Why this year’s London Marathon runners could be the oldest ever 

With days to go before the London Marathon, the World Talent Champion in this year’s race is being heralded as ‘the best field ever’ – but beyond the elite, there’s an even more exciting story.

This is perhaps the oldest field ever.

More than half of the 45,000 starters will be over 40. To get through for 10,600 there will be over 50, nearly 2,500 over 60, 315 over 70 and, apart from pre-race accidents, at least one dozen over 80.

The number of female entrants aged 60 to 69 has doubled since 2018.

And they are part of a trend. Sport England data shows that 240,000 pensioners in the UK, including nearly 40,000 over the age of 75, are regular runners.

More than half of London’s 45,000 starting marathon runners will be over 40. To pass for 10,600 there will be over 50, nearly 2,500 over 60, 315 over 70 and, barring pre-race mishaps, are at least a dozen over 80 (file image)

Some run marathons; most stick to shorter distances. In Parkrun – the free 5km events that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations around the world – the share of participants over the age of 65 tripled from 1 to 3 percent between 2009 and 2019.

Stereotypes suggest that retirees should be encouraged to ‘take it easy’ and while this is one of the worst lifestyle choices an elder can make, running is one of the best.

The most dedicated older athletes — the kind who compete in national “Masters” events, aiming to be the best in their age group — often display physical characteristics of people decades younger, from heart function to muscle strength and more.

“Much of what we think of as part of normal aging is actually due to inactivity,” says Janet Lord, a professor of immune cell biology at the University of Birmingham who was involved in one of the most comprehensive studies ever done on a sharp ( not elite) life. tall athletes from 55 to 80 years.

“Many things that medical textbooks say happen in old age just don’t happen to these people,” she says.

A striking finding, published in Aging Cell in 2018, was that the long-term avid athletes had hardly any age-related immune system deterioration.

They produced just as many [infection-fighting] T cells as the healthy, but inactive, 20 to 36 year olds in the control group,” says Professor Lord.

Other studies support the view that even gentle running is associated with a range of benefits later in life, including improved circulation, reduced risk of falls and improved mental well-being.

“We’re not saying, ‘Look at these wonderful old people,’ because really these old people are where they should be,” explains Professor Stephen Harridge, director of the Aging Research at King’s (ARK) program at King’s College London. .

Still, running can be a struggle for older people.

An influential 2016 study by the Mayo Clinic suggested that lung strength and muscle strength decline by about 10 percent per decade starting in our late 20s, and decline even faster once we hit our 60s.

Your maximum heart rate also drops, limiting your exercise capacity. Your joints lose mobility and your ligaments, tendons and bones become more and more vulnerable.

You can slow your decline: Regular weight training and increasing your protein intake to maintain muscle can be helpful, as can improving your balance and range of motion with exercises (such as standing on one leg with your eyes closed) or with yoga or tai chi. We still decline, but it’s slower – and if it keeps you running, it’s worth it.

A groundbreaking study at Stanford University tracked the health of hundreds of middle-aged people for more than 20 years.

The runners in the study, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine in 2008, not only lived longer than the non-runners (an average of seven years), but also had significantly longer health spans — the portion of life not limited by chronic illness or disability.

An inactive person, when retired, can expect to live with a disability for about half of their remaining years. For runners, disability typically starts 16 years later than for non-runners.

And don’t believe everything you hear about running that destroys your joints. A 2021 review of 43 studies, by Jean-Francois Esculier, an internationally renowned physiotherapist and researcher at the University of British Columbia, concluded that “running isn’t just bad for your joints, it’s actually good for your joints.”

It’s worth adding that some of the most successful older runners were well past middle age when they started.

Eileen Hieron, fastest woman over 80 in last year’s London Marathon (5:48:04), started running at age 72; while Fauja Singh, who ran the London Marathon in 2012 at the age of 101 (7:49:21), only started in his late 80s.

“You’re never too old to start,” says Jamie McPhee, director of the Institute of Sport at Manchester Metropolitan University. “Even if you’ve never run before, it’s still possible to reap many of the benefits.”

Beginners with underlying medical issues should consult their doctor before starting.

The key for beginners is to build up gradually and allow plenty of recovery time between each session.

If you watch the older runners in Sunday’s marathon, you’ll notice how much they enjoy being, as one octogenarian runner likes to say, “fully engaged in the journey of life, and not just in the departure hall linger’.

• The Race Against Time: Adventures in Late-Life Running, by Richard Askwith (Yellow Jersey, £18.99).