Based on the women in my running group, 50 is definitely not too late to start running and competing in races. Several of my amazing running friends started running after 50. They have run marathons and ultra-marathons, on the road and on trails. I started running at 58, and now, at 61, I’m training for my first marathon. I plan to follow that up with a 50 K trail race two months later. We would be considered late bloomers in the running world, and I wondered what the long-term outlook is for us compared to athletes who have been running for decades.
A study published in Frontiers in Physiology in August, 2019, looked at just that. The researchers in this study had been studying masters runners in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and found that these athletes age differently from older people who are sedentary. They have more muscle mass, healthier muscles, stronger hearts and much less body fat that non-athletes their age.
These studies tended to include athletes who have trained for decades, some of them starting in their teens. In the new study, the researchers decided to look at athletes who didn’t start competing until they were 50 or older, and compare them to the more experienced athletes. 150 masters endurance runners were divided into early starters (training throughout their adult life) and late starters (began training after age 50). A non-athletic group of healthy older adults was included in the analysis.
When the researchers compared physical and performance data on the three groups, they found very few distinctions between the early and late starters. Both groups had similar finishing times. Both groups had about 12% greater muscle mass and 17% less body fat than the non-athletes.
The only measurement where the late starters were at a disadvantage was in their spinal bone density. The late starters tended have lower spinal bone density than the early starters and non-athletes. The reasons for this are unclear. It seems counter-intuitive, since running is an impact sport, which is supposed to improve bone density. However, most studies involving impact sports are based on observation of the long limbs and not the spine. Gender makeup of the groups may have had an impact, and there was no discussion of diet and nutrition in the study. All of this suggests that late starters might benefit from nutritional supplementation such as Vitamin D and calcium. And, because sprinters have been shown to have greater bone density than endurance runners, sprinting should be included in training (intervals, yes!).
The good news is that other than the difference in spinal bone density, the overall results show that late starters can catch up with early starters, both in performance and health benefits.
The study is encouraging, suggesting that it’s not too late to bloom!