Two-time Olympian and professional mountain-bike racer Carl Swenson is a part-time Winter Park resident.
Seeing older guys like Michael Carter, 42, and Ned Overend, 50 in August, doing so well at the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic last weekend certainly shouldn’t be a big surprise to anybody who has been around the Colorado road-racing scene. These are names that have been around forever, and they don’t seem to be getting any slower.
It’s pretty typical of older endurance athletes, I think. If someone still has the drive and the interest to compete, there’s no reason to get slower at certain events well into 40s and even 50. That’s one of the nice things about endurance sports.
I don’t think endurance necessarily builds over time. I think it’s more of a talent and a skill, like anything else. Most people think of endurance as something you just work toward. But the reality is that certain people have a gift, a talent for it, just as a select few people can throw a 100 mph fastball. Unless you are born with that gift, no matter how hard you train, you’ll never throw a baseball 100 mph.
But if you have the gift, it comes down to what you do with it. For someone like Ned, with his endurance and lung capacity, the gift never goes away. As long as he’s interested in maintaining it, he can.
Maybe some people can continue to build on that from an endurance standpoint, but I believe athletic success in later years is more just a matter of the experience that they have gained. I wouldn’t say you actually get better by getting older, but it’s not necessarily a disadvantage. The advantage you gain into your 40s is experience. You have to go through those trials when you’re younger to find your strengths, weaknesses and limitations.
I’m 35 now, so I’m starting to think in the old-age category, although nobody is too impressed by my age. But I have experienced the benefits from having raced a lot through the years. It gives you patience and I think I can race more efficiently than someone with less experience. I don’t waste my efforts and my race energy. At this stage, I’ve learned how to conserve my race attacks, the big surges.
As far as advice for old guys, I would say play to your strengths. Let the younger, less-experienced people do all the attacks and the meaningless hard work. Sit back and be shrewd with where you put in your big effort. But if you’re still racing past age 40, you’ve probably already figured that out. Otherwise you would have quit by now.
