44?

I read an article a couple of weeks ago that gave me a bit of context regarding my race times from the past sixteen months. From the spring of 2023 through now, I was/am struggling to hit race times that matched what I was doing in 2022 and earlier. 

At the times of the races, I would think about the factors that may have impacted me including heat, having an off day, tough course, etc.

This past winter, I dealt with a wonky left knee and then something went wrong with my right calf. I took a full three weeks off to see if I could fully reset, then very slowly started building back up.

Because of this, when my time at a 5K early this past summer wasn’t great, I blamed having to build back and assumed a few more weeks of training would take care of it. Except, I knew that with that same level of training several years ago, my time would probably have been thirty seconds faster. Was the slower result a lack of speed work, age, or something else?

Then along came this article. Maybe the key factor was age, and a very specific age. The argument of the article is that 44 is a year where you make a sharp turn in aging and it does not lead to faster times. I’d turned 44 in 2022 and based on my own experience, that sharp turn makes sense.

It’s a bit of a relief, in that it may be in nature’s control and not mine. Unfortunately, there was nothing about a bounceback at a later time. Fortunately, the next big turn is expected around age 60, so maybe there’s a while before aging takes a big turn…