Under preforming! I have been doing a bit of it for a while now. I have got all the excuses lined up but at the end of the day so many times in the past couple of decades I have let life and too many other things get in the way of getting the best out of myself physically.
I had some good results running when I was young with no coach or real training plan. I would just go for a jog after or before school and work, sometimes both.
In the early days I ran 5 kilometers under 18 minutes and am a former sub 3 hour marathoner.
Ever since then I have never gone close to any of those times. Even taking the age factor into account, maybe it is the life and family responsibilities that have more of an effect than I think.
I was luckily enough to run the New York Marathon back in 2018, my training and lead up to the event was similar to the Honolulu Marathon, I ran back in 1983 but the the time difference was massive. I even had to walk a bit in the end just to finish. I just put it down to a bad day. I tried again back home in Australia at the Gold Coast marathon a year later in 2019 and it was a very similar story finishing in 4 and half hours.
My 5 kilometer race times are in the same boat, just under 18 minutes back in the 1980s, then in 2019 I was just under 21 minutes and right now I would struggle to get it done under 23 minutes.
I have heard you loose something like 1% per year from your peak or 6 seconds over 5km per year, which sounds about right but it is hard to calculate exactly. For me it just seems harder getting through the training without getting injured or picking up a niggle.
Any way I still enjoy have a go even if the times are not what they used to be.
