54-year-old Heather Melzer, a nationally recognized triathlete and mother of five, likens her participation in the sport to the adage about fine wine.
“You can get better as you get older,” said the North Allegheny woman. “My bike keeps getting better and right now it’s my only weapon against my younger competitors.”
Melzer began her fitness journey in track and field and cross country in high school and college. She even had a short professional contract for distance running.
After taking a break to start her family, she took up casual training with a triathlete group while pregnant with her second son.
Her concentration went into overdrive after a friend surprised her by entering her into the Ironman competition in Lake Placid.
“Six or seven months after I had my son, I competed in my first and only full Ironman,” Melzer said.
A rising trend
Melzer is among a growing number of older athletes who are not shying away from the extreme sport that typically attracts younger competitors.
“We’ve seen a change,” said Tom Kamber, executive director of AARP’s Older Adults Technology Services. “We have seen more (older) people participating in a wider range of sports. … There are certainly more older adults competing in extreme sports.
“Older people are really in a different time today. There is a tendency for older adults to lead more active lives.”
Kamber’s program offers approximately 9,000 courses on a range of subjects, with nine of the top 10 most popular courses being fitness-related. In its Senior Planet Sponsored Athletes program, five senior athletes who participate in non-traditional or extreme sports share their fitness journey with other senior adults. This year’s athletes include a 63-year-old weightlifter, a 70-year-old sprinter and a 73-year-old cross-fitness athlete. In years past there was a skydiver, a hockey player, and a surfer, all in their 60s and 70s.
“I think there’s still a stereotype that older people are less risk-averse or less active or fit…but honestly, that’s often misplaced,” Kamber said. “Sometimes people are surprised, but they shouldn’t be. … The dynamic these days is just that older people are just out here, and everyone’s starting to realize that’s the new normal.”
Over the past decade, the number of people over 60 entering the Ironman (a 140.6-mile, 70.3-mile triathlon) has increased from about 2,500 competitors in 2012 to almost 13,000 a year Will quintuple by 2022, according to research from the Mather Institute. While the average Iditarod competitor (a multi-day, sub-zero Alaskan multi-method race) in the 1900s was in their 30s, the average competitor today is 46 years old. A 2022 study by AARP and National Geographic found that 44% of people in their 80s and older age group do resistance training — the same percentage as in the 18- to 39-year-old age group.
In the Pittsburgh area, extreme races like the Baker Trail Challenge and the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge have seen a steady increase in athletes over 50 over the past eight years. Participation by athletes 50 and older in the Baker Trail Challenge — a 50-mile ultramarathon that traverses six counties including Clarion, Armstrong, Indiana and Westmoreland — has increased 350% since 2015. The Rachel Carson Trail Challenge — a 36-mile, one-day endurance hike — has grown a little over 6% since 2015.
And 300 runners over 50 completed the 2022 Pittsburgh Marathon, a 26.2-mile race through 14 Pittsburgh boroughs.
climb uphill
High above ground sports, Matt Strickland, 42, discovered his true love in his teenage years: rock climbing.
Though he admits to letting his body “go” while touring with metal and punk bands in his 20s, the Highland Park man returned to the sport and really upped his game when he was in Quebec during the outbreak of the pandemic lived.
The only facilities open during this time were rock climbing areas as it is primarily a solo sport. His coach happened to be Olympic sport climbing coach Andrew Wilson.
Strickland’s fascination with the sport was quickly reignited with the help of a passionate trainer and the free time he had while working remotely.
“It was great,” said Strickland, “it was really fun and I met a few people along the way.”
After moving to the Pittsburgh area in August, he decided to stay in the sport and joined Ascend, a Point Breeze sport climbing gym. His goal is to improve as many climbing grades as possible.
“I read an article about two years ago and the author said he didn’t care about climbing to compete,” Strickland said. “He just cared about climbing nice things. That’s how I feel about it. I want to climb as many things as possible.”
During business hours, Strickland is a whiskey man. He works with distilleries and teaches and writes about the liquor. He enjoys his work but likes the escape opportunities that rock climbing offers.
“I wanted something that I could be decent at outside of my day job,” Strickland said. “You’re going to get guys well into their 70s who are still climbing and I don’t want to stop anytime soon.”
Sport climbing in nature and fighting the elements also challenges him mentally.
“It’s like a methodical, real-time chess game,” Strickland said. “You look at the path and think about how you will overcome it.”
Strickland’s current coach Sam Franke, 22, agreed.
“Matt and I actually bonded about it,” Franke said. “I would much rather climb a mountain than a boulder in the forest. I told him the other day that when you’re climbing something like a mountain, you have to think about the movement you want and think about the movements you need to make to get to that point. If you go blind, you will not succeed.”
Training, recovery important
As a coach for Ascend and a trainer at Global Human Performance, Franke works with athletes of all ages. In his senior year of college, majoring in exercise science, he has been coaching athletes since high school.
Whether he’s teaching children or 60-year-olds, his mantra doesn’t change.
“Recovery is almost everything for an athlete,” said Franke. “If you don’t have the right recovery, you won’t see those gains from the work you put in. Athletes need to eat well, sleep well, and get adequate rest to reap these benefits from their training.”
dr Jeanne Doperak, associate professor of sports medicine in the department of orthopedics at UPMC, said she often sees patients over 50 exercising at all activity levels.
While the treatment of sports injuries doesn’t vary much with age, older athletes take longer to heal, she said. One way to counteract this is to balance exercises to create a strong foundation for the body.
“As all athletes mature, it’s important to engage in some form of cardiovascular activity,” Doperak said. “So strength training, some balance training and flexibility training. It’s important to have a strong base. If you don’t, prepare for injury.”
Bridging the distance
Amy Nelson, 51, of Franklin Park, has a newfound passion for sports — particularly ultra running, which makes every race longer than a marathon.
Most are trail races lasting 50 or 100 miles. Some are even longer, as runners complete courses over several days.
“A 50-mile run is probably my favorite distance,” Nelson said. “It’s pretty normal in the group I run in. A 50 mile run is no big deal and just becomes normal as you accumulate miles and train.”
Nelson ran track and field in her youth but gave up the sport until 2010 after becoming a mother and deciding to give up her banking career.
“I was pretty high up the ladder,” Nelson said. “I’ve traveled internationally and done quite well. I had a team under me and was basically a workaholic.”
After deciding not to return to work, Nelson needed to do something to channel her competitive energy.
“I just started running, and I channeled all the work that I did at BNY Mellon, all the work that I do at home — I put it into running,” Nelson said. “I started competing and it was like a channel for me to survive. Otherwise I would probably have gone insane.”
Nelson started with road running and progressed to 5K, 5 miles, half marathons and marathons.
“I just kept going,” Nelson said.
Nelson signed up for the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge, which led her to join the North Park Trail Runners group.
“The more I ran these trail races, the more it was a natural progression,” Nelson said. “The nature of Ultra is that they are all trail races and everyone just runs longer. When you’re surrounded by people who just keep walking longer and longer, it seems normal to just keep racking up the miles.”
Nelson doesn’t follow a specific training schedule, instead focusing on racking up mileage weekly as she prepares for her next race. She said she tries not to wrap herself up in daily miles, instead listening to her body and going for long runs throughout the week.
She attributes her entry into the world of extreme sports to her friend and fellow athlete Melzer.
“Training with her triathlete group has been truly life changing,” said Nelson. “She made me believe that if you can see it, it could be you.”
Perfect balance
After finishing the Lake Placid Ironman, Melzer started “getting the bug” to compete. She quickly found that her sweet spots are sprint distance, Olympic distance and half Ironmans. Whole Ironmans “just aren’t my thing” and whole marathons are just “a little bit too long,” she said.
At shorter distances she has the most success and also enjoys it more. Their times have improved with age, experience and strength.
There are times when Melzer thinks about quitting and “going to the top,” but she can’t seem to let go of the sport and community she loves so much. She says she has found the perfect balance between work, family and competition.
“I sometimes feel like as women we have families and we lose each other somewhere or who we were before we got married,” Melzer said. “But that keeps me loyal to that person. It makes me feel younger. When I’m racing out there, I don’t feel like an old person. The old me just comes back. I am still here.”
Haley Daugherty is a Contributor to the Tribune Review. You can contact Haley at 724-850-1203 or [email protected].
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