Discussion: Old guys

How do you think your interests in orienteering will change as you age? I expected that I would have wanted to go on shorter and shorter courses. The opposite has turned out to be the case.

I have never been fast and have slowing down even more recently. (GHOSlow refers to my club's name GHO and my speed). While thoroughly enjoying ourselves at the US Rogaine champs last weekend, I got to thinking about how what I like about the sport has changed, as I have got older. I had plenty of time to think as my wife and I helped each other struggle over logs that I would have jumped a few years ago.

It seems peculiar that rather than running on shorter and shorter courses, I now like to compete in long events (24 hour rogaines and our clubs adventure runs that take me about 8 hours). I always have liked vetting courses in the weeks before events and that appeals even more now. Spending a day wandering around in the woods visiting and checking possible control locations is great fun.

Although the really fast decision-making required on a sprint course is exciting, my knees and back hurt too much the next day. Multiday events are out. Although running at competition speed several days in a row isn't possible anymore, I have almost no trouble walking for 24 hours in a rogaine.

Has anyone else's orienteering interests changed? If so, how?
What do you think will happen to you?
Jim

I'm the opposite - can't train or run for long distances because my various chronic injuries will flare up - achilles, knee, itb, back. In rogaines, if the itb doesn't become a problem, blisters will. I do the occasional 'social' rogaine where I basically go and look at the more interesting parts of the map (to see if they'd be any good for orienteering), then spend the rest of the time sleeping and hanging around the food tent.

M60 courses are the ideal length for me, as I can train intensively enough, without getting injured, to be competitive.

In younger days, I ran M21 until I was 40, but after a race I needed to write off the rest of the day, which would mostly spent flat on my back dozing. When I finally tried an M40 course, I loved it, and since then I've looked forward to 'moving up' and running a shorter course every 5 years.

I'd like not to think of M53 as old. But I am running longer courses than I did 10 years ago. I'm not going to win any age class, so I might as well get my money's worth. I can't see the point of driving a long distance to run a short course in interesting terrain when I can drive and run a longer course.
I can't see the point of driving any distance to crap terrain. So I am very choosy about rogaines. But in great terrain, I'm happy to do up to 12 hours. I can run for most of a 6 hour. Ten years ago I thought rogaining a crazy idea.
What I won't miss out on is sleep. No aspirations for a 24 hour. Still think that is a crazy idea.

One thing this thread seems to illustrate is that different distances appeal to different people, regardless of age. It's great that we have the variety of Sprint, Middle, Long, plus Ultra-long (rarely offered here) and Rogaines. They each have their unique appeals. My interest in each style of event definitely depends on the terrain and on my training. If I have lots of base training under my belt, the Long might be my favourite, if I've managed some interval training, the Sprint has appeal; but of course, Middle is always fun. As for Rogaines, hard to manage with little kids, so haven't done one in a while - 24 hours of baby-sitting is tough to arrange.

This is an interesting topic to me. I like all distances from sprint to super long. What I found to be the issue as I am aging - is recuperation time. It takes me 48 to 72 hours to recuperate from 80-90 min Blue course, and after a 60 min Red course I can mostly recuperate in 24 hours. Here is on the reasons for me to run my age class at multiple day events.
Lately it has become quite popular to have 3 days events, and on multiple occasions I felt very tired before the race on day 3 (granted that I raced all out previous days). I am not opposing 3-day events, I figured to run 2 out of 3 races as competition, and take one race day as training.
The other issue is such: competition on shorter courses (M35-M45 I ran) in North America a lot of times is weak, due to the fact that stronger orienteers of those categories prefer to run Blue courses, for various reasons. Looking at results on Blue courses I see that there is no magic and most of my age "colleagues" suffer performance reduction on days 2 or 3.

As I get older, the main difference I notice is the decrease in running speed. It now takes me about as long to run a k as it used to take me to run a mile. In addition to being slower, recovery time is much longer. I can generally run every third day, but if I try to run every other day, my knees really complain at the third go round. I generally ache all the time, and when I'm running it varies from minor discomfort to enough pain to cause limping. Running on pavement is definitely hard, whereas even a hard packed dirt trail is much easier on my legs. I also notice that in spin classes, I have to rest about 45 to 60 seconds after each song to recover, whereas the younger crowd is already well into the next song. I've decided my glory days are over, and now I just want to keep on movin' as long as I can. As to distance, I generally like events that take me 60-90 minutes best.

Evan said "I generally ache all the time, and when I'm running it varies from minor discomfort to enough pain to cause limping." I guess that part of my point is that I don't want to ache all the time. I have wimped out and have chosen the longest courses where running is out of the question for me.

At 62 I find I am enjoying sprints the most, middles next, and longs not so much. When I started out, Longs (or Classics) were the only choice. Thank goodness I can still run and I do like to run fast. Recovery doesn't seem to be a significant issue, maybe because I don't go as all out as I should. I can't imagine walking a 24 hr Rogaine but I'd give a 12 hr a try with the right partner. A 6 or 8 hour adventure run (if you actually have to run) seems impossibly daunting, maybe for the same reason that I've never tried a marathon. When healthy, I limit training to every other day, with one long run, one hill workout, and one speed workout in the space of two weeks. The big thing I have noticed is the longer time it takes to recover from injuries. I'm still laid up from whacking my knee at West Point. Like Jim I really like vetting courses and placing controls.