50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Thanks to you all for the warm welcome, really appreciate your condolences and encouragement; our faith and family are helping us through these heart-wrenchingly dark days, and every day the sun comes up as before. I hope that I will be able to add constructively to this forum, as I am useless at Facebook and don’t even have a twitter account. And I don’t know how long this return to regular running will last, (I hope forever, as even when I wasn’t running frequently I still considered myself a ‘runner’). I am so impressed by the determination, willingness to share and the courage of the posters here, not to mention awe-inspired by the achievements/ability of the athletes, now and in the past.

As surmised by old guy II, I live & farm (sugarcane) on the east coast of South Africa near the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. Most of my running is on farm dirt roads, eucalypt timber plantation roads and trails.

First question: I am considering incorporating some hills i.e. as a specific session, as opposed to the undulating runs I have been doing for the last few months; I used to do hills as a circuit where we ran uphill as fast as possible for 45-90s, followed by a recovery jog straight down or a circuit around the block back to the base of the hill, repeated for anything between 20-45 min. In contrast to this, it seems to me that Lydiard-style hills are much more about form than speed up the hill. What works for you?

thanks

Andrew

The last time I got under 3:00 for the marathon, well, I'm pretty sure it will end up being the last time, was nearly ten years ago. I was getting advice from Barry Magee and because I get slower with interval work, all I was doing was steady running and a weekly hill session. And the hill session wasn't much of a session because it's very flat here.

I was doing reps on a gradual hill, about 1 km long. I didn't really pick up the pace on the hills but concentrated on maintaining the same pace as I was doing and getting just a bit of knee lift and drive into my stride. It seems to have worked. I'd been running marathons in the 3:00-3:06 range in the previous few years and got 2:57:58. I think the hill sessions, such as they were, got me those last few minutes.

You are right. Lydiard hills are more about form than speed.

Decent week, making the transition from cycling to running has take me a number of months but i'm to the point where I'm mostly running for exercise, so good.

m-9 pretty easy

tu rep pace workout on a cinder track track 200-600 x 4 continuous, 200-400 recovery made it tough 9 mi total too much cooling down left me sore

we7 on trails

th 7.5 in hills

fr 4 mi in woods

sat 20K trail race 14/75 2nd age group, felt like a long way to run

su 10 mi trail run

also couple MTB bike rides

total 60 running for week, might be more than I need, we'll see how my body does

I don't seem to go anywhere when I run. I watch good runners and they seem to really drive off their foot and lean forward at the ankle, I see pictures of me in races and I seem to be just sort of falling off my one foot to the other.

I'm wondering if more supplemental exercises or strides or something would help. I feel like I need to be pushing down and back harder when my foot is under my body.

So, maybe that's what I'm working on for a goal now, picking up my feel a little.

jroden wrote:

I watch good runners and they seem to really drive off their foot and lean forward at the ankle ...

That's because they are going fast. At 10 min/mile nearly everyone is a heel striker. At 4 min/mile nearly no-one is. I was intrigued by Peter Snell's assertion that 7 min/mile is the dividing line between running and jogging. Doesn't it depend on fitness? He said no; and my own experiments on the treadmill seem to confirm his opinion. Somewhere around 7:30/mile I have a choice between a midfoot strike and a forefoot strike. Above 6:30/mile I no longer have a choice.

If you have an actual flaw in your form then it might be worth fixing. Otherwise just work on getting faster and the form should follow. But, since the mechanics of fast running are so different, the trick is to insert speed in the week without getting hurt. In a way the elites have it much easier because they only have one form.

A good marathoner gave me similar advice a few years ago, it took quite a while before I agreed with it.

andrew63 wrote:

What works for you?

Any hill workout is a good hill workout! But the Lydiard circuit sounds way too stressful, I am years away from doing anything like that. On my own, I look for a moderate hill of about 500m and run it by feel at I-pace, usually about 2 minutes, and jog down, again by feel, usually about 3 minutes. I stop with still one or two more in me. Surprisingly, these are no more stressful (by RPE and HR) than the same pace on the flat. So far my best explanation is that on the hill I cannot go out too fast. :) With the training group, their idea is to take the hill at constant (slow) pace, so I do the form thing, bounding up the hill next to them, accelerating over the top as the hill levels off, then circling around to the back of the group for the downhill. Around here all the suitable hills are paved.

Years ago I tried a few sessions of steep hill sprints, 10x 15-20 seconds, but gave up on them for logistical reasons. Once or twice a week I will do a single short steep hill sprint, 5-10 seconds, when a convenient hill presents itself, but no repeats. These hills must be grass of course.

andrew63 wrote:

First question: I am considering incorporating some hills i.e. as a specific session, as opposed to the undulating runs I have been doing for the last few months; I used to do hills as a circuit where we ran uphill as fast as possible for 45-90s, followed by a recovery jog straight down or a circuit around the block back to the base of the hill, repeated for anything between 20-45 min. In contrast to this, it seems to me that Lydiard-style hills are much more about form than speed up the hill. What works for you?

thanks

Andrew

As many of us can attest to, and as you can see in many of our posts, injury is a big consideration at our age. Give yourself time to prepare for the hill training you would like to do. First, I'd suggest simply accelerating some of the undulations you have on your current routes. Second, starting to incorporate some form/sprint/agility drills into your routine, in my opinion, is a good idea.

Your running tracts sound wonderful! All the best!

Ken

Upcoming races:

Mothers Day Half mar in Fort Worth: May 12

50K Trail Run in Tyler TX: June 1

Struggling with some sort of spring illness for the last 2 - 3 weeks. Last week was not my best week. First half marathon trial run is this coming Sunday - will let you know how it goes, but I am not expecting being able to PR at this juncture.

Last week:

Mon a.m. - 8 mi easy p.m. - 4 mi easy

Tues a.m. - 8 mi easy. Did not do the evening track w/o

Wed a.m. - 5 mi easy

Thurs a.m. - 9 mi at 8:00 pace

Fri a.m. - 5 mi easy

Sat a.m. 22 miles at 8:40 - mainly on flat trails

Sun a.m. 8 miles with the dogs.

Will try to do some short track work/100 m strides this week to see if the legs will come back. And will shoot for holding the 6:45-6:50 pace at the half this Sunday for at least 6 mi.

I watched some of the Penn Relays last week and got the biggest kick out of the male 70+ age group 100 M event. The winner (I believe he was 76) was looking forward to training harder in the next year and hoping to compete against some other tough competitors in his age group. Hope I am that fortunate at 76 to enjoy competing still.

My only ? - where was the female over 70 event at the Relays? Maybe they had it and I just missed it.

Wishing all the posters the best.

I've posted these before, but they're worth repeating.

@Andrew63: I concur with what Ken and Alan are saying. I'll add that Magill had a nice article in Running Times several year's back talking about the various types of hill workouts he does.

http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/mastering-hill-workouts?page=single

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDcXPIT380k

The only I've ever done with any level of consistency (and I've slacked off badly of late) is similar to what Alan talks about, namely 8-10 reps of 90-100s on an ~7% grade @3-5k effort. When I did this consistently a few years ago, I had my best season of racing...then I did too much speedwork (on flat ground) in the late summer, tweaked my hip, and I've not been quite the same since.

@jroden: Also agree with what Alan is saying about speed and how form does transition. But again, I'll reference a nice article/video from Magill to work on form.

http://www.runnersworld.com/masters-training/video-masters-stars-demonstrate-running-form-drills

That same spring when I did the above mentioned hills, I also did these drills regularly.

I've shied away from heavy doses of either, however, since I developed this hip thing....it's good to be reminded that I need to get back to these.

Hi all a lot of good threads here,glad your home woc,lucKY2b nice to see your running taking an upward curve.I myself have always done many forms of hills I have done sprints, long hills around 10-15 min,i stick now with nothing less then 30sec or longer then 3 min.

week 18

mon 8.20 mile @ 70%

tues 10.60 mile "4 mile tempo@90%=23.18/3min rec/4x70sec hills @ 95%"

weds 8.10 mile @ 71%

thurs 8.56 mile "5x1000mtr rec 2:30/3.27,3.18,3.21,3.17,3.16".

fri 10.02 mile very easy legs sore

sat 8.12 mile "8x70sec hills @85-95%"

sun 6.50 mile @ 77%

weeks total 58.20 mile yttd 865.43 miles.

Really pleased with the 1km on the track first time I have done anything like this on the track for 20 odd year.

You all take care keep on running.

Monday-Cross Training/48 min

Tuesday-8.5 mi/including 25 min threshold, with 6X 1 min surges

Wednesday-10 mi easy

Thursday-5 mi easy, did some pick ups, achilles started to ache a little so I cut back

Friday-6 mi easy

Saturday-8.5 mi with 5K race (25 F, snow and ice) eked under 18

Sunday-12

50 for the week, planning to bump it up some more for the rest of this month. No good local races for another 4-5 weeks.

WOC wrote:

I figure those low counts are like being at fairly high altitude ~ 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) or higher. Mike Lundgren, any speculation on that?

Mike L.,

I did some figuring, how sound, I'm not sure, but here goes:

My Red Blood Cells and Hemoglobin (Hgb) dropped 47% from the time of my oncologist check-up November 5th to their lowest counts after the stem cell transplant on April 28th. I never had to get a transfusion either, Hgb needs to drop below 8.0 for that, my low was 8.3.

The partial pressure of oxygen drops 50% from sea level to 5,800 meters (over 19,000 feet). That is higher than Mt. Everest South Base Camp (17,600 feet). No wonder many cancer patients experience fatigue and have a difficult time throughout treatment, particularly the sedentary.

I'm most likely an outlier or an insignificant example of one, but since being symptomatic the beginning of December until being discharged May 3rd, that was 5 months where training was specifically done to hopefully improve my treatments and survival while also decreasing treatment side effects. I still have a long way to go, but I like the results so far. If we can just get more data on other patients, and substantiate what I've heard numerous times from oncology staff, 'fit people do better'.

some interesting hints in this interview. At around 32mins the esepcially relevant info (i.e. 50+ training/racing) starts.

Apologies if this has been previously posted.

Cheers

Thanks lucKY2b

Once upon a time I was also "that guy" and would have run/jogged home and have a grade 3 tear. I've not learned very much over the years, however I have at least learned a little.

I'm getting deep tissue massage, on anti-inflammatories, slowly stretching/strengthening, doing ultrasound etc. A week to 3 weeks is my predicted time away from running.

I will attempt the elliptical tonight and later in the week cycling if it's feeling OK. For the first time in around 20 years I went pool running earlier this week.

I remember now why I swore I would never pool run again once I had "retired" from the sport "proper".

I am finding time to post on LR during the week - obviously some space in my day is vacant when I am not running.

Cheers for now.

Really enjoyed the hill workout article. Had not seen some of the versions (ie., skipping) they recommended.

I worked out with a "coach" last summer and he had us focus on form while we did our low-grade hill repeats (7% grade hill 15x 3 min climbs). He would watch us run uphill and point out if we were digging into the hill too much with our feet and pushing off with our quads and calves. What he wanted instead was for us to "tap" the ground with our feet, and use our quads to do that. The goal was to focus on driving our heels into our butts to get that forward momentum.

He also had us do alot of quad and hip strengthening exercises to facilitate this.

I found his method less taxing on my calves/achilles.

DrT wrote:

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2013/05/podcast-014-mike-blackmore/

some interesting hints in this interview. At around 32mins the esepcially relevant info (i.e. 50+ training/racing) starts.

Apologies if this has been previously posted.

Cheers

Thanks, I enjoyed listening to his perspective. When he talked about "threshold" was that like current 5k pace or a little slower? I'm always a little confused about tempo vs threshold.

jroden wrote:

Thanks, I enjoyed listening to his perspective. When he talked about "threshold" was that like current 5k pace or a little slower? I'm always a little confused about tempo vs threshold.

I believe Mike said his threshold pace was about 5:20 per mile , which, in his case, is about 25 seconds per mile slower than his 5K race pace of 4:54. "Tempo" is a bit of a nebulous term tossed about and most of the time is defined as 10K pace + 10 or so seconds per mile.

That was a great podcast.

Thanks for all the great responses to the hillwork question, really useful thoughts & links there. I plan to continue my undulating runs, putting a bit more effort into some of the climbs, will add a long sustained uphill section to my long run, and will add uphill form-strides 1-2x a week. If this goes well, will look at tackling short or long hill repeats in 6-8 weeks time.

My understanding of 'tempo' pace is the pace you can hold for about an hour (racing) which is approximately the pace above which you start to accumulate oxygen debt at an unsustainable rate (i.e. anaerobic threshold). For a 60-minute 10k runner this is 10k pace, for a 60-min 10miler this is 15k/10mi pace. Which also probably ties in quite well with 5k pace+25s/mi and 10k pace+10s/mi.

Andrew

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Week 101

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Greetings all. I'm posting early and briefly this week. We lost my wife's dad last night, so there are lots of things to do. Running will take a back seat this coming week. It kind of petered out this week, too, with finals and what not. Managed 36.7 miles on 5 days.

Sun: 0 lousy weather, then a wedding

Mon: 8.2 w/1.4@6:05 + post-run

Tue: 8.0 moderate in 56:36 + post-run + upper

Wed: 7.2 w/5.22 in 34:02 (on our hilly track, haha) + statics

Thur: 5.0 easy on grass

Fri: 0 rainy, end of semester grading

Sat: 8.3 (1:00:30) with a couple of sub-6:30 miles.

No intervals, but I did intensify the overall pace this week. Wednesday was kinda weird; went to the track and just didn't feel like intervals, so I was just going to run with someone that wanted to just chat and do laps. Ran a 7:27 first mile, but then we just started ramping it up, by the end of the third mile, we were sub-6:00 pace, then we eased off. At that point, I lost my partner, and I did it again, starting at 7:00 pace and finishing around 5:35 pace. Including the first slow mile, I came through 10k @41:29. It felt good and controlled. It was the only thing noteworthy for the week. Upon the news, I bowed out of a race Saturday, mowed our overgrown lawn and went out for a run.

Hope you all have better weeks to report. Don't forget to hug your family and tell them how much they mean to you. Best regards.