This last weekend, I met with someone who I haven't seen for 8 years or so. This person, a quiet and very kind man, was my training partner for my first marathon 12 years ago. It was great to see him ? not only because he looks so fit and healthy at age 57, but also because it was only this weekend that I truly felt the way that he "touched" my life so many years ago.

You see, training for a marathon is a long journey. So many hours and months my partner and I spent running, thinking about running, planning for running, eating for running?.do you get the idea? Of course, achieving the goal was that much more sweet because of how hard the journey was. That one journey got me hooked and I have done many more since. But the first one remains the most special.

My marathon partner was 45 when he ran his FIRST marathon. He is quite an inspiration!

As a person who is "into fitness" I have many friends and colleagues who are sports people. Not only that, but most of them (me included) are now of the age that they are called Master Athletes. What is a master athlete? This is someone who competes in the older age categories of a sport.

So, most of my friends and I are masters in our sports. Among my peers, I hear a lot of moaning about how we are getting older and just don't feel able to compete with the youngsters. To that, I say?. Experience and science is starting to show otherwise. Have you noticed that there are a lot of professional and amateur athletes that are still getting better at their sports even though they are also older than they are "supposed" to be?

There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but training methods, nutrition science and just plain old determination not to retire is fueling much of this.

The activities of these older athletes and the fact that there are so many now have some important lessons for those of us who feel that old age is a reason not to be fit and/or enjoy whatever sport we choose.

We can excel at sports or be as fit as someone much younger, so long as we keep some basic ideas in mind:

The decline in fitness is very gradual as we age. In other words, there's no reason to stop JUST because of age. Recovery from intense training slows as we age, not the ability to train intensively. Muscular strength, flexibility and quickness (power) require extra attention to maintain, to keep us in the game and injury free. Eating right helps recovery. Adequate sleep is important for recovery. Let's look at these ideas individually:

The decline in fitness is really just a de-training effect. If you don't use it, you lose it. Age has much less to do with this decline than inactivity does. When you were 20, if you didn't exercise, what happened? Probably, you got weaker and put on body fat. Is there much difference now years later?

Recovery time has to do with the body's ability to regenerate. Of course, the body adapts to the loads placed on it at any age; so if you GRADUALLY begin to train your body more often or more intensively, it will adapt to this training and "learn" to recover faster.

Muscular strength, flexibility and ability to respond quickly diminish without training. The lack of muscular strength causes the joints to carry more of the load. When the joints carry the load instead of the muscles then the joints tend to break down in a variety of ways. So, it's important to build all the muscles of the body no matter what sport you are involved in.

The tensile strength of muscles, or their ability to stretch, lessens when they are not regularly stretched, so it's important to take extra care to stretch the muscles when they are warm. A tight muscle leads to muscular imbalances which again can cause joints and the back to carry loads in a way they were not designed to.

Joints tend to deteriorate with age. They lose the collagen matrix and "squishy stuff" that lubricates them. Keeping the muscles strong and flexible, so that they themselves do the work instead of the joints, is the best way to slow this deterioration. Also, if you already have joint pain, strengthening the muscles will lessen the load on the joint?and hence lessen any pain and stiffness.

Nutrition science has come a long way in recent years. Nowadays, athletes are using nutrition to aid in recovery. The crux of this is that eating lots of antioxidant rich foods (fruits and vegetables), protein (meat, fish, dairy, beans, eggs) and lots of water help the muscles rebuild and alleviates oxidative stress from exertion.

There are many supplements that have been proven, such as glucosamine for joint health, that can help with individual issues. So, if you are training hard and feel that your nutrition is less than optimal, it might be beneficial to consider supplements. It's a good idea to study up on anti aging supplements and general nutrition guidelines to see what might benefit you.

The body uses sleep time to recover and build. Enough said on that.

The moral of the story? Age by itself is not a good excuse for doing the things you love to do. If you have always dreamed of running a marathon ? GO FOR IT!

Copyright (c) 2006 Ainsley Laing