50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Racerdb wrote:

Michael Rohl wrote:

Sunday 60 minutes 163 watts

I've never heard of 'watts' as a way of tracking effort. How is it done?

Dave

Watts is how you measure effort on the bike. I have a power meter in my pedals but they can be in your crank arm or hub too.

Guys, take a look at the sprints. Even the 1500 is noticeably harder than the mile. Above the mile is creampuff territory. I am more of an 800 guy, but while the 800 is tough, the 400 is out of reach for now, but the mile and 5K I could literally do any day of the week, 365.

They have always skewed it this way, not sure why. They sure don't consult the WMA tables, that's for sure.

Agreed, the road standards (at least for women 60-64) are a joke. Even the 5K mark is slower than I run my easy days. The marathon standard is a full minute per mile slower than Boston qualifying.

Weird -- the women's 55-59 5k is 27 minutes, but the 10k is 47 minutes? The 50-54 is the similar - how can that be? I think the 5ks are too slow.

MG

Muddy girl wrote:

Weird -- the women's 55-59 5k is 27 minutes, but the 10k is 47 minutes? The 50-54 is the similar - how can that be? I think the 5ks are too slow.

MG

27:05 and 58:00 for W55-59

Dave, power is emerging in triathlete corners as the lodestar (or whatever Mike Pence word you like) for output. It's an attempt to quantify this thing called effort that we normally gauge by feel. It's considered more accurate to what you're doing in the moment than HR, which is effectively a delayed reaction (by a few seconds) to whatever your body is powering through. So it's real time, it's more attuned to your effort that day than pace, and it's one number across all your disciplines. If you're into that kind of thing. Me, I try to keep it 7:35-8:00 on regular days, 9:00 on easy days and very specific metrics on workouts (like yesterday's 200s in 1:26 with :45 recovery) and call it good.

Let's get back to this one-meal-a-day thing -- also I'm still waiting for someone to chime in on taking a break, do you actually stop running or just dial it down to easy runs for 1-2 weeks...

Charlie wrote:

The Nolan Shaheed/Ed Whitlock program: Eating one meal a day and running 3 hours a day

All without aches or pains think about that one. Most all the runners I know accept aches and pains as part of the deal and I believe this is a mistake . Can an older person run hard and maintain good health?

OMAD is easy

Progressed from 18 hour IMF to One Meal A Day with 22 hours of fasting, if a little is good then a little more is better? Maybe.

Charlie, I'm not spindly Ed Whitlock in his prime. But I've tried 16+8 fasting and it just didn't work for me. Based on that I know OMAD wouldn't work for me.

What works for me? Eating when I'm hungry.

I promised myself I would not evangelize more for the plant based diet than for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (and I almost never do the latter but since I brought it up, knowing Jesus has in fact changed/improved/transformed me), that said, I would recommend spending a year slowing removing every non-plant-based food from your diet and then, when you're totally meat and dairy free, eating what you want and seeing what happens.

By the time we cut out the dairy we'd spent years getting meat out from the center of the plate and eating the kind of diet vegetarians eat while remaining omnivores. Then one day, as I've mentioned, due to moral concerns, largely about factory farming that gives America its meat and dairy, we cut out all meat and dairy and didn't look back.

Three months in, it's like nothing happened. The only marker I noticed going down was LDL, which NIH measures every year at checkup time. Two years ago, pre-running, it was at 66. Six weeks into being plant based, 34.

Weight is dropping, which is to be expected as my mileage is rising, and I'm burning 1000-1500 extra kcal/wk. But that brings us back to the original point. When I'm hungry(*) I eat. I live this way. And yet my weight is falling to what I consider optimum.

I suppose I could do that on OMAD but why try when this is working?? I won't get into the science of vegan diet over the long haul but I think vegans win that. Here's an entertaining summary that references the epic epidemiology of comparing vegans to ovo-lacto veg's to healthy-lifestyle omnivores:

Again, I didn't make the switch to be healthier, I did it because ethically I was moved to do it. But as it turns out, it's a pretty good diet for me, and the science suggests it would be great for anyone who just wants to eat eat eat and run run run.

(*)Full disclosure, I do fast before morning runs, even the ones where I throw in some MP pacing. Seems an easy way to burn fat. I'm a believer but I'm not dogmatic....

OK, that thing up there was an ad. Here's the video.

https://youtu.be/yKp8-X1zZqo

I’d love to hear Igy’s take on KCgeezer’s diet given that he was recently making fun of someone on another thread because of their vegan diet. What would you do differently, Igy, and why?

Westie wrote:

I’d love to hear Igy’s take on KCgeezer’s diet given that he was recently making fun of someone on another thread because of their vegan diet. What would you do differently, Igy, and why?

A more appropriate question is why you always try to stir up trouble on this thread with me as the focus?

KC glad you found a life style that are happy with.

Let me see it used to be drink before you are thirsty so you eat when you feel hungry maybe you should eat before you get hungry? Just kidding.

Why I OMAD:

Autophagy in all forms is the key to good health. Google that one and of course that is why I OMAD cause it might increase autophagy and over the last 16 months I have gradually increased my daily fast granted this is mostly just based upon how I feel .

Overall diet:

As far a meat well I eat meat but mainly organic chicken. I do not keto but do low carb. I enjoy plant based oils, organic olive oil and a little coconut oil. Organic nuts almonds and walnuts. Eat veggies daily mainly organic and about 500 calories of carbs so no keto for me just low carb.

I go about 70% plant based diet with a heavy emphasis on cruciferous vegetables - everything organic to keep out dangerous pesticides, which isn't good for our immune system as we age. Some organic chicken and eggs also for my protein needs. And a ton of fiber for gut health. No red meat as studies have shown that red meat & processed meats raise colon cancer risk.

Most of my life I ate like a slob and nothing organic, and thought that because I ran regularly & lifted weights, excercise trumps diet. Wrong!...in my early 50s (58 now), I developed a couple of pre-cancer pathologies, with one putting me in the hospital. That was the wake-up call and a complete revamping of my diet to organic plant based for the most part was the game changer, and quite a few dietary supplements to boot. This beats the toxic drugs I was put on that gave me nothing but side-effects and trips to the doctors.

Also, many people are unaware of this, but amino acids, and not glucose, fuels cancer cell proliferation. And I would guess most oncologists are also unaware of this or not informing their patients (I have a friend at the gym who was going through cancer treatment and was told by his oncologist to just eat "whatever you want," that diet isn't important...amazing. Now I'm thoroughly convinced that most M.D.s have little understanding of nutritional science).

http://news.mit.edu/2016/how-cancer-cells-fuel-their-growth-0307

Well, I am back and ready to report in! Interesting discussing eating habits, fasting, hunger, personal values with foods, etc. I think we all try to eat "better" "healthier" as we age, simply cause it feels better than loading up on McD's and fries. I have not given up on meats, but do limit it to about every other day of a white meat at one meal. Cannot imagine giving up on my milk-based yogurts, though.

My Des Moines 1/2 was weird, big winds the day before for our drive up (gusts to 30-35 mph!), so gave me pause. After testing my racing flats (LunaRacers) in the hotel hallway the night before, I decided to go with lightweight trainers instead. Partly d/t fitness levels, partly to the weather forecast.

Only had about 1/2 mile warm-up, plus some walking to and from the car and the porta-potties. Temp was 27 and headwinds of 7 mph or more on the way out (windchill of 19!). So went with long-sleeve Breathe-Thermo, a lightweight jacket(!) fully zipped up, gloves, headband and compression shorts. Through the first mile in 9:54, and felt good in heavy traffic, gradually picked it up but never felt like moving into a race gear until about 1/2-way. Always felt the need for the jacket (unlined) and never took it off till 2 miles to go. My final mile (per Garmin) was 8:54, and a finish of 2:05:09, for 9th of 24 in the 65-69. Felt good about how I raced, given that my longest run had been 13.5 miles 3 weeks ago. I could afford to lose a couple pounds and if I had done longer runs and more speedwork, perhaps gone under 2. But 3rd in my age group was 1:50 this year, and the winner ran 1:40!!! I think my half-way split was around 1:08:45 or 50, and so am pleased with that, but know I can be faster, too.

So this longer race feels like my fall tradition and that is good. My Garmin says that I ran only 113 feet of elevation total, so I encourage this race for anyone seeking a very fast course, with nice awards (etched mugs with your name and time on them).

Plus my wonderful wife, who has had to deal with ongoing issues with her Mom's health, won her 5 km age group in 26:15, by 5 seconds. She was pushed by another woman who got alongside her in the last mile, and so forced her into a solid kick into the finish. It was fun for her, though she was very disappointed with her time. Fact is, she's not running 20 miles/week yet, and a windchill of 20 degrees at the start will slow anyone down.

Thanks to all that mentioned me in above posts, hope your aches and pains go away and you can enjoy some great fall training and racing weather.

MikeL,

I have been thinking about you and glad the race ran as planned.

Igy

Reference Diet: In 1975 I was training at high altitude running in a range of 100-175 miles a week. My wife for ethical reasons started cooking meatless trying to balance the various nutritional needs. We both contracted severe respiratory illness and I am sure there were other contributing factors. The end result was back to balanced meals made from scratch, featuring plenty of fruits and vegetables. I take two meals at work cereal (Kashi) and soup (Healthy Choice), substituting left overs for lunch several days a week. Saturday evening I had meatless pasta and Monday evening a New York steak. So it varies. I believe science supports a balanced diet for most situations including cancer survivors and athletes. General thought is to do more of whatever works for you.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Westie wrote:

I’d love to hear Igy’s take on KCgeezer’s diet given that he was recently making fun of someone on another thread because of their vegan diet. What would you do differently, Igy, and why?

A more appropriate question is why you always try to stir up trouble on this thread with me as the focus?

I’m not trying to stir up anything. I’m honestly interested in why you disparage vegans.

In fairness, vegans do kind of invite mockery. The joke, "How do you know the vegan in the room? Don't worry, he'll tell you," is oh so true. I'm not doing a great job of keeping it to myself on this thread, and it does seem to come up in conversations. But once we hold our first plant-based thanksgiving (everyone's been warned I won't be smoking a turkey this year), I think we'll have exhausted it as a table topic. Also, it seems like EVERY vegan evangelist has some weird take on diet. That Youtuber I really like, Mic the Vegan, is adamantly anti-oil, to the point where he makes everything in an Instant Pot just so he can avoid using evil oil -- despite not being able to point to much scientific literature that links EVOO to anything other than deliciousness. Regarding lo-carb diets -- it's definitely true that athletes are starting to withhold carbs before and during some workouts. Matt Fitzgerald wrote about this in The Endurance Diet:

These so-called carb-fasted workouts are based on recent science showing that depriving the body of carbohydrates enhances certain fitness-boosting adaptations in training ... Your muscles respond by making new mitochondria, [which] enable you to go faster and farther before hitting the wall. So although consuming carbs enhances performance within workouts, it inhibits some of the fitness-boosting physiological adaptations that result from workouts. (183)

Fitzgerald's third tenet of his endurance diet is "Eat Carb-Centered," so that's an important caveat. Here's a post he wrote while promoting his book:

Me, I just can't live without carbs. And with all the calories I burn, it's very satisfying to make carbs a huge part of my diet. I did steal the idea of running a.m. workouts in a fasted state from Fitzgerald, though.

Well, I must have been delirious when looking at my watch at about 6.55 miles, and so I just calculated what it might have read. So my Garmin gave me 13.18 miles for the race, which makes sense cause you cannot run all the tangents when there's another thousand runners around you. Anyhow, my split for 6.59 miles would be ABOUT 1:05:09, so I ran my last 1/2 in 1:00:00. That makes more sense than what I wrote earlier. So I feel like I dealt with the early headwinds smartly and had plenty to race with when turning back. Yes, I had a little bit left in the tank, but with limited training, it's always nice to finish strong. I did stagger a bit for 5 minutes after, so it wasn't like I hadn't run a race! :)

Thanks Igy, it was fun. Though I am "only" 67, I looked at the 70+ results and the winner ran 2:16. Aging might have some benefits yet!

I do feel like there is a risk to eating foods that have been raised with herbicides, pesticides and steroids. I'll say no more for now.

Old Cat Runner wrote:

Now I'm thoroughly convinced that most M.D.s have little understanding of nutritional science).

I thought that was the best takeaway from that Netflix film that had everyone's hair on fire a while back. Doctors are there to treat. They don't know doody about prevention. Once hospitals are owned by insurers and forced to slash costs, they'll start adding nutritionists to their teams -- good ones, too, not the lame ones they usually hire.