Age is no Barrier

One of the psychological problems of runners - as they grow older - is coming to terms with their falling race positions - based on percentage of total runners. Realistically it’s inevitable, but to maintain motivation for training, some runners need to continue to challenge for position, and this is usually provided for by the veteran’s age categories. But for some runners an urge still remains to prove to themselves that it is only the progress of time that is accounting for their fall in performance, and not that the effort or the will to train hard has declined. Hence the arrival of age graded charts that compare the performances of World or British best times with older athletes using a formula.

The problem with those charts is that they have different formulas for different race distances. Below is a list of age coefficients that can be used from 10k to marathon over any surface. It’s simply a matter of converting your time in a given race to seconds and multiplying it by the figure next to your age. The time you get can then be compared to other athletes in the same race using the same chart for their age. As you see, the optimum ideal age of reaching a peak is considered from 26-27 years old. These figures are from a survey of 14,000 performances attained in races by men. This gives a whole new meaning to handicap systems. Why not try it out for fun on some race results to see just how well you did, regardless of your age.

Age  Multiplier
17    0.9013	28    0.9986	39    0.9467	50    0.8854	61    0.8175
18    0.9243	29    0.9961	40    0.9411	51    0.8798	62    0.8093
19    0.9440	30    0.9927	41    0.9356	52    0.8742	63    0.8006
20    0.9605	31    0.9887	42    0.9300	53    0.8686	64    0.7914
21    0.9740	32    0.9843	43    0.9244	54    0.8631	65    0.7817
22    0.9845	33    0.9785	44    0.9186	55    0.8575	66    0.7715
23    0.9920	34    0.9744	45    0.9132	56    0.8509	67    0.7608    
24    0.9966	35    0.9690	46    0.9077	57    0.8451	68    0.7496
25    0.9988	36    0.9634	47    0.9021	58    0.8390	69    0.7376
26    1.0000	37    0.9579	48    0.8968	59    0.8324	70    0.7253
27    1.0000	38    0.9523	49    0.8910	60    0.8252