Abstract
The variation of marathon race time by age group has been used recently to model the decline of endurance with aging; however, paradigms of races (i.e., marathon running) examined so far have mostly been from the United States. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine the age of peak performance (APP) in a European race, the “Berlin Marathon”. Race times of 387,222 finishers (women, n = 93,022; men, n = 294,200) in this marathon race from 2008 to 2018 were examined. Men were faster by +1.10 km.h−1 (10.74 ± 1.84 km.h−1 versus 9.64 ± 1.46 km.h−1, p <0.001, η2 = 0.065, medium effect size) and older by +2.1 years (43.1 ± 10.0 years versus 41.0 ± 9.8 years, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.008, trivial effect size) than women. APP was 32 years in women and 34 years in men using 1-year age groups, and 30–34 years in women and 35–39 years in men using 5-year age groups. Women’s and men’s performance at 60–64 and 55–59 age groups, respectively, corresponded to ~90% of the running speed at APP. Based on these findings, it was concluded that although APP occurred earlier in women than men, the observed age-related differences indicated that the decline of endurance with aging might differ by sex.
Highlights
A dramatic increase has been observed in the number of outdoors running races—such as marathons—and the number of those participating in them [1,2]
We hypothesized that age of peak performance would be different in the women and men compared to data analyzed
We hypothesized that the age of peak marathon performance would be different in women and men compared to data from marathon races held in the United States
Summary
A dramatic increase has been observed in the number of outdoors running races—such as marathons—and the number of those participating in them [1,2]. An important performance characteristic in marathons, to other sporting events, has been the age of peak performance (APP), i.e., the age of the best performance during the human lifetime [6]. The knowledge of APP might assist exercise physiologists and gerontologists in the study of the decline of endurance performance across the human life. APP has been well studied in marathon running using different sampling approaches (e.g., top athletes, all finishers) and statistical methods (e.g., multiple linear regression models, non-linear regression analyses, mixed-effects regression analyses) [7,8,9,10,11]. Independent of the methodological approaches, APP in this endurance sport has been estimated ~25–35 years; the precise APP might vary by sex [7,8,9,10,11]. With regards to the role of sex, it has been suggested that APP was older in women than in men [7,9,10,11], with an exception [8] that showed the opposite trend
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