Oh, and welcome tgcrun! Thanks for the input. You've been doing something right, that's for sure!
Oh, and welcome tgcrun! Thanks for the input. You've been doing something right, that's for sure!
Sorry to hear of your hamstring not clearing up lucKY. What an apropos discussion. My running was brought to a screeching halt when both knees quickly acted up. I think, unfortunately, their is no ONE answer for us. My number one problem is I do not have the patience it takes to give my body time to heal. Once again I look to others I admire for advice. Ed Whitlock can take an entire year off and come back. Who among us can wait a year? When he starts back it can be a short as 10 min a day, then he adds a minute a day as he feels. Then every run is easy except a race every week or two. He takes time off when he feels he needs it. Learning that "feel" is another thing I lack. He is the first to note that each of us is unique and his method may not work for others. So I am back to walking an hour a day for the time being. I like walking but I love running.
Alan Bennet wrote:
Thanks. So it CAN be done.
tgcrun wrote:I do a little lifting ...
Please say more.
15 minutes twice a week. Core machines, leg machines (press, curls, extensions, calf raises), dumbbells (curls and arm presses). Low weights, 1 set of 10 reps for each exercise. I also recently started using an inversion table which seems to be helping my neck. I forgot to mention in my original post that I see a chiropractor for tuneups every other month or so and get a massage before and after the 3 or 4 marathons I run each year.
The week is in the books now. I'm up to 51 miles for the week and it went reasonably well.
M - 8 easy, felt tired
T - 8 easy, felt tired
W - 8 easy, felt tired
Th - 8 easy, felt good and ave HR dropped about 15 bpm at a faster pace
F - 4 easy, felt really tired
S - 9 moderate to hard, felt OK
Su - 6 really easy, felt OK but legs really dead
Without a doubt this is all just one big experiment. Maybe, just maybe, someone will gather the clinical and anecdotal research and write a book that really matters to the next generation of Masters Runners 50+. Or is it 45+ when your injuries began?. Or 48+ when mine did? All those M40-47 days were banner years of sub 2:00 for 800 and sub 4:10 for 1500. And a LOT of nasty workouts in spikes on cold wet blustery oregon outdoor tracks. Reckon THAT's what happened. Alas. I wouldn't trade it for anything. For that's just it. If you are a Master with a running lifestyle to compete you will always be living on the edge of injury and bliss.
KP
Uh Oh, the Moving Knot of Pain (MKoP) has reared its ugly head again for some of us....heal up, guys!
Today I ventured out to the big bad scary track for my first track workout in over 9 weeks. I was nervous! How would my foot hold up? Would I re-tear my tendon? Can I do this? Etc. I had been running on the treadmill with 10-15 second burst of speed (rising up on the toes, sprinter-style). I was ready to test out my foot. So I got there and I warmed up with my drills. So far, so good, no pain. Next was the workout - my plan was 5x80 and 5 stadium stair flights. There was a very friendly cross fit/book camp group who just happened to be setting up some 80m intervals and they graciously asked me if I wanted to jump in. My new friends were going to do 10x80 with a jog back so I decided to do every other one with them. Gradual acceleration, hit about 80% top effort, gradual relaxing and easing off the gas was my plan.
So you guys know that boot camp people can be very fit but they generally are not very fast. I left every one of them in the dust (even the instructor, ha!) He asked what I was training for and I said coming back from foot surgery for sprinting and hurdling. He said, "Coming back??" I have to admit, this was all good for my ego and let's face it - coming back can be a humbling experience so sometimes we need a boost, right?
Anyway, I finished the sprints and my stair flights with no foot pain. I am going to be sore from the effort but my tendon handled the load. I'm very happy! So there you have a positive report. Hopefully I can keep building on this. Keep at it, wise masters!
Howdy! It's been a few years since I've posted. Things got too busy for several years, but I did manage to lurk on the thread quite often, and was tempted to put in my 2 cents at times. I saw the talk a month or 2 back on Daniels and a question about combining workout stuff and thought I might be able to help with an idea or two, that might be helpful to some.
I have 2 hard effort days each week. Ideally one is on the track ,usually on Tuesdays. The Saturday one is either 4x90 sec ( Pete Magill ) hills, or 6 to 9 short hill sprints. ( I get injured doing drills), or a 2-3 mile Tempo (depending on my fitness). With the short hills I'll often do a 1-2 mile tempo after the hills.
With the Sat runs I try to add some mileage after the workout stuff to make the total running time between 60 to 75 minutes twice a month, usually 2 weeks out from a race. I used to try to get near 90 minutes, but at age 61, it;s too long.
I'll post more, but since it;s been so long, I want to see if this will post, rather than blast off into cyberspace.
Week 240: 8 hours 2 minutes in 7 runs. Mon - 60 mins easy Tue - 60 mins baby fartlek, about 6 or 7 minutes of faster running Wed - 60 mins slow Thu - 60 mins on the fast side of easy Fri - 60 mins easy Sat - 2 hours with 30 mins warmup, 30 mins MP, 60 mins zone 2Sun - 1 hr 2 mins slow, some run/walk at the end to keep the effort low in a strong headwind
old guy II wrote:
I seem to be able to increase mileage and intensity for about 8-9 weeks and then either get injured or start feeling over-trained.
That sounds about right. I have done both with and without fallback weeks. With fallback weeks works better.
muddy girl wrote:
I slipped in the snow/ice in my suit and heeled boots and strained my abdominals catching myself. But this seems to be a minor setback - just a bit annoying.
I did that, minus the heels. :) The setback proved to be more than minor. Be cautious, the core is used for everything, so the abdominals do not bounce back quickly from a strain.
@mopak - Nice to see you back in the kayak.
@lucKY2b - I thought with your hamstring injury it would be many weeks (possibly many many) before you would be back to running.
Looks like that post worked.
Oh also sometimes I just run 10 miles with a Saturday group, and skip any of the quicker stuff, but my long run almost always includes the other workout stuff. I don't try to have the long run as a 3rd workout day in the week.
At best I try to run 6 days a week during the season to try for around 30 miles weekly, but otherwise I'll pretty much run 4 days a week, including the hard stuff. All other days are slow and shorter, usually 4 miles, though I'll sometimes go up to 6 miles. Slow is at least 90 seconds slower than Daniels easy pace. That's just my body, but I do carry a watch just in case I go might be tempted to go too fast, and that hardly ever happens.
I find Daniels workouts are too hard for me. I do use his pace ideas, knowing myself. As a 1500 runner, I can only handle his interval pace for between a 6 to 800...on good days. I rarely can hit his Tempo pace, but do try to. 5 or 15 seconds off his pace, is still a good workout.
I'm just 3 months from a 4 1/2 month lay off. Was injured a lot in High school and college, so long and longer down times are just part of the sport. I'm advising a friend who has been running for a couple years now and has made the top US 7 in a couple events in the 60-64 AG. Having not run for 35 years, he's still in that kill the next workout mode, no matter how often I try to caution. He's been pretty lucky so far, and is even is talking about doing 3 hard workouts a week, so it looks like I'm going to have to let him go with that, and hope for the best.
It's great to see that the thread is picking up more and more people. I'll keep lurking, and maybe chime in once in awhile.
Best of luck!
Okay, no one asked and I seriously don't want to invoke some sort of bad juju and end up injured but here's some input anyway. I'm not near one of the top runners here but did 17:01 5K/1:18 half marathon at 51 and have done 17:18 5K /1:19 half post-55. From 50-55 I averaged about 1800 to 2000 miles a year running, and another 1000-1200 of XC skiing (October-November through March). That cross training break helped with healing, and some 20 or 25 years of that over my adult life has probably helped with longevity.I have had one Major injury since turning 50, and it was fairly major. Other than that other than a few dings and slow downs, have managed to stay fairly healthy. The big injury, which I've discussed here before, was that I fell on my knee in the midst of marathon training and ended up with a bone bruise that resulted in fracture in my knee and some arthritis. That happened in the end of 2009. I ran for 3 months in spring 2010, but re-injured it in summer 2010. So I had about 15 months in total with little or running, but was able to XC ski through much of that. It took another year (through 2011 to fully heal). Now it aches here and there most every day, but I rarely have to stop or slow down.Other than that, I've had a hip flexor strain from marathon training when I was 50 (no time off, just some rehab and reduced mileage for a couple weeks), and in 2014 I took two weeks off during mid-summer to allow some tendinitis in my knee to heal up. Last summer I had neck/shoulder pain, likely a cervical disk that's getting arthritic, but it didn't stop me. Two weeks of anti-inflammatories and a month of PT has mostly cleared up.My training sort of sucks compared to the average hard core bear. A scoffable workout regime for sure. Not getting hurt happens to be a primary concern, so I undertrain. I am really wimpy about doing hard intervals at 3K to 5K pace, which was my bread and butter back when I was in my 20s and 30s. I do a lot of tempos (long and shorter), pick ups about 2X a week, and some fartlek. Sometimes all of those are mixed into a workout. I do some hill reps, and a lot of training on trails/mountains during the summer. About 6 months of the year I do a light set of drills and dynamic stretching 2X a week.Except for 2015 I have done weights and core strength 2X a week (but XC skier emphasis, not running so much). Pull ups, push ups, dips, and triceps-emphasis free weights. I slacked off on all that last year but picked it up in December, because I think that stuff is important. I'm also pretty fat and stocky for a runner, about 150-52 at 5'9.5". What I lacked in talent as a younger runner, I've made up for in longevity post age 45. I can't explain why, but XC skiing might have had something to do with it.
Alan Bennet wrote:
I am so disillusioned with the role models on this thread. Isn't there anybody in M50+ territory who can train injury-free for at least a year? Bueller?
Feeling really good.
2 workouts of note:
am 12 mile walk in 3.5 hours
pm 3 miles on the treadmill with 3 x 3 minutes with equal recovery. 12% grade and 6mph . What was interesting about this is just how tired my leg muscles were when doing the 3 x 3 minutes. I really think the long walk in the morning really fatigued a lot of fibers without much damage. So hopefully the second workout is a safe way to get a stimulus.
am 12.5 mile hilly hike in 220 minutes . This was pretty easy and I was tempted to do more but shut it down.
So now I am leaning towards building up to a whole bunch of long walks each week. I want to hit 15 miles at least 4 days a week. This will take a few months to safely reach.
The 9 minutes of hard running per week will stay the same until I get my walking miles built up.
I got in 39 miles this week including a 5K race yesterday and two days off. My 5k was a low-key event on a gently undulating course where I ended up 2nd master. I was close to my PR so I'm happy with how I raced early in the season. This year I'm focusing on longer races (8K-15K) and looking forward to racing some flat courses instead of the hilly ones near me.
Like so many of you, I bounce from being injured to being healthy. I thought I'd know when to pull back from the brink of injury but that's my weakness. Although I've learned from each of my injuries, the possible variations on a theme seem to be endless and it's always a new body part that fails. I'm still struggling to find that sweet spot where I can stay uninjured and still improve so I'm trying to be better about cross training, strength work, and rest days. I know that I'd rather take the risk that goes with running "fast" every once in a while than run slowly every day and stay uninjured.
Aw, RLB! So nice to hear from you!
I had two chiropractic adjustments this week, which helped a lot - but I don't run after them, so I had a few zero days this week ;(
But I ran, gently, yesterday in two runs, for a total of an hour. And today, in glorious sunshine and 39-40 degrees, ran around 11 miles, mostly on trails - and it was wonderful! I started at a lower elevation so I could do more of the run where it wasn't so icy/slippery - and there was some ice at the highest elevation, so I was careful there - but the rest of it was purely a joy. I kept my breathing very easy and my stomach, although still a little sore, was fine.
No hard workouts for me yet until the pain is totally gone, but at least I can do easy running!
Co57 wrote:
Obviously I'm neither fast nor fit enough to be considered a role model ...
... reminded me of this:
Charles Barkley said:
I am not a role model.
It doesn't work like that.
Cool to see our thread growing with new, informative posts and new posters...
Pretty happy to report I seem to be no longer an injured runner. Still a little sick, but for the first time in forever I have been running pain free. Did this Achilles tendonosis finally heal? Maybe its been a combination of the night boot, daily heel dips, and laser treatments. Running with no pain changes my entire outlook on life...Keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way.
Still fighting this stupid cold. Mostly congestion and a little coughing. Doesn't bother me while running but I need it to be gone.
Going to be rebuilding my base for awhile. Might add some weekly light tempo just to keep me honest. Got in about 46 miles last week of just relaxed comfortable running. Missed Wednesday because I just felt drained after working in the freezing cold all day. Took a hot bath instead...
M: 7 miles @ 7:24 Prog .1 mph each 1/2 mi from 8:00 to 6:49
T: 7.2 miles @ 7:42
W: Off
T: 4 miles @ 7:37
F: am: 4 miles @ 7:30 pm: 6.2 miles @ 7:34
S: 10 miles @ 7:20
S: 7.2 miles @ 7:46 on a freezing cold windy icy snowy day
Thinking about a HM in Greenville SC at the end of February... We'll see how the training goes for the next few weeks.
Have a good week,
Dave
tgcrun wrote:
I'm 61. In October I ran a 2:59 marathon and last fall I ran a 2:55. Last month I ran a 1:26 half. I haven't had a running related injury in years. .
You are my new hero :-)
Dave,
If you're talking about the GHS HM, it's fast with a net downhill. The new finish this year removes the hills that came at the finish...
lucKY2b wrote:
My buddy keeps suggesting I go for a deep massage...considering it.
As someone who has suffered from hamstring strain way too many times, I strongly second this suggestion. (Maybe I should have chosen "Hamstring Strain" as my HN.)
As I wrote last week, my new year's resolution is avoiding injuries. To achieve this, I approach my daily running as follows.
1. Keep my "hard" runs easy.
2. Keep my "easy" runs even easier.
And let's see how much I can improve by just being consistent. So here is the first week of my build-up for the next marathon.
M: off.
T: 7 miles.
W: 10 miles. (9th mile @7:53)
R: 7 miles.
F: 7 miles.
SA: 7 miles.
SU: 16.7 miles (last mile @ 7:28.)
Thanks MIke and rest of you. My weeks look like this:
m - heavy weights
t - 40 minutes and strides
w - weights
t - 40 minutes and strides
f - heavy weights
s - 30 minutes and strides
s - 50 minutes
This is up from 0-20 minutes in July after radiation. I'm going longer but no faster. The weights are great. Strong as I've ever been and much more muscle.
Frankly the weight probably has a lot to do with the speed. I'm 30 pounds above glory days and trust me, it s not all muscle.
My plan is to get to 45 min Tuesday and Thursday and 60 on Sunday. Then start 10K effort regulated fartleks on Tuesday and hill repeats on Saturday. I hope watching what I eat and the added intensity will drop some pounds.