A "Fair" Look at Aging

    I have been frustrated with my racing this Summer. One "good" 5-K (a 20:14 at the Bob Beckert Run in Warren), a "decent" one (21:02 at Lake Takanassee in early July, and a couple of clunkers in the high 21's.
      I attribute mostly to the lingering effects of my torn meniscus last Summer. I'm happy to be running at all, frankly!
      With the lost time from the meniscus injury, I've been trying to make up mileage I missed, and the knees feel stiff most of the time, and the legs fatigued. I can relate to C.C. Sabathia on the Yankees: one good start, two bad ones, and bad knees, to boot!
     An article by Peter Sagal in an old issue of Runner's World gave me some consolation. Trying to make some sense of his slowing times in the marathon, Sagal (an NPR radio host, in real life) consulted Dr. Roy Fair of Yale University. Dr. Fair, a Ph. D. in economics, published a comprehensive article that analyzed thousands of race results, and came up with a scientific formula of age, and, gulp, slower race times.
    The website (fairmodeLecon.yale.edu/aging) is astonishingly accurate. Using age 35 as the baseline, you merely change the age (56, in my case) and plug in your best time for any distance.
     I submitted my all-time 5-K best of 17:01, and with the passage of time factored in, I should be hitting 20:18 in the 5-K when everything is going right. Amazing!
     My personal-best in the half-marathon was a 1:17.41. Punching that number in, I can expect to run a 1:39.46 next Spring at Long Branch with an equal effort. Considering I ran a 1:35.55 in 2014, I think that comes out just about correct!
     While the Fair formula doesn't offer explanations of why this is so, most runners are familiar with the reasons.
    First is that our "speedometers" just don't max out as high. As you hit middle-age, the heart's maximum heart rate decreases about one beat per minute (220 beats -56 in my case = 164 max). Your VO2 Max - the maximum rate your body can use oxygen - will correspondingly drop, forcing you to work that much harder to achieve the same times. You have to run anaerobically (out of breath) for much of a 5-K to hope to reach the time you were able to do ten, or even five years ago.
    Injuries factor in also, and they become much more prevalent as you age. Recovery time takes longer, too.
     You can see where the frustration starts to set in. Take consolation, and check the chart!