What is a Good Pace for 67 year old?

[Ralph Burns]

I am a 67 year old runner but I have no idea whether my pace is good or
average for someone my age. I run three days a week for 5 miles in 45
minutes. I'm not interested in races so that I have no benchmark to go
by. I did run a few 10K 10 years ago and finished them slightly under 50
minutes. I know that I am slower now but I know the excercise is good for
me but I still interested to know that I am on par with others my age.

[Kieran Snyder]

Sounds to me like you're doing just fine. I'd say your fitness level is
substantially better than that of your peers.

Kieran

[Barker]

I did not think that was the kind of answer that Burns needed. I believe he
was asking for data in a peer group that included only age 60+ runners.
Unfortunatily I doubt if he will get much of an answer here. The set of age
60+ runners is small and the set of age 60+ newsgroup users is also small.
The intersection of these two sets might only include him (if I'm wrong and
their are dozens of you, please argue my point, your existance would
motivate me :-) )

I can speak to my experience as a age 50+ runner. I still do my 5 miles Mon
thru Fri and I struggle to stay under 50 minutes. I was never fast, in fact
I have always been very slow (enough so to fully earn the nickname 'lighting'
in high school.) But what I have found is that starting at age 30 or 35 my
time per mile started to decrease at the rate of 1 min/mile for each 5 years
older I got. Some of that is probably the effect of age related wear and tear.
Knees and hips started to hurt and I ran slower. Finally found an orthopedic
guy that fixed that problem but speed did not recover fully. Herniated a disk
lifting and was alot slower for a year of two. Got it fixed but some of the
declining speed did not come back. Hurt a disk in my neck sking, it slows me
some as jaring on downhills hurts.

My point is that even if you could find a reasonable sample group, the
variability of living and exercising for long time would cause the times seen
by individuals to vary much more than would the simple process of aging.

Tom

[Jenny Edwards]

Ralph Burns wrote:
>
> I am a 67 year old runner but I have no idea whether my pace is good or
> average for someone my age. I run three days a week for 5 miles in 45
> minutes. I'm not interested in races so that I have no benchmark to go
> by. I did run a few 10K 10 years ago and finished them slightly under 50
> minutes. I know that I am slower now but I know the excercise is good for
> me but I still interested to know that I am on par with others my age.

Well, 5 miles is a bit under 8 km, so you're doing, roughly, just under 6 mins a
km, which is, I think, not bad. A fairly competitive runner (63 years old) at my
club does 4.5 min km in 10 k races, 5 - 5.5 min km when out running with the
club. Someone else, who is 65, does 6 - 6.5 min kms when running socially, & not
much quicker when he races.

I do 5 min kms fairly comfortably - 40 year old female, run between 7-15 km
- but it all depends on day, weather, time available, etc. Tend to be a bit
slower for the longer distances (over 12 km).

If you feel good afterwards (very subjective!!) then your pace & distance is
fine.

If you feel you want to run faster, see if you can find someone to run with who
is about the same pace as you or a little faster. You should be able to maintain
some sort of conversation while running - if not, you're going too fast, but if
you can keep chatting, you're prpbably not working quite as hard as you could!

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Jenny
--

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| Jenny Edwards, Computing Services |EMail: J.A.E...@massey.ac.nz|
| Massey University, Palmerston North| Tel: (06) 350-5148 |
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[wt...@aol.com]

Ralph Burns wrote:
>
> I am a 67 year old runner but I have no idea whether my pace is good or
> average for someone my age. I run three days a week for 5 miles in
45
> minutes. I'm not interested in races so that I have no benchmark to go
> by. I did run a few 10K 10 years ago and finished them slightly under
50
> minutes. I know that I am slower now but I know the excercise is good
for
> me but I still interested to know that I am on par with others my age.

There's a lot of variation in this age group. Some people have been
running for years and are conscious of a decline; others got into running
late and are still racking up PRs. I started at 56, just turned 60 and
celebrated by breaking 20 in a 5k for the first time. I can usually win
my age group in local races, but Warren Utes, at 75, could take me on a
good day (I mean on *my* good day!). I run about 40 miles/week, do
training runs at about 8:30/mile. I like running fast, I like running
slow: plan to run until I drop.
Keep at it!

Peter Fish (wt...@aol.com)

[Dennis Kiper, D.P.M.]

> Peter Fish (wt...@aol.com)I would tell you a 9 minute mile is very good at your age. Consider the
military requires their recruits to run a 10 minute mile (of course that
is with a 60lb pack on their back, but I think I recall only requiring an
8 minute mile without the pack.
--
Dennis Kiper, D.P.M.
800-DR KIPER
http://www.DrKiper.com

[B Fecht]

In article <32a6a76e...@nnrp.crl.com>,
Don Kirkman <donk @ a.crl.com> wrote:
[snip]
>
>Well, let me add my experience. I started running meaningfully in my
>mid-40's, and entered my first race at about 50. I have always been
>mediocre but tough (meaning endurance more than ability to suffer). I
>hit my PRs through the mid and late 50s; at one time I had a string of 6
>straight sub-four-hour marathons, but that's long gone.
>
>Over the years, I have pretty regularly finished about the middle of the
>overall pack, and around the 30th percentile of my age group. I have
>slowed since retirement, but I can't distinguish if that's from the
>added years (68 coming up real soon now) or from no longer having a
>group of young friends who motivated and pushed me during my most active
>running years.
>
[snip]

Thanks Don. I just started running seriously at age 40 and its encouraging
to know that I can be doing this for at least 28 more years with lots of
improvements and accomplishments between now and then.

Bill

[john.f...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, November 9, 1996 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-6, Ralph Burns wrote:
> I am a 67 year old runner but I have no idea whether my pace is good or
> average for someone my age. I run three days a week for 5 miles in 45
> minutes. I'm not interested in races so that I have no benchmark to go
> by. I did run a few 10K 10 years ago and finished them slightly under 50
> minutes. I know that I am slower now but I know the excercise is good for
> me but I still interested to know that I am on par with others my age.

I'm 68 now and started running about 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. I now run to control my blood sugar. I decided on diet and exercise to control my blood sugar instead of prescription drugs, and it has worked great for me so far. I now run the mile in about 8.5 minutes. I have been doing one 5K each year for the past 3 years and I have gotten below 28 minutes, with a goal to stay below thirty minutes. I usually run 1 1/2 miles 3 times per week with a goal to stay below 13:30 for my normal run. Since I re-started running 10 years ago, my time for the 1 & 1/2 mile slowly decreased over a about one year's time to where I am now, so it appears I have peaked. But once per year I try to do the 1 & 1/2 miles in less than 13:00 minutes, hopefully without a knee blowout. I do 2 things to prevent injury, #1 I don't run hard every day, every other day I walk. #2 I buy a good pair of running shows about ever 18 months. Since I started doing 1 & 2 my leg problems have virtually dropped to zero.

[downtime]

Wow! What an inspiration you 2 are! I'm only 42, in reasonably good
health, and these sound like pretty good times to me. I think my 5k is
only around 25-27 minutes right now and 9 minute miles for 5 miles is
really not bad at all.

I say keep it up and have fun because having fun with it is really the
most important part.

[kpsmi...@outlook.com]

9 minute pace for 5 miles is definitely above average for a 67 year old. I’m sorry I don’t have the stats, but I would surmise you’re most likely in the top 80 percentile for 67 year old males. Great job! Don’t ever quit. Just my opinion, but you might want to start varying your runs. If you plan to continue running 3/week, do a long, slow run of 8-10 miles or whatever distance you feel like - just run it very slowly, this will build your stamina. Also integrate some track intervals and hill runs which will increase your speed. Your 5 mile runs are probably excellent tempo runs which build endurance. Making these changes will help you improve. All the best!

[rbli...@gmail.com]