Improved Race Times in Marathoners Older than 75 Years in the Last 25 Years in the World's Largest Marathons

10.4077/CJP.2016.BAE382

Baschir Ahmadyar；Thomas Rosemann；Christoph Alexander Rüst；Beat Knechtle

age group ； master athlete ； running ； sex

The Chinese Journal of Physiology

59卷3期（2016 / 06 / 30）

139 - 147

英文

Performance trends of elite marathoners are well investigated. However, performance of elderly marathoners (＞ 75 years) competing in the world's largest city marathons is not well-known. We examined marathon race data of 1,691 marathon finishes (i.e. 218 women and 1,473 men) competing between 1990 and 2014 in 5-year age groups 75-79, 80-84, 85-89, and 95-99 years in four races (Berlin, New York, Chicago and Boston) of the 'World Marathon Majors'. The number of female (r^2 = 0.50, P ＜ 0.0001) and male (r^2 = 0.88, P ＜ 0.0001) finishers increased significantly across years. The number of women (r^2 = 0.36, P = 0.0019) and men (r^2 = 0.88, P ＜ 0.0001) in age group 75-79 years increased. In age group 80-84 years, the number of women (r^2 = 0.36, P = 0.0111) and men (r^2 = 0.54, P ＜ 0.0001) also increased. In age groups 85-89 to 95-99 years, however, the number of female and male finishers remained unchanged. Across years, women (r^2 = 0.26, P = 0.0090) and men (r^2 = 0.31, P = 0.0035) reduced their race times. Women and men in age group 75-79 years improved race times. In age groups 80-84 to 90-94 years, women and men were not able to reduce race times. In summary, participation increased and performance improved in female and male marathoners competing in age groups 75-79 to 95-99 years where the largest increases in participation and the largest improvements in performance were found in women and men in age group 75-79 years.

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