Maybe you’ve been running for decades and notice that the pace that used to feel easy now costs you noticeably more effort. Or maybe you’re lacing up your running shoes for the very first time and wondering whether taking up running at 60 even makes sense. Both starting points are well researched: what changes in the body from 60 onwards, how strongly that affects your training and what you should already know from 45, a look at the research shows you.
What sets the body apart from 60 – compared with younger Masters categories?
In athletics, the age categories from 30 onwards are officially called «Masters», staggered in five-year steps from M30/W30 all the way to M60/W60, M65/W65 and beyond. This classification isn’t arbitrary: research shows that the body changes step by step over these decades, and from 60 a process becomes noticeable that actually begins much earlier.
VO₂max
The best-studied parameter is maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂max), a central measure of endurance capacity. In untrained people it drops by around 10 % per decade from about 25 to 30, and after 60 to 70 even a little more steeply. But anyone who trains regularly and largely maintains their volume can clearly slow this decline: a widely noted long-term study of Masters runners recorded, with training kept up consistently, a loss of only 5.5 % per decade, compared with 12 % in inactive comparison subjects. A later review confirms this order of magnitude in men: those who maintain their training volume stay in the range of minus 5 to 6.5 % per decade, while those who cut back sharply can lose up to 26 % or more. Training volume is thus the decisive lever: it affects the decline more than chronological age itself. In women the data on this is thinner, and the link between training volume and VO₂max decline emerges less clearly in the available studies.
Muscles
In parallel, the muscles change. The age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, called «sarcopenia» in medicine, begins according to current research as early as around 40 and at first progresses gradually, before tending to accelerate over the years. Interestingly: a study comparing active and inactive women under and over 50 showed that runners were stronger than inactive women in both age groups. But the loss of strength from the younger to the older group turned out to be just as pronounced in the runners as in the inactive women. So running raises the strength level, yet hardly slows the age-related decline itself, as will become clear further below.
Recovery capacity
Third, recovery capacity changes. After intense or unfamiliar loading, aging muscle demonstrably needs longer to recover. A recent review describes recovery in older age as «delayed, prolonged and less efficient», due to chronic low-grade inflammatory processes, a stiffer connective-tissue structure and reduced activity of the muscle’s own repair cells. It’s precisely these three strands (endurance capacity, muscle strength, recovery) that make the difference in training from 60 onwards, whether you’re just starting out or have been at it for a long time.
What effect does this have on your running training?
Because endurance training alone barely maintains muscle mass, strength training now goes from an extra to a necessity: the evidence that targeted strength training effectively preserves strength and muscle quality in older age is clear. Tendons too deserve more attention than before. In studies, the risk of an Achilles tendon rupture shows two frequency peaks with different causes: one in very athletically active 30- to 40-year-olds, mostly from sudden heavy loading, and a second, age-related one in 60- to 80-year-olds, when the tendon loses elasticity and tears even under lower loads. Achilles tendinopathy too, the irritation of the tendon, tends to increase with age. This doesn’t mean you should run less, but increases in pace and new forms of loading such as hill or sprint sessions deserve a more deliberate dosage.
On top of that: where at 30 two intense sessions a week were easily manageable, the same load at 60+ often needs more recovery time in between, because the body’s repair processes take longer. Those who plan for this, instead of fighting against it, end up training more consistently.
What effect does this have on your running performance?
You can see this in the running.COACH community data too: the physiological changes described show up measurably in running times. Our own analysis of the community’s marathon times shows, at the transition from age category 55 to 60, a markedly larger performance drop (–7 %) than in the younger categories before it (max. –4 %), a «kink» that in our data becomes even more pronounced in men from around 70. You’ll find more details in our data analysis on the influence of age on marathon performance.
Importantly: this decline is no reason to be discouraged, but an expectable physiological reality that can be clearly cushioned with good training. Those who maintain their training volume and add strength training move clearly into the more favourable part of the ranges mentioned above. The differences between «well trained» and «training sharply reduced» are bigger here than the differences between the decades.
And if you take up running at 60?
A lot of this at first sounds like the perspective of long-time runners, but it applies just as much if you only start at 60. The research here is clear: it’s never too late. A large US study of over 315,000 people showed that everyone who only started moving regularly in their 40s, 50s or 60s had a roughly 35 % lower risk of death than permanently inactive people, almost the same benefit as in people who were active all their lives.
Athletically too, beginners catch up surprisingly much. A comparative study of 150 Masters runners (average age 68) distinguished «early starters», who had trained their entire adult lives, from «late starters», who only began competitive running after 50. The result: training intensity, age-normalised performance, body-fat percentage and leg muscle mass barely differed between the two groups, despite the early starters’ 30-year training head start. For spinal bone density a more nuanced picture emerged: late starters had significantly lower spinal bone density than untrained control subjects, while early starters differed neither from the late starters nor from the control group. That’s an indication that complementary strength training is especially worthwhile when starting out.
For the start itself, one thing counts above all: slowly and in stages. At first, alternate between walking and running so that tendons, ligaments and joints can get used to the new load step by step, and plan two to three sessions of 20 to 30 minutes per week to begin with, you don’t need more at the start. Because previously inactive people can have a higher, often undetected cardiovascular risk, a sports-medical check before starting is especially worthwhile (more on this in the section further below). You’ll find a self-test and further tips for getting started in our article What many running beginners underestimate.
What should you pay particular attention to in training?
Three concrete levers can be drawn from the research; they combine well in everyday life and apply equally to new and experienced runners. The most important is firmly scheduled strength training, twice a week: a moderately to progressively built program, combined with enough protein, demonstrably reduces age-related muscle loss. Leg press, squats, lunges and core exercises are enough to start with, two to three times 20 to 30 minutes per week (running.COACH provides suitable exercise suggestions for every session).
Directly linked to this is nutrition: with age the body uses protein less efficiently (experts speak of «anabolic resistance») and therefore needs more of it to maintain muscle mass. Professional bodies recommend 1.0 to 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for older adults, combined with regular strength training, considerably more than the general recommendation of 0.8 g/kg for younger adults. It’s most effective to spread the protein across several meals rather than concentrating it in one.
The third lever concerns training management itself: not training less, but more targeted. One to two more intense sessions per week with enough recovery in between, supplemented by easy runs, maintain performance better than evenly distributed, moderately hard continuous training. New stimuli such as a first hill session or faster tempo runs are worth building up more slowly than before, so the tendons can keep pace.
What else is important for this age group?
Besides training and nutrition, two further looks at health are worthwhile. First, cardiovascular prevention: even well-trained Masters athletes are not automatically protected from coronary heart disease. A study of almost 800 Masters athletes with an average age of 55 found a previously unknown cardiovascular disease in 11.4 %, in the vast majority of cases without prior symptoms. Professional bodies therefore recommend, from about 40 to 55 depending on sex and risk factors, considering a sports-medical assessment including an exercise ECG, especially before an increase in training intensity or when starting after a longer period of inactivity.
Second, bone density: the relationship between running and bone health is more complex than often assumed and depends strongly on the training pattern. In older adults, regular physical activity demonstrably improves bone mineral density, particularly in the lumbar spine. Because bone loss in women accelerates after menopause, runners over 60 additionally benefit especially from complementary strength training.
The good news to finish: none of this argues against ambitious running training from 60, whether newly started or cultivated for decades. The evidence consistently shows that it’s the active runners who most effectively slow the age-related decline, regardless of when they began.
How can you prepare so you’re well set up at 60?
The good news from the section above: those who only start at 60 catch up surprisingly much. Even so, it’s worth preparing deliberately in the decades before, because a few biological windows can hardly be made up later.
The most important is bone density. The body builds its maximum bone mass up to about age 30; after that it can mainly be maintained, but hardly increased. Those who run regularly in their twenties and thirties and pay attention to enough calcium and vitamin D thereby establish a higher starting value from which the later, age-related bone loss begins. This pays off especially in women after menopause.
For the muscles too an early start is worthwhile, though for a different reason than for the bones: unlike bone density, muscle mass can be built with strength training at any age, even at 50 or 60. But those who have already established firm strength training before 40, when sarcopenia sets in, enter this process with a well-practised routine and already-built muscle mass, instead of only having to react once the loss is already noticeable.
The biggest lever, however, isn’t any single measure, but continuity. Regular training kept up over decades slows the performance decline far more effectively than training that’s repeatedly interrupted or done only in intense bursts. Those who get into the habit early of sticking with it, instead of training in bursts, thereby hold the best cards in the long run, regardless of their current age.
Conclusion
From 60 the body changes more noticeably, but not suddenly – endurance capacity, muscle mass and recovery follow a development that already begins at 40. What’s decisive isn’t your age or how long you’ve been running, but how you train: those who maintain their volume or build it up slowly, train strength in a targeted way, eat enough protein, give their tendons a little more time and get a sports-medical check-up can clearly cushion the performance decline and run for a long time free of complaints – whether as a newcomer or as a long-time runner.
Sources:
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