Posted on 08/24/2019 8:15:50 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Beyond their individual triumphs, Smith and Boulet also chalked one up for the 40+ demographic; Smith turned 40 this year, while Boulet is a spry 46. For those keeping score, this is actually the second consecutive year where both the male and female winners at Leadville were in their fifth decade.
...But maybe there’s more to it than that. Given the amount of stuff that can go wrong when you’re running 100 miles in the mountains, perhaps more “mature” athletes might have an advantage when raw speed is less essential than psychological resilience.
“Ultrarunning is about problem solving and being fast is just one piece in a larger puzzle,” says Boulet, who was back at work on Monday morning. “There are so many other pieces that need to fall into place in order to have a successful race.”
Boulet would know. In 2015, she triumphed at Western States, arguably the most vaunted ultra on U.S. soil. Last year, she won the Marathon des Sables, a 156-mile, six-day stage race in the Sahara Desert that frequently gets cited as one of the world’s most difficult races.
(Excerpt) Read more at outsideonline.com ...
“Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.”
David Mamet
“Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.”
Nice quote, oh yes!
True in cycling, no doubt about it.
Personally, I’ve never run past 26.2 and there was more comradery then competition.
The treachery part comes from your legs and lungs, then telling yourself the finish is just over the next hill.
Old age (experience) part is telling more lies, it will feel so good to stop at the finish...
Not when your old age knees hurt.
I'm down to half marathons and 10k's. Too much knee pain and sore ligaments and not enough knee cartilage.
I used to run fast (at least relatively). Now i run much slower. Fast is funner. There’s much less motivation to train hard (or at all) when you know your best times are all in the past.
“Not when your old age knees hurt.”
I said treachery. Hide a trail bike.
Kidding. My life changed for sports when they said sit down and shut up if you want to live a few more years. So now my idea of a marathon is the trip to the bathroom at night. At about 50 feet round trip does that qualify as .02 of a marathon? Is there a trophy for that and film at 11?
rwood
“Old age (experience) part is telling more lies...”
Kind of like the size of the whale you brought in on ultralight line in the creek behind the house. And each year, a few more pounds are added on.
For a good touch, get a photo of yourself next to the trophy before they award it.
People expect people to “stretch” the truth a little. Any more my thing is my weight. I tell people I am the exact weight recommended for my height..................which varies.
rwood
There’s much less motivation to train hard (or at all) when you know your best times are all in the past.
Some years ago my son gave me “Heart Monitor Training for the Complete Idiot” by John L.Parker.
(I think there may be a hidden message in the title for me? Kids!)
I follow it and enjoy it.
Instead of competing /training with time and distance it is time at heart rate.
Heart rate tends to slow with the years, so an hour at 90% today is not the same as a few years back.
That and HRV ( Heart Rate Variability) have been very helpful.
Yes, it is still chasing numbers, works for me.
I am shocked running didn’t keep your knees healthy. you’d think the body would repair itself and make them stronger.
David, being old, also speaks from experience. :)
So now my idea of a marathon is the trip to the bathroom at night.
My father was a tough old career Navy bird and very physically active until the end at 91.
In his late eighties, his hip went ‘out’. They told him he was too old for a repair? Damn Tricare.
They also told him he had to stay active or die.
Three times every day he would walk around the block, and each time he looked like a finisher at a most difficult marathon.
I think he did it to piss them off for not giving him a hip replacement! But they’d give him a spinal block every few months that kind of helped.
“Damn Tricare”
Tricare does not, and cannot, determine the actions of a military hospital’s capacity to accomplish surgery.
They only handle the financial end of what the outside doctors determine and the only kind of surgery they will disapprove is cosmetic for persons in the outside world. My thoughts here are the specific doctor that made that call, if he was in a military facility, did not have the capacity to do that surgery at which time your father would have been directed (referred) to a private practice downtown. If he didn’t like that call from Dr. downtown, get a second opinion. But this had nothing to do with Tricare. Plus after his late sixties, he switches over to Tricare for Life at which time the primary is medicare and Tricare becomes the secondary. And Tricare has nothing in it’s rules, written by congress, to deny any surgery of this type.
Hip replacement surgeries have been accomplished successfully in elderly patients of advanced age. Find another doctor. Then deal with medicare. It may cost some, but it can be done. Another thought is was this identified in his outbound physical and is on record with the VA? Another source if it is.
rwood
My thoughts here are the specific doctor that made that call, if he was in a military facility, did not have the capacity to do that surgery at which time your father would have been directed (referred) to a private practice downtown.
I suspect it might have been like that.
That was in the late 1990s, my mother had been on medicare for many years, but the old man preferred the ‘base’ doctors.
Also about the time, they retired to Florida and no longer went to Great Lakes (where I was born ~70 years back).
Just annual check-ups, never sick.
Well he did fall out of a tree he was trimming, and that slowed down his weight lifting!
Until his hip went he could do one leg deep knee bends.
I had a lot of fun with that and betting my friends on it.
Then we’d go visit the old man and collect!
That was something I practiced just to keep up with him.
(I’m grinning just thinking about it.)
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