One of the defining features of our age is that every third person seems to be preparing for a marathon. Until a few years ago, before my kids started school and turned me into a “morning person,” the most irritating part of logging on to social media after waking up late on a weekend was being greeted by friends posting updates about their 5, 10, and 20 km runs that had begun at 5 a.m. But jokes apart, I understand the dopamine rush such pursuits can bring.
Anyway, the only running I do is a daily ten-minute sprint on the treadmill. Last year, I came across the Cooper Test. In 1968, Air Force doctor Kenneth H. Cooper developed a simple way to measure aerobic fitness for large groups of soldiers without expensive lab equipment. His solution was the Cooper Test: run as far as possible in 12 minutes using nothing more than a stopwatch and an open track. More than fifty years later, the test remains widely used by militaries, police forces, athletes, coaches, and fitness enthusiasts around the world to estimate cardiovascular endurance and VO₂ max — the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise, and one of the best indicators of heart and lung fitness.
For my age group, being able to run 2.5 kms in 12 minutes is apparently a marker of ‘Excellent’ Aerobic fitness and puts me in the top 25 percentile.
I have no plans to run a marathon but intend to keep up with the chart above as I age. And the other discovery, as every runner keeps reminding us, is that distance, speed and performance ultimately boil down to a mental game.
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