Breaking the Marathon World Record With Your Father? The Superpower of Lifelong Endurance Training

Are you looking for a training buddy to prepare for your next marathon race? Have you ever considered that your father could be the right person? Would not it be great to cross the finish line side by side and get on the podium together? You probably think that your father is not young enough for such an effort, do not you? We believe that your father may also be capable of exceptional physical performance, despite his older age. In this article, you will see how a father and son (with a 25-year age difference) managed to break the world record for a combined father-and-son marathon in 2019.


Figure Figure
The e ects of aging in athletes.

CAN WE MAINTAIN PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE AS WE AGE?
It is well-known that physical performance declines with aging

PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE
Ability of an athlete to be strong, fast, and resistant to fatigue. Developing the best possible physical performance is the common goal of athletes to win sporting contests and break records. (Figure ). Older people tend to be slower and less powerful, and it is even worse when they do not do much physical activity. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see the proportion of time spent watching TV or sitting on the sofa increase with aging. This sedentary lifestyle is associated with gradual changes to the body, including the replacement of muscle mass by fat, cardiorespiratory (heart and lung) problems, and changes to metabolic functions, such as regulation of blood sugar. Consequently, muscle strength and maximal oxygen consumption (VO 2max ) decline, making daily activities, such as walking

MAXIMAL OXYGEN CONSUMPTION (VO 2MAX )
A measurement that reflects the body's ability to take oxygen into the lungs and transport it to the active muscles during exercise, and the capacity for the muscles to use it to produce energy. VO 2max is measured using a respiratory gas analyser connected to a face mask positioned over the athlete's mouth and nose. It is expressed in ml of oxygen breathed in per kilogram of body mass per min (ml/kg/min). or carrying objects, harder and more painful [ , ]. VO 2max is a good indicator or physical fitness with the higher VO 2max , the better for the person. If physical activity is not resumed, a sedentary lifestyle can lead to diseases typically associated with aging, such as osteoporosis (reduction in bone mass), obesity, or cardiorespiratory failure.
But some people choose to stay active as they age. Masters athletes (people older than ) continue to train intensively and regularly during their entire lives [ ]. Some of them train even harder than younger athletes, to try to maintain their performance level for as long as they can. Masters athletes have been taking part in more and more sporting competitions, such as marathon races and triathlons masters athletes participating in sporting events over the last years. For example, nowadays more than % of men and % of women participating in the New York marathon or the Ironman triathlon world championship are masters athletes [ , ]. Masters athletes not only take part in competitions, but also manage to set record performances in their age groups. In recent years, some exceptional performances have been reported in the marathon, with the current world record set at h min s for the age of [ ]. For scientists, masters athletes represent a model of successful aging and a valuable source of insight into our ability to maintain physical performance as we age [ ]. In other words, studying masters athletes can help scientists to better understand the e ects of aging when there are no complicating factors like sedentary lifestyle or obesity, and can help to find strategies for healthy aging.

HOW WE STUDIED THE EFFECTS OF LIFELONG ENDURANCE TRAINING
The purpose of our research was to evaluate the physical capacities of two marathon runners, a man and his father. We followed them as they prepared to attempt breaking the world record for a combined father-and-son marathon in Frankfurt, Germany, in October . Through studying these two men, we also wanted to better understand the superpower of lifelong endurance training.

ENDURANCE TRAINING
It is a global form of exercise (engaging the whole body) with the goal of improving the fitness and the body's cardiovascular system (heart, lungs, and circulation). Endurance training sessions are generally performed at sub-maximal intensity (<VO 2max ) over long durations (> min).
The father was a former Olympic marathoner who competed at the Barcelona Olympic games in . His best marathon performance was h min s, set at the age of . At the time of the study, he was and held the age-marathon world record of h min s. His son was years old and less experienced (he started to train hard only years earlier), but he could run faster than his father for shorter distances, such as km and half-marathon races. We divided our study into three phases.

Phase
Two months prior to the marathon, father and son visited our sport science laboratory at Liverpool John Moores University (Liverpool, United Kingdom) to take a series of physical tests. We measured their body composition (body mass and the proportion of muscle to fat) using a piece of equipment called a DXA scanner. Then, after a quick warm-up, they ran on a treadmill at four di erent speeds that they could hold without di culty ( , , , and km/h), for min each. This test is useful to assess running economy, which is the amount

RUNNING ECONOMY
It is the energy demand for a given submaximal running speed, and the lower the energy demand the better running economy. It is expressed in ml of oxygen breathed in per kilogram of body mass per kilometer (ml/kg/km). of energy used by the body-the lower the energy consumption at each speed, the better the running economy. Each running stage was separated by min of recovery. After this test, the speed of the treadmill was gradually increased every minute, until the athletes could run no more. During these running tests, the athletes wore a chest kids.frontiersin.org February | Volume | Article | belt to monitor heart rate and a face mask to monitor their oxygen consumption. When the athletes reached their point of exhaustion, we could determine their VO 2max , which is like the engine capacity for a car.

Phase
The training routines, including the number of kilometers they ran every week, as well as the dietary habits of the athletes were recorded for the months prior to the marathon. The father ran an average of km per week during this time, while the son ran km per week. They usually did not train together. Most of their training was performed at running speeds slower than their planned marathon pace, but they reached higher speeds during local races (from km to half-marathon) that they entered almost every weekend. Father and son both ate the same basic diet, rich in carbohydrates. It was composed of porridge oats with fresh and dried fruits for breakfast, a whole-grain sandwich for lunch, and potatoes, rice, or pasta accompanied mostly by chicken for dinner.

Phase
On Sunday th October , father and son participated in the Frankfurt marathon. Their running paces were collected during the entire marathon, using a small chip attached to one of their running shoes. We also measured the number of energy bars, gels, or drinks they ate or drank during the race.

HOW DID FATHER AND SON PERFORM?
Father and son achieved their goal by breaking the world record for the combined father-and son-marathon by almost min (Figure ). The father completed the marathon in h min s and the son finished in h min s, for a combined time of h min s, which was min s faster than the previous combined father-and-son marathon world record. The father also broke his own age-world record by min s.
Their exceptional performances could be explained by several factors measured during the physical tests conducted in our laboratory. During the test in which they ran until exhaustion, father and son reached high VO 2max values compared to the average values for most people of their ages. The father's VO 2max was ml/kg/min and the son's was ml/kg/min. The average values reported for people of the same age are and ml/kg/min, respectively, which is much lower than our athletes [ ]. A high VO 2max is a clear asset for endurance performance and a common characteristic of elite younger endurance runners, with the best marathon runners having a VO 2max above ml/min/kg [ ]. In addition, running economy, as measured by oxygen uptake at marathon pace, of both the father and son was close to that kids.frontiersin.org February | Volume | Article | Figure   Figure Father and son after crossing the finish line of the marathon. measured in elite young marathon runners. This means our runners could maintain a high running speed during the entire marathon. Both father and son had low body mass ( . and . kg, respectively) and a low percentage of body fat ( . and . %, respectively), which likely contributed to their good running economy-the lower the body mass to carry, the lower the energy required to run.
Our findings suggest that both the father and son could further improve their world record by optimizing the nutrition they take in during the race, as the father only ate two energy gels (at mid-race and km) with water, while the son ate one energy gel with a few sips of sports drink. Eating plenty of carbohydrates in the form of drinks and gels is very important during such a long race, to provide a constant flow of energy to the muscles [ ]. With more experience, the son might also be able to improve his time with a better control of his pacing during the race. We noticed that the father used a steady running pace during the entire race, whereas the son ran a fast first half followed by a slower second half (Figure ). Recent studies and the observations of elite athletes tell us that the best pacing strategy was that used by the father [ ].
Beyond the combined father-and-son marathon world record, the most astonishing result was the exceptional performance of the father. The father crossed the finish line before his son (he finished th overall and his son finished th). The father maintained an impressively high intensity during the entire marathon, despite his age. At his marathon speed, his oxygen consumption was close to ∼ % of his maximal capacity (VO 2max ). A similar capacity was also observed in the master marathon runner who currently holds the age-world record [ ]. These values are the highest ever observed for the marathon at any age, even including elite young marathon runners. These data show that masters athletes are able to extend the limits of human performance.

kids.frontiersin.org
February | Volume | Article | Figure   Figure Pacing strategy of the father (in blue) and son (in red) every km of the marathon. The son's running speed was slightly higher than his father up to the th km and then dropped drastically until the end of the race. In contrast, the father maintained a steady running pace during the entire race, which allowed him to deliver the best performance in the marathon for his age group.

CONCLUSION
Overall, our study provides proof that masters athletes can maintain an exceptional level of physical performance, despite the aging process. It is also important to mention that you do not need to train as much as our athletes to benefit from the superpower of physical training. We hope that you will bear in mind that keeping an active lifestyle and continuing to train as you get older will help you to stay healthier for your entire life. In our study we focused on the marathon, because it is the most common endurance event in running, and all age groups compete together in the same event. Future studies should focus on other types of sports, such as swimming or cycling, in which the body weight is supported (by the water or the bike, for example) to verify if exceptional performances, such as those we observed in our study are possible in additional sports.  . Contemporary nutrition strategies to optimize performance in distance runners and race walkers. Int. J. Sport Nutr. Exerc. Metab. :
. The influence of pacing strategy on marathon world records. Eur. J. Sport Sci.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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