If you’re a runner over 40, you’ve probably heard some version of this advice:
You’re getting older. You need to slow down.
There is some truth buried in that statement. Our bodies change as we age, and pretending otherwise isn’t particularly useful.
But the research on Masters athletes suggests something considerably more interesting.
Older runners don’t necessarily need different types of training. They still benefit from easy running, long runs, tempo and threshold work, faster running and strength training.
What may need to change is the dose, frequency and recovery between those training stimuli.
In other words:
Keep the ingredients. Change the recipe.
What Actually Changes as We Get Older?
One of the landmark reviews of Masters endurance athletes was published by Hirofumi Tanaka and Douglas Seals Endurance exercise performance in Masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms.
They found that endurance performance tends to remain relatively stable until approximately age 35, declines gradually through the 40s and 50s, and then begins declining more rapidly after approximately 60.
The primary physiological reason appears to be a decline in VO₂max.
Maximum heart rate decreases with age. Maximal stroke volume and the ability of the muscles to extract oxygen can also decline. Together, these factors gradually reduce the amount of oxygen we can deliver to working muscles during hard exercise.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Two other important determinants of endurance performance, lactate threshold and running economy, appear to hold up considerably better.
Longitudinal studies cited by Tanaka and Seals found that running economy didn’t significantly deteriorate with age in endurance-trained Masters athletes.
So an experienced older runner can still remain remarkably efficient.
The engine may gradually become smaller, but the runner can remain very good at using the engine they have.
Training Still Matters
It’s tempting to attribute every performance decline after 40 or 50 to ageing.
The research suggests that’s a mistake.
Part of what we call an age-related decline in fitness may actually be a training-related decline in fitness.
A 2022 review examining Masters endurance athletes found a remarkably strong relationship between changes in training volume and changes in VO₂max.
Across longitudinal studies, changes in training volume explained approximately 54% of the variation in VO₂max decline among male athletes and 39% among female athletes.
That’s significant.
As we get older, life tends to get in the way. Careers become more demanding. Family responsibilities increase. Injuries accumulate. Training becomes less consistent.
Someone who ran 80 kilometres per week at 35 might be running 35 kilometres per week at 55.
Their performance decline isn’t necessarily entirely because they’re twenty years older, the reduction in training volume is a significant factor as well.
Researchers studying lifelong endurance athletes consistently find that athletes who maintain substantial training loads preserve extraordinary levels of aerobic fitness compared with their sedentary peers.
Consistent aerobic training becomes even more valuable as we age.
But Recovery May Take Longer
This is where I think Masters training should begin to look different.
Older runners appear capable of producing substantial training stress. The issue may be how quickly they’re ready to produce it again.
Research comparing Masters athletes with younger athletes suggests that older athletes can experience similar levels of fatigue but may require longer to recover.
Research specifically examining distance runners has reached a similar conclusion: muscle damage following long-distance running may not necessarily be greater in Masters athletes, but restoration of muscle function may take longer.
It’s worth adding an important qualification. The evidence isn’t completely settled. A recent systematic review found that advancing age itself was not associated with greater exercise-induced muscle damage, and researchers continue to debate how much of the apparent recovery difference is caused by ageing versus training status and other factors.
It’s not that you can’t train as hard, it’s just that you need more recovery between hard sessions.
Don’t Eliminate Intensity, Reduce the Frequency
A traditional competitive running schedule might include:
Tuesday — intervals
Thursday — tempo run
Sunday — hard or progressive long run
For a younger runner with excellent recovery capacity, that can work beautifully.
But that’s three significant training stresses in six days. For many Masters runners, that’s too much.
Instead, a week might look something like:
Monday: Easy
Tuesday: Easy + strides
Wednesday: Quality workout
Thursday: Easy
Friday: Easy + strides or short hills
Saturday: Long run
Sunday: Rest
Now we have two primary stressors: the Wednesday workout and Saturday long run.
But we haven’t eliminated faster running. The strides and short hills maintain contact with speed and recruit the neuromuscular system without creating anything close to the fatigue of a full interval workout.
And the Wednesday session can change depending on the athlete and the training cycle.
One week might feature cruise intervals. Another might be a continuous tempo run. Occasionally, it could be a VO₂max workout or a longer hill session.
This allows you to accomplish many different training stimuli over time without trying to squeeze threshold work, intervals and a hard long run into every seven-day period.
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Don’t Give Up Speed Just Because You’re Older
This is another place where I think some Masters runners go wrong.
They gradually eliminate everything fast. Their training eventually becomes nothing but easy running, or more likely moderate zone 3ish running.
That may reduce some training stress, but it also removes precisely the stimulus that ageing muscles increasingly need.
Ageing is associated with reductions in muscle mass, strength and particularly power. Losses in type-II muscle fibres and neuromuscular function contribute to declining athletic performance.
That gives us a strong argument for keeping some faster running in the program.
But “faster running” doesn’t have to mean 10 x 400 metres on the track with short recovery.
Four to six relaxed strides after an easy run can provide a neuromuscular stimulus with very little metabolic stress. So can several 8–10 second hill repetitions with complete recovery.
This is one reason I like strides so much for Masters runners.
The goal is maintaining the ability to run fast without adding significant fatigue.
Strength Training Becomes More Important Too
For similar reasons, resistance training probably deserves a larger role as runners age.
Endurance running provides an enormous cardiovascular stimulus, but it doesn’t completely prevent age-related losses in muscle mass, strength and power.
Reviews of Masters athletes therefore recommend continuing resistance training rather than abandoning it with age.
It means maintaining enough strength to continue running efficiently, tolerate training and resist some of the muscular changes associated with ageing.
Two relatively short strength sessions each week can be plenty for many runners.
What About Mileage?
This is perhaps the most interesting question.
Should Masters runners run less?
Not necessarily.
Research on Masters endurance athletes repeatedly identifies maintaining the overall training stimulus as one of the most important factors associated with preserving aerobic capacity with age.
The challenge is figuring out how to maintain enough training volume without exceeding your ability to recover.
That’s where easy running becomes incredibly valuable.
If you want to run 50 kilometres per week, you don’t need to turn 20 of those kilometres into hard running.
You might get a better result from running 40–45 kilometres easily and concentrating most of the week’s harder running into one carefully controlled session.
In fact, the 2022 review of Masters endurance training mentioned above concluded that the general endurance-training principle of performing at least 75% of training at low intensity, with relatively small amounts of threshold and high-intensity training, appears appropriate for older athletes as well.
That fits nicely with a simple principle:
Run enough. Run consistently. But don’t make every run a test.
The Masters Training Equation
Put all of this together and I think the research points toward a fairly simple approach.
1. Maintain aerobic volume
Don’t assume mileage suddenly stops working when you turn 40 or 50. Consistent endurance training remains one of the most powerful tools we have for slowing age-related declines in aerobic capacity.
2. Keep some intensity
Tempo running, cruise intervals and occasional VO₂max work still have value.
3. Reduce unnecessary intensity
More hard workouts aren’t automatically better. One well-executed quality session may accomplish more than two or three sessions performed while chronically tired.
4. Keep touching speed
Strides and short hills provide regular exposure to faster running without becoming exhausting workouts.
5. Strength train
Maintaining muscle strength and power becomes increasingly important with age.
6. Protect recovery
Easy days should actually be easy. Rest days shouldn’t be viewed as missed training.
And when your body is telling you that it hasn’t recovered from the previous workout, listen.
So, Should Runners Over 40 Train Differently?
Yes, but probably not in the way people sometimes think.
Turning 40 doesn’t mean you suddenly need to stop running hard, slash your mileage and accept that your best running is behind you.
The fundamental principles of endurance training don’t suddenly change.
You still need aerobic volume, threshold training, VO2max sessions and pure speed training, and increasingly, strength training.
What changes is how carefully those ingredients need to be distributed.
A younger runner might be able to survive several demanding sessions every week. A Masters runner may get better results by concentrating the hard work, surrounding it with genuinely easy running, and allowing enough time for adaptation to occur.
Training creates the stimulus. Recovery allows the adaptation.
And ultimately, adaptation is what makes us faster.
For the Masters runner, the goal isn’t to train like you’re 25. Nor is it to resign yourself to training cautiously because you’re 45, 55 or 65.
The goal is to continue giving your body enough stimulus to adapt while recognizing that your capacity to absorb that stimulus may have changed.
Keep the ingredients. Change the recipe.
That might be one of the most important principles of training well for a lifetime.
