A good Mile time for a 99 year old will be affected by a range of factors. Running experience, gender, weight, height and a whole host of external and environmental situations will make a difference to the stopwatch. Therefore a good Mile time is completely individual and based on that event or course alone. A good time for one runner will not necessarily be good for a runner of the same age and sex.

However, to make direct comparisons between runners of different sexes and ages we can measure historical performance based on gender and age. This data allows us to estimate a good Mile time for a 99 year old with a good degree of accuracy. 

Individual runners may then be able to use this, along with some subjective information such as current level of experience and personal bests to create achievable time goals based on age, sex and individual factors. To check age grade times for any age, you can visit the age grading calculator.

What is age grading?

Age grading is a system that allows runners of different ages and genders to have times compared on a level playing field in the same way the golf handicap system allows players of differing abilities to compete against each other.

In addition the tables can provide an Age Graded performance level expressed as a percentage. 

These percentages can be used to establish the level at which you are running and the percentage is in relation to the age graded world record time. This starts at the local level and goes up to world record pace. 

For example a 40 year old recreational runner completes a 10k in 0:51:45. Based on the age grade tables this equates to an age graded time of 0:49:50. A world record time for a 40 year old athlete is 0:27:24. So our recreational runner has a time of over 60% of the world record time, putting them very much in the local category level of runners, based on this table:

The World Masters Athletics Association (previously WAVA), along with National Masters News published a booklet of Age Graded Tables in 1989. These have been updated several times with the most recent age graded tables in 2020, which replaced the previous set of tables published in 2015.

What is a good Mile time for a 99 year old?

Based on the age grading calculations in the tables, we can measure runners of different ages and sexes against each other.

How can you improve your Mile time?

Almost all runners will have room to improve their race times. For elite athletes, these gains will be marginal, for everybody else guided training and conditioning can bring large gains.

There are a few key areas to concentrate on to help improve your running pace over your preferred distance.

Become a more consistent runner

If your are only running once a week at your local Parkrun and some weeks you simply can’t be bothered, the chances are you will not be making significant gains with your race pace, it’s just not enough running.

To become a stronger runner, you need to run more, there is really no getting around that simple fact. Concentrating on running consistently will bring large improvements. If you run once a week, try to make it three. 

Whatever the amount of running you are doing, making it a consistent habit will become evident on the stopwatch as you become stronger.

Increase your mileage

What goes hand in hand with consistency is adding miles. When you add miles to your weekly running, you will become naturally faster. Remember, to become a stronger runner you need to run more. The easiest way of adding miles is to run an additional day per week.

Many runners try to add the miles too quickly and suffer from overuse injuries. There is a rule of thumb that you should not add more than 10% on a weekly basis. This is a guideline and definitely does not work in all situations. The critical point is to make sure you do not overdo it and risk an injury.

Focus on recovery

The adaptations your body makes to an increased training regime take place when you are resting, not when the body is under stress. This is to say, you stress your body when you run and it adapts to those stresses during rest periods.

Therefore it is important to ensure you are recovering well to get the biggest improvements. You should add recovery days to your training. These can be days during the week where you undertake no running or some cross training. Another method which works for longer distance training plans is to work for three weeks and on week four have a recovery week where you reduce your mileage and have rest days to help recovery.

One area of recovery which is often overlooked is sleep. Out bodies recover well then they are rested and sleep is a critical part of the process. Try to ensure you are getting the correct amount of quality sleep and your recovery will benefit.

Follow a structured training plan

Taking into account the recommendations above, to improve your Mile time you will be much more successful if you follow a structured running training plan, with runs completed at different training paces. These workouts will include easy runs, speed work and race pace simulations. If you have the means a running coach or online one to one coaching can really take you to a new level.

Whatever the method you use to improve your race times, the basics of consistency, miles and recovery will see you make great strides to smashing your personal best times.