Originally Posted by
Matt James
My own experience is this: I ran recreationally in my 30s. Probably 25-30 miles a week. Never was very fast but I could do a 10k in about 50 minutes. For various reasons I quit running around 40. Started strength training at 42. Didn't do any conditioning beyond walking for a couple years. Two years ago, when I was 44, one of my daughters wanted to do a father-daughter 5k. I was doing a M/W/F intermediate program at the time. So about 10 weeks ahead of the event, I started jogging on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and then did hill sprints on Saturdays. After about a month or maybe 5 weeks of that, my cardio conditioning was basically back to what it was when I was running regularly, and I replaced the Saturday interval training with more LSD. Because with running, at least for me, the hard part is not the cardio aspect but it's adapting to the shock and pounding (running on pavement sucks). I was back to 8.5 minute miles after about two months with just that half-assed training. And I was 40 pounds heavier than I was when I was running 5 days a week in my 30s. I also play tennis with my son in the summers, he plays year round and is quite competitive, and I am terrible-- and usually after a 3 or 4 sessions of getting my ass handed to me, I'm doing a lot better. I still get my ass handed to me but I'm not sucking wind while I do it.
Probably true, and that's a highly specialized adaptation. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about general fitness to the level that you can play pickup ball, or old man's league soccer, or run a few miles without stopping, or tennis with your teenager.