Running makes you look old

[Anonymous]

My mom is a 72 year old runner, and she looks fantastic! She also has dark skin, so perhaps that has helped with the minimal wrinkles. I'm always telling her that she should be on the cover of AARP Magazine.

[Anonymous]

"3-5 mike runners loom feat. 10+ mile runners don’t."

This was a few pages back. What does this mean? Is it supposed to be 3-5 mile runners look fat [whereas] 10 plus mile runners don't" ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"3-5 mike runners loom feat. 10+ mile runners don’t."

This was a few pages back. What does this mean? Is it supposed to be 3-5 mile runners look fat [whereas] 10 plus mile runners don't" ?

I thought it was 'looks great'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a 54 year old marathoner. I’ve been running since my mid-20s. I also practice yoga and lift. I don’t look 35 or 40 or even 45. I look like a women in her 50s who is active, healthy, and fit. I have no desire to be anything other than that.

Good for you! LOVE this attitude.

[Anonymous]

This thread is depressing. JUST what we need! Women who are doing something really cool and admirable and healthy and life-affirming (serious runers in their 40s and 50s!) being picked apart for looking too old. Seriously everyone, get a life.

[Anonymous]

It's the prolonged suffering. Self-inflicted, yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the prolonged suffering. Self-inflicted, yet.

Ha! Horse back riding or golf would be my definition of self-inflicted pain. But I love a good run and the afterglow in particular. I do run a lot and am thin. I guess that might age me but I'm married, happy, and a provide a good role model for my kids regarding activity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a 54 year old marathoner. I’ve been running since my mid-20s. I also practice yoga and lift. I don’t look 35 or 40 or even 45. I look like a women in her 50s who is active, healthy, and fit. I have no desire to be anything other than that.

It's great to be an old, very fit woman! (~from the rower in her 60s)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a 54 year old marathoner. I’ve been running since my mid-20s. I also practice yoga and lift. I don’t look 35 or 40 or even 45. I look like a women in her 50s who is active, healthy, and fit. I have no desire to be anything other than that.

It's great to be an old, very fit woman! (~from the rower in her 60s)

Fabulous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Among my annocdetical group of twelve 38-42 yo women I see 3 categories: the ones who have round chubby (but not fat, more like curvy) bodies and pretty faces with very few wrinkles, the thinnish women with some curves, more like skinny fat, and the athletic women who have beautiful legs and washboard abs, but lost their breasts after pregnancies their uppper body fat in general and are the most wrinkled.

I am not sure it is the running that gave the last group their wrinkles. It looks like the other way around: the ones with the highest metabolism and predisposition for exercise are the ones with the lowest amount of body fat and if you listen to them they were born like that. They were always on the skinny side with visible lean muscles and they always wanted to move more. And now at 40 they look beautiful and athletic but the same way the lack of fat under their skin gives them great washboard abs it also gives them clearly more wrinkled face.

And the whole group is like that. Looking at all of us in bikinis if you look at our various body types and the energy we display just completing random tasks (which gives you a good idea of metabolsims) you can predict right away whose face will be the most wrinkled.

But in that group some of the chubbier less wrinkled are actually pretty decent runners while some of the super lean more wrinkled are practicing other sports like dance or hockey or swimming.

Yikes! I hope I am not in your friend group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is depressing. JUST what we need! Women who are doing something really cool and admirable and healthy and life-affirming (serious runers in their 40s and 50s!) being picked apart for looking too old. Seriously everyone, get a life.

Agreed. Fortunately, I think most serious runners in their 40s/50s couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of their face:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this true? I’ve never heard this. I was reading through some previous threads and this came up. Does it make your face sag or what? Perhaps the sun damage from long outdoor runs? And what cardio doesn’t “make you old” if this is the case?

A bit off topic, but I have cousins born and raised in S. Florida, and the sun damage makes them look so much older than they are. They're not runners, but they're outdoorsy and look terrible.

[Anonymous]

Coco Chanel said it best - at some point you have to choose between your face and your ass.

[Anonymous]

Nor sure no wrinkles are worth a life inside with no running or walking or swimming or all the great out door activities.

[Anonymous]

I guess for some people, but for a person like me, who is naturally full faced and kind of round, I look best when I’m training for a long race. I’m not naturally thin, have always had kind of oily skin, so virtually no wrinkles. Everyone is different. I look great when I’m running about 25-30 miles a week. I’m 42 and, just a fact, get told I don’t look my age so much that it’s actually annoying (especially at work.)