It’s easy to stay fired up about your running when you feel like your fastest days are still ahead of you. Maintaining consistency gets harder, however, when you realize that you’ve set your last personal best, that no matter what you do, the most you can hope for in performance terms is to slow the rate of slowing.
The age at which that happens varies greatly. Most new runners can expect to improve for 10–12 years if they’re consistent with their running from the start. So a longtime runner who ran on her high school track team might hit her competitive peak in her late twenties, then plateau, then start to slow a bit, then start to slow more dramatically in her late thirties and early forties. If you’re an adult-onset runner, you can count on continued improvement for several years at the beginning of your running career, even if you’re moving from your forties to your fifties during that time. At some point, however, the effects of aging are going to mean you’re on the down slope of the performance curve.
By then, of course, you’ve probably figured out the things you love most about running and have learned what you need to do to ensure consistency. At the same time, it can be frustrating to think that you’re going to get slower and slower for the rest of your running career, and tempting to significantly lessen running’s place in your life. Here are a few ways to keep hope alive.