The paper "How Fast Do Old Men Slow Down,"
The Review of Economics and
Statistics, February 1994, 103-118,
intro,
pdf file (1,305KB),
estimates age factors for various race distances, including the
marathon. Table 3 in the
paper presents the age factors. The table shows that between ages 45 and
58 the age factor
for the marathon increases from 1.0694 to 1.1455, an increase of 7.1
percent. Given my
time of 2:58:45 at age 45, the estimated age factors thus suggest that at
age 58 I should have been able to run a
3:11:28 marathon.
You can see from the above table that at age 58 I ran 3:27:30. I was thus
about 16 minutes slower than I should have been (about 37 seconds per
mile). The age factor for age 59 from Table 3 is 1.1516, an increase of
0.53 percent from age 58, which puts my potential time at 3:12:29.
Alas, I ran 3:30:23 at age 59, which is about 18 minutes slower that I
should have run.
The age factor for age 60 is 1.1594, an increase of 0.68 percent from age
59, which puts my potential time at 3:13:47. This is now my goal in my
struggle to get back on the regression line.
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