Masters Weekend Races and Runs

Thanks 1500Master.

I'm delighted to have just participated in Clingan's mile. Tony and Pete racing up ahead in the WR/AR attempt race followed by the second pack with Reno, Cannon, Burleson, Nolan,, and my happy no hammy problem self. It was, as you said, a great event with arguably the deepest oldest quality field ever assembled. I ran 4:36 Thursday night at our Nike Mile too... but this one yesterday was way more self esteem building if I don't say so myself. Heavy legs and all. Cannon is a man to watch this summer. Lookout!

KP

WHOA! Great results from yesterday's mile...nice going guys. In fact lots of remarkable track performances yesterday ie. high schooler Fernandez 4:00/8:34 double and Usain Bolt's WR 9.72...the Portland Master's Mile ranks right up there with the best of them...and the real track season is just getting warmed up...looking forward to 10 days in Eugene!

Managed about 40 this week (as soon as I get this morning's 11 in) with long repeats on the road one day and intense time trial on Dipsea another day...Dipsea, for which I feel hugely unprepared, is next Sunday (gulp).

Here's to good training and racing as we head into June

MF

Great times in the mile. I think NW Master is just trying to stay a step ahead of his son, but he may not be able to hold his ground next year. Another decent week - should hit close to 50 miles with today's workout, unless I opt to do a track workout instead of my long run. Right now I'm brewing a batch of Pilsner, which is my version of cross-training.

I was one of several upstate NY masters who ran in the Chase Corporate Challenge in Rochester on Thursday. I was in a good pack that went through 5:30 for the first mile, and I maintained my focus and worked my way up over the next 2.5 miles. Tom Ryan passed me after about 1.5 miles, but I keep contact with him and even had a finishing kick to pull even with my teammate Alan Evans. Jim Derick gutted out a decent race in spite of running a 2:40 marathon on Sunday and being out with stomach flu on Wednesday. Probably the best thing was convincing a couple of newer runners to race, which enabled us to qualify two teams for the championships.

Hats off to ALL the milers. What a race! Indeed Cannon (in my age group) has been running extremely well for at least a year now, and of course a WR (congrats T.Y.) is always something amazing. The mile is seeming really long to me now with the move down to 400 meter training. It seems more "scary" all of a sudden.

Friday: 300 meter time trial. Uncharted territory, VERY fun distance. Exceeded expectations with 41.1 and look to be on target for the goal sub 57.5 (All American) for 400. Upcoming Thursday is the first such attempt at an all comers meet. Just run it like the Clyde Hart Baylor 400 folk (push, pace, position, pray, in that order).

Sprint training continues to be very different than anything I'm familiar with. My warmups, cooldowns and everyday running have all gone completely down to unbelievably slow and ugly (and unpleasant). The fast stuff is getting better and better.

Congratulations Portland milers! Amazing performances.

I had a good track workout wednesday -- 5 X 1600 meters (400 jog) at goal 5k pace (intended 5:20, averaged 5:19), then 3 easy days, then today......a disappointing 5k race 9th place [2nd in AG] in 17:20. 30 seconds slower than same race last year. I knew I wasn't quite as sharp as this time in '07, but I'd anticipated maybe 17:00 -- 17:05.

Not sure what the problem was. Not the pacing really. It was uneven, but that's the nature of the course [first half down, second half back up] -- relative to the last two years I just went about 10 sec slow each mile. Maybe not used to weather change yet? (only 65 this morning, but 94% humidity). Or just an off day and I need to shake it off.

have a great week.

Wow, what a week. Busy at work, daughter's track meet, & a couple of races of my own. Taking the train back to Seattle from Portland last night was a nice, mentally relaxing finish.

Ended a good hard training block (6 wks or so) of "speed endurance." Entered a couple of weeks of scheduled races. Just plan to hit all distances and jog in-between.

Weds 800m @ CNW All-Comers (1:56.9). First time racing, so I just hung back until the last 250m and then went. Suprised how good I felt (& recovered) afterwards.

Sat "DAVE CLINGAN'S MASTER MILE" (4:16.09 WR for my age!). What a great event on a gorgeous NW afternoon, with some of the coolest old competitors/friends I know. Always a treat to race with these guys, especially if I can compete.

The race: Knew that Ahrlin (35) would go out in :64 and I thought that would feel comfy for the first half and then see how I felt. I really wanted a negative split race. Splits were :64 and :66, so I just slowly inched the pace all the way to :63+ and :62+. Never redlined, but maintained the hard rhythm. Again, felt recovered quickly (always a good sign).

Yes, my son (16 today) is shocked that I beat his HS times this week, but has told me that it won't last. I love it!

Thanks Dave, Pete, Jonathan, Jeff (not Peter?), KP, MR Shaheed, and my incredible (and one to watch) training partner David Cannon (51) for making it a special day.

Cheers,

tOnY

'Good on ya' to everyone who raced well yesterday.

Had an excellent weekend of running. My sisters (two fo them) flew in for a race so I got to watch them in a 1/2 marathon. I didn't race but it was fun to watch.

I got in my normal Sat workout (SS) and a longer run 20+ today. I haven't done a 20 mile training run in 3 years I don't think. I'll pay for it tomorrow.

Nice Race Tony!

Race Video -

http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?do=view&video_id=4462

I'm just amazed and humbled. It's incredible to me.

Great race in Portland...so cool I can watch the video right away.

I wish I would of known about it earlier I would of checked it out since I was actually up in Portland Thurs thru Sat. afternoon for work.

Been dealing with a super sore hamstring. Ran an ez 35 min in GG Park today but had to walk at the end. I can job a slow 20 min then the soreness kicks in.

I might try accupuncture...anyone had any luck with that?

Trying to strenghten and stretch for a change too.

Great High School double yesterday at the Cal State meet...4flat and 8:34...crazy. Have a good week everyone.

See you in Eugene

Dave H - I went through a similar phase, and it took a few 5ks for things to click. Your Wednesday workout is pretty tough, so it may have taken a little more out of you than you realize. I toned my track workout down to 2 1600 mile intervals on Tuesday, and even though I pushed the second one a little harder than planned, my legs were pretty fresh on Thursday. The other thing I've realized is that even though my endurance is good enough for long runs, and my track intervals are better than they were when I was running PRs last summer, my stamina is not quite where it needs to be. I'll be doing more tempo runs to work on that this month.

What an outrageous track weekend --Tony's WR, Bolt's WR, and German's incredible double. To quote an old commercial, "Too Much Good Stuff!" Nyloco, congrats on your performance. You are strong and solid. Hope that you are feeling good too.

I can relate to Tracklover's revelation that all of his speed work has caused his distance work to suffer. I'm skipping the pentathlon in Spokane for several reasons --I'm still working on my jumps and my technique is less than stellar, I want to avoid another over-use injury, and since I'm been doing 100% speed work my sprint times have plunged. My 100 meter times have dropped about .4 from last summer's national meet. So I'm faster than ever, but jogging an 800 meter warmup can leave me winded! It seems that it's either one or the other.

Two track workouts, 2 weight workouts this week. I had to skip a track workout. I lifted pretty heavy on Wednesday during my lunch hour (we have a fitness center at work) and that afternoon I had a presentation and meeting that lasted about 2 hours. I was wearing heels and didn't have the luxury of kicking them off under the table --in other words, I had to sit like a lady! Then standing in heels after doing calf raises resulted in calf muscles that were so sore and knotted the pain and spasms woke me up in the middle of the night. Time for some Magic Motrin. I had to skip Thursday's practice because I had two lumps of lead in my calves. But I recovered and had a killer good workout this morning. I'm starting to think that sub 13 seconds in both the 100 meters and 80 meter hurdles are realistic. Wish me luck!

OK everyone, have an exceptional week! And once again, congratulations to you stud milers!

I was just thinking about how many great outdoor mile opportunities there are for us masters. My short list in no particular order is:

Clingan Mile - Portland

Drake Relays Mile (low turnout this year)

Bob Mathis Mile - San Francisco

Hayward Classic - Eugene

Dan Aldrich Memorial - Irvine (is this still held?)

Any good mid-west/east coast miles that draw a good masters crowd?

I've left out the beer mile I host in August. ;-) It is scheduled for August 16, the weekend after national's.

1500Master

Matt, thanks for starting the thread this week, what a great video, congrats to Tony ! so cool to watch.

I know it wasn't, but you guys make it look easy. Great stuff.

I got in just under 55 miles, with a 16 miler yesterday, which was the first warm, humid day we've had here in New York.

I'm thinking again of doing a 3K on Tuesday, if only to see if the track is still smoking from last night's 9.72. My goals are a bit more modest than some of you guys' and I don't know if I can get any speed since I'm now in marathon-training mode. But it should be fun.

As to the masters' mile question, I don't know of any in the New York area at least. We have great and deep competitions on the roads, but not so much on the track, even with the availability of the great Icahn facility. I am, however, very much looking forward to the USATF X-C champs next year in Maryland/D.C.

Wow what an amazing weekend. Very inspiring to me after a bouts with kidney cancer and recently prostatitis. I am no where near what you gents are doing but it is giving me inspiration to get back out and try. Happy trails over the next week.

Tony,

Congratulations to you and your son (Northwest Minor?) on a great week of miling.

I have seen many Father / Son running combos across generations. Are there any track stat heads out there that can put what you and your son have simultaneously done in some perspective? I can’t imagine too many 8:35 2 x mile combos in the same week from a father and son!

I wish you and your son the best of health as you battle the spot as top miler of the Young house.

Brian

Congratulations there, Tony. Your mile race was a very remarkable performance. Mr. Clingan put together a formidable masters/seniors field.

I'm maintaining baseline fitness, been over-extended lately.

Nice work on the record, Tony!

Decent week here. I was recovering from last Saturday/Sunday when I raced 10k then paced the marathon the next morning, with a good chunk (~ 10 miles) at my marathon pace, and another chunk (~ 6-7 miles) just a little slower. Legs were a little heavy/sore through Thursday.

So this week was ~ 68 miles. Included 8 x 200 w/2:00 walk Friday (a little quicker than 800 pace) and then 6 x 300 w/90s walk today (a little slower than 800 pace). Running fast wasn't quite as easy as it was during indoors back in March (since then I've been training for the HM and a 10k), but not TOO bad.

Summer track will start for me this Wednesday with a 1500. I predict pain. :-)

Have a great week, everyone!