Their time to go the distance
In the four months since he started training for his first triathlon, held in Hyannis six weeks ago , 41-year old Dean Ferioli has shed 30 pounds and 100 points off his cholesterol count. So invigorating have these competitions become for Ferioli, a Bridgewater police officer and construction company owner, that he's entered one nearly every weekend since, including a grueling half-ironman triathlon consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike race, and 13-mile run.
Ferioli plans to compete in many more, too, notwithstanding the shadow cast over the sport by the death of a 38-year-old competitor in Cohasset on July 8 . According to race organizers, the man was competing in his first triathlon when he suffered a fatal heart attack during the swim portion of the event .
Ferioli is hardly alone in being drawn to endurance sports at a relatively advanced athletic age. The number of Boston Marathon runners age 40 to 59 has climbed steadily over the past decade, from slightly under 4,000 in 1997 to more than 10,000 this jordan 6 oreo year (out of 20,000 total runners). The 90,000-member USA Triathlon organization, which sanctions more than 2,000 events each year, reports an increase in interest among air jordan 6 rings all demographic groups.
"Whether it's a midlife crisis or wanting a healthy lifestyle," says USAT spokesman Jason Mucher , "a lot of people in their late 30s and 40s are taking up the sport."
Meanwhile, niche publications like GeezerJock have sprinted into the marketplace to celebrate the feats of baby-boomer (and older) athletes and reaffirm the idea that it's never too late to grab a racing bike or pair of running shoes and see what the old body can withstand.
"These sports are attracting much different shapes of people than they did a while ago," says GeezerJock cofounder and editor Sean Callahan . "Every marathon group will tell you the big growth engine are the masters runners, 40 and up. It's not just the guy who was a great high-school miler; it's anyone who wants to get in shape."
According to Ferioli, it was more fitness concerns than age anxiety driving him to train for his first triathlon. "I started running a few years ago, after I realized that standing in traffic for eight hours was not ideal for my health," he says. He also admits that pushing himself to compete at such a high level of physical punishment has not been crisis-free. On the very first leg of his first triathlon, while swimming in a wetsuit in choppy waters, he had a panic attack, began hyperventilating, and nearly quit right then.
"No amount of muscle prepares you for a triathlon," says Ferioli. "It's more a stamina thing and a mental test. I'd trained in all three phases of the triathlon over longer distances, but to put the three together was the hardest thing I've ever done." His training in specialized breathing and swimming techniques, he says, helped him survive a stressful situation that could have turned far more serious.
"If I'd kept in shape all along, I wouldn't even worry about [heart] blockages and such," Ferioli says. Why does he now prefer competitive triathlons to other comparably strenuous, if more solitary, forms of exercise? "When you realize what the potential is in your machinery -- your body," he replies, "you want to see how you stack up against other people's machinery."
Pushing limits, if not pushing back the hands of time, is a common refrain among over-40 athletes like Ferioli.
Elaine Polito , 45, a dog groomer in Easton, describes herself as a lifelong athlete who's excelled in the past at bodybuilding and kickboxing. But until she trained for her first triathlon in April 2005, Polito says, she had not fully tested her physical capabilities, or lack thereof, including her inability to swim.
"It's almost like you're competing against yourself," says Polito, who's entered more than a dozen triathlons over the past 15 months. "This is the age to get healthy. I see people in their 60s and 70s competing and my own times improving by minutes, not seconds. It's just too bad I picked this up at such a late age."
Better training regimens, more organized competitions like road and bike races, and more leisure time in which to get in competitive shape are among the reasons often cited for the boom in older endurance-sports athletes. Twenty-somethings typically have the time but not the means to train extensively, goes one theory, while the reverse holds true for people in their 30s. People in their 40s and 50s, the thinking goes, have their lives balanced enough to accommodate goals like tackling a marathon or 50-kilometer ski race.
"With age, you get smarter about taking care of your body -- air jordan 6 and more interested in getting a sense of what it can do," says 46-year old entrepreneur Bob Collins of Wellesley, who ran his first Boston Marathon four years ago and has finished two more since.
"Are there risks you might exceed your limits? Absolutely," he says. "Being injury-free after years of knee problems, I thought about that while training. A lot of younger people I run with haven't figured that out yet."
A lot of older athletes seem willing to accept those risks, though. In Marblehead this May, an annual sprint triathlon (250-yard pool swim, 10-mile bike race, 3.5-mile run) attracted a record number of first-time entrants: 110 out of 270 competitors overall, including 30 aged 40-59. Personal trainer Marti Shea , who works for a fitness center in the North Shore town, says her over-30 clients tend to be high achievers who set ambitious goals for themselves, whether in the professional or personal arena. Just the type, in other words, who want to graduate from swimming, jordan retro 9 fontay montana biking, and running workouts to endurance contests that demand everything they've got.
"It's part of their makeup, so the goal might not be just to train for fitness but to run a Boston Marathon," says Shea, 44, a former Olympic-caliber runner. But these goals must be balanced with prudence, she adds. "You want to know their athletic past and overall health, so you can lay out a realistic plan for them," says Shea. "Like maybe running a 5K race and not a marathon."
Dr. Marvin Adner , a hematologist and former Boston Marathon medical director, agrees that older athletes should exercise common sense before prepping themselves for an event such as a marathon or triathlon -- starting with a thorough physical exam. He says older athletes don't need to worry as much about wear and tear on joints and muscles as they do the risk of sudden death. "If you're middle-age , you should have a physician who knows the risk jordan retro 9 kilroy factors for heart disease," he says. "People are not wise about this. They overtrain. They enter these endurance events to prove something to themselves, to be heroic."
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