Performance in 100-km Ultramarathoners—At Which Age, It Reaches Its Peak?

Abstract

The number of those participating in 100-km ultra-marathon has increased over the last years; however, we have limited knowledge about performance trends in this sport, and particularly the effect of age. The aim of the present study was to analyze the age when women and men runners achieve their peak performance considering 1- and 5-year age group intervals, and examining all or the fastest (i.e. top ten) participants in each age group. We analyzed 370,051 athletes (i.e. 44,601 women and 325,450 men) who finished a 100-km ultra-marathon between 1959 and 2016, and studied the age of peak performance using a second-order non-linear regression analysis. The age of peak performance was 40-44 years in women and 45-49 years in men when all finishers were analysed, whereas it was 30-34 years in women and 35-39 years in men when the top ten finishers were considered in 5-year age groups. When we analyzed finishers in 1-year age groups, we found the age of peak performance at 41 years in women and 45 years in men considering all finishers, and at 39 years in women and 41 years in men considering the top ten finishers. In conclusion, the age of peak performance was younger in women than in men, which might reflect the overall younger age of women participants than men. Compared to previous studies, we observed the peak performance at an age older by ∼10 years, which could be attributed to an increase of finishers' age across calendar years. Since the knowledge of the age of peak performance is unique for each sport, coaches and fitness trainers might benefit from the findings of the present study in the long-term training of their athletes.

Participation and Performance Trends in the ITU Duathlon World Championship From 2003 to 2017

“…In other words, the finishers become older but not slower-the pure descriptive feature of this study. As shown recently in 2 ultraendurance sports such as 50-and 100-km ultra-marathon running (21,22), finishers became older and slower during the past decades, and our findings confirmed these trends of age and performance. In this context, strength and conditioning coaches should develop specific interest for "recreational" duathletes of older age.…”

“…When female and male finishers were analyzed in 1-year age group intervals, the age of peak performance was at 41 years in women and 45 years in men when considering all finishers. When the top 10 finishers were considered, the age of peak performance was at 39 years in women and 41 years in men (22).…”

The Temporal and Spatial Evolution of Marathons in China from 2010 to 2018

“…Currently, the marathon is mainly studied from two perspectives. Several studies have considered runners as research subjects and examined the relationship between running a marathon and body functions, as well as the regular patterns [1][2][3][4], psychological impacts [5][6][7] and their cognition [8][9][10][11][12]; while others took competitions as the subject and focused on the sociological aspects, such as entertaining function [13][14][15], fiscal implications [16,17] and marketing and management [18,19]. At present, the studies on Chinese marathons have focused on certain fields, such as physiology [20,21], psychology [22] and sociology [23,24].…”

Participation and Performance Analysis in Children and Adolescents Competing in Time-Limited Ultra-Endurance Running Events

“…The percentage of runners aged 10-13 years was rather high in time-limited races. The existing literature for adult ultramarathoners investigated the age trends only for distance-limited races [2,21] but it made no comparison between the different kinds of ultra-endurance events. In the 6-h races, the majority of the finishers were 18 years-old, whereas in the 12-h races, the majority of the competitors were between 16-17 years of age.…”

“…Ultra-endurance running can be defined as running activities lasting longer than six hours [1][2][3]. These activities can be distance-or time-based, with typical time-based ultra-endurance events ranging from six hours to several days, the distance covered during this time period being recorded and ranked among competitors [4].…”