the highly trained group had their VO,max decline by only 2 percent (a virtually identical measure). Not surprisingly, these two were still doing the hardest training 22 years later.

Inthe fitness-trained and untrained groups, VO,max declined 24 percent and 34 percent, respectively. The 34 percent is a faster rate of decline than you’d find in a sedentary person, which is evidence that cardiovascular fitness must be maintained.

In other words, the cardiovascular fitness I have now, as a 34-yearold, won’t give me any kind of edge over a sedentary person in 20 years if I don’t keep running. I think this is obvious to most people, but there’s your clinical proof.

One mark that didn’t decline but actually improved in the highly trained group was running economy. If VO,max is a measure of how much

air youcan get in and out of your body, then running economy is a measure of how well you use that air. The untrained and fitness-trained people did lose some running economy, but this was largely due to weight gain. Even with weight gain factored out, running economy decreased in the guys who had stopped running. Running economy was thought to be mostly inborn, but this indicates that at least some aspects of running economy respond to training. (I left a lot of details out. If you’re yearning for more, the study is available at hitp:// home.hia.no/~stephens/oldelite.htm.)

You’ ll also lose muscle fiber, but it doesn’t have to be so bad.

Studies show that skeletal muscle in older persons responds similarly to that of skeletal muscle in younger persons when subjected to strength and endurance training. When sedentary people in their 9th and 10th decades of life were placed ona training program, it resulted in a 175 percent increase in the amount of weight lifted at the end of eight weeks and a 15 percent increase in thigh cross-sectional area. This study has significant ramifications for the frail and elderly and individuals at risk for hip fractures. One patient was even able to get rid of his walker.

WHAT ARE PEOPLE DOING DIFFERENTLY AS THEY AGE?

All that being said, what do I tell people when they ask me what I’ ll be

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doing differently as the years go on? For starters, I think I found and exceeded my limits when I ran my first

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I believe I can do just as well with my high-mileage week in only the 120s. Tl focus on one or two good runs per week and make the rest relatively easy.

A good run will be something like 14 to 16 miles starting at 6:30 pace, working my way down to 5:45 pace, and then backing off to finish at 6:00 pace.

Another day might have me going to the track for something like 6 x 800 in 2:16, in contrast to the 2:10s I would have done years ago. It’s speedwork just fast enough to have me running a marathon at 5:00 minutes per mile pace without working too hard. An easy day will be a 9-mile run and a 6-mile run at 6:30 pace and, once a week, a truly easy day with just one 8to 10-mile run would be nice.

If you’re doing the math, this gives me somewhere between 100 and 110 miles. I’ll maintain the 120-mile level only for a few weeks before a major marathon.

American Keith Dowling (2:14 PR) has similarly shifted his training away from a lot of short, fast training on the track toward what he calls “threshold training.” Shifting from anaerobic workouts like 3 x 400 in 60, 58, and 57 seconds with 60 seconds between reps and a 400-meter jog between sets to 10 years later doing 8 X 1000 in 3:04 with 60-second rests

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(threshold work); and speedwork but including more rest so that each repetition is purely anaerobic versus the previously mentioned 400 workout, where there was a mix of aerobic and anaerobic capacity being stressed— thatis, doing 8 to 10 X 400 at 60 to 61 seconds but with a lap jog between each rep.

Joe McVeigh, a 2:16 marathoner, has decided to bet everything on doing well at the marathon distance, recognizing that it will blunt his performances at shorter distances. He has added more recovery days, but he still runs hard much of the time. He has only three easy days scheduled per week, where he used to have as few as one. He’s actually added track workouts. Whereas he used to say he had enough natural speed to get away with just doing some speedwork on the road, he now has added some track sessions because he needs them to get to the point where he can run fast race pace comfortably and stay in a natural stride. (He’s also quick to point out that the glare off his now-bald head assists him by blinding other runners—an advantage he didn’thave in his younger days.)

Eddy Hellebuyck, one of the faster and most prolific masters runners these days, still does quite a bit of work at or near race pace. He said approximately 30 percent of his 100-mile weeks are at a race pace and that the reason he races so much (almost every week) is that most of those races are workouts to get him ready for a big race somewhere down the road.

ALL THAT STUFF YOUR COACH TOLD YOU TO DO IS GOOD FOR YOU

Sometimes your training changes just to the point where you’re doing all the stuff you should have done in your younger days.

Ken Martin, a 2:09 marathoner, said stretching was one thing he couldn’t get away without doing toward the end of his career in 1994. Marathoner Jody Reicher says she demands 8 hours of sleep a night (vs. 6 a night 10 years ago) and drinks a minimum of 70 to 100 ounces of fluids (mostly water) per day.

I can’t begin to tell you how many guys have written me saying one form or another of yoga has rescued them from a future in various back and hamstring injuries. Some of them spend as muchas 45 minutes per day doing yoga.

Another guy recommended “ashtanga” yoga (for the record, this is the stuff Madonna does). I thought it might help, so I ordered the Kathy Smith beginner yoga video that you can get for just $3.95 and two proofsof-purchase tabs off of a Special K box. I stuck with the program five times a week for about two months when I got injured again with another back problem. I plan on taking it up again.

VISIT QUACKWATCH BEFORE DUMPING A LOT OF MONEY

One of my favorite Web sites these days is www.quackwatch.com. recommend

checking it out before trying any new herbal remedies or miracle cures. There are plenty of snake oil salesmen out there promising fountains of youth. One expensive approach includes poorly validated interventions, such as improving antioxidant status and replacing growth hormone (GH), testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).

Although growth hormone levels decline with age, it has not been proved that trying to maintain the levels that exist in young persons is beneficial. As a matter of fact, the negative side effects of such a protocol include increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and behavior changes. So, save your money.

Incidentally, one thing all the herbal remedy Web sites seem to be promoting that actually works is glucosamine. Even the skeptical people at Quackwatch say glucosamine is promising in the treatment of arthritis, and all the anecdotal evidenceI’ ve heard (from my mother, from people I’ve known since high school, and from strangers who aren’t trying to sell me glucosamine) indicates the stuff works.

Taking care of yourself, knowing what your body is going through, and recognizing your limitations are keys to getting the most from your body as you age. Good luck with it.

Note. My sources of information include “The Aging Athlete” (an on-line course from the Boston University School of Medicine) and “Some Notes on ‘AntiAging’ Programs” by Dr. Robert N. Butler.

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