50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

mo'pak wrote:

Mon 28/5 -am. 18 min/4km hilly run then 45 min kyak session.
late pm. after work did weight session then ran 4kms barefoot on grass track. Temps close to 0 deg C. both am and pm.
Tue 29/5 -am. 70 min run on the steep rocky trails from home.
Wed 30/5 -am. 15 min brisk run over the hills near the lake, thick fog. 50 mins of kyakking with virtually zero vis. through pea soup fog, pretty spooky!

Hope to get out for a long run, maybe my 25km hill loop tomorrow as I have the day off. I do have to get down to Melbourne (100+kms) to mow my daughter's lawn and visit my parents.
Hoping to get out for a good long session on the bike on friday, another day off.
Theis weekend there is another clubs 5k invitation race on saturday. Sunday is a relay event. 3 x 1400m x3. So basically 3x 1400m with about around 10 mins recovery, quite a hard event.

Thursday, I was quickly running out of daylight but stopped near my 25km loop and ran 18 extremely hilly kms splitting 49 and 42m.
Friday, I made the mistake of not getting out on the bike early instead got stuck into some work around the house. I noticed a pool of water forming on the front lawn. Investigations revealed the ancient galvanised water pipe had split. So much for getting out on the bike.
Saturday, I stayed home to finish off my plumbing duties so no 5k race. I went out later and cruised through a hilly 95 min. run
Sunday, our rather bizarre relay event. 9 teams of 3 runners each runner runs 3 legs of 1400m.
The race is also handicapped to try and even the teams up. The strongest team started nearly a full 1400m lap behind the weakest, they still managed to win.
My legs were 5.05 (2.33/2.32 splits),5.10 (2.35/2.35) and 5.04 (2.33/2.31). I felt I'd run flat out on each leg but obviously subconciously held back particularly on the 2d one. My last leg left me feeling shattered but I recovered quite quickly.
The results are always interesting. Quite a few runners who finish 1-2 mins behind me in the 5-8k events were able to run at least one leg faster than me.
Not sure whether that means I should get stuck into some serious speedwork or that they should do a lot more endurance work, probably both.
I did about 4k of warming up and then ran 6k after the event, booting home the last 1/2 quite quickly as I felt quite fresh. Also went out and did a 90 minute mtn bike ride in the forest.

mo'pak

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/4/2012 7:41PM - in reply to AK-54

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AK-54 wrote:

As others have indicated the US has a plethora of running "clubs" (where a club is an affiliation of runners who wear the same uniform sometimes, sometimes travel to races together, and put on their own races), but very few track clubs. The club system is most active in the Northeast and West Coast with a few pockets in the Rockies and Midwest.

Don't even know where to get started on the "Running Clubs" in this country. A lot depends where you are. There are some good ones out there.

In my community of 100,000 or so, we have one club with maybe 1,000 members and pretty much controls every aspect of running here. But to tell the truth, it is a jogging club run by slow runners (hate to be a snob but you're talking 3:45 to 5:30 hr marathoners). I've been here many years and the board has hardly had a single athlete who competed at the high school or college level. It's managed by adult onset plodders.

Track at the adult level is dead. The club now manages all the local high school races (comical at times, e.g., they use a finish chute for the 800 and up at local meets), but it gets annoying when you see hobby jogger officials berating athletes and coaches about petty rules and protocol.

Anyway, the club now has two outdoor all comers meets and a club mile. In the past few years we've had as few as 3 or 4 show up for the all comers meets, so we just take turns timing the other runners. About every other year I've rousted up some interest in running a fast 5000 and have got 8-10 of the faster/younger crowd to race. This is an "on" year, so we might actually have a dozen or so on the line running from high 15s to 18.

About 100 people do the club mile each summer, which is part of an eight race series. When I first got here the cut off for the men's "fast" heat was 5:20. Last year it was 6:00. Only three broke 5:20. Everyone is getting older and slower or disinterested in track. Off distance trail races now dominate the summer calendar.

The club also has weekly canned interval sessions(same sets every year) which I never attend. It's 400s, 800s, 200s with no plan other than running faster than jogger pace.

runguru

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/5/2012 7:27AM - in reply to mo'pak

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Late again...
71.7 miles in 7 days like this:
Monday- 8 easy after lead biking a hilly 5 mile race
Tuesday- 20 miles on the MoPac Trail, nice and soft
Wednesday- 6.5 with 10 X 1/4 @ :85, :90 rest
Thursday- 5 miles easy
Friday- 4 mile shake out after driving to KC
Saturday- Hospital Hill 10K in 44:53, started easy the 1st 2 miles then picked it up over the last 4, many climbs ensued
Sunday- 20 miles, last 20 miler of training cycle

Team Nebraska women took 1st in the Team Challenge ($2500), our men took 2nd ($1250), getting nipped by 7 seconds by the Boulder Running Co. We took the win in the accompanying 5K & 10K too. All in all a good day. Thanks to Beth Salinger and Julie Schaefer for all the hospitality and $$!

I could almost cut and paste AK-54's reply about the state of affairs with the Omaha Running Club. I've met with the leadership on numerous occasions trying to get support for Team Nebraska but have been told we "bring nothing" to their races. They rarely certify their races even though we could use them as qualifiers if they were. I can call most any race director in the country and get at least a free entry for our top runners, no such luck with the Omaha Marathon (by contrast the Lincoln Marathon gives the Entire Club free entries). Last year I had to pay $85 for the defending champion to register at Omaha Half. I was told by the RD that he could come and stuff packets if he wanted a free entry. I've been trying to crack this nut since moving here in 2001, still no progress.

rlb

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/5/2012 9:33AM - in reply to runguru

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Tim- you may have the best known build up for a race on this thread! Good luck.

Finally made it to over 30 miles in a week...32 1/2. Another hill workout on Tues making 3 hill workouts in 8 days. After this one there was hardly any calf pain from a previous injury the week before.

By Thursday, after all that hill running I was very tempted to walk back home on a slow out and back 6 mile run.

Tested the leg on Sat by running a flat 3 mile tempo (19:50) and then some short hill sprints. Not as fast of a run as hoped for, but at least the leg was good.

Hope everyone has a good week!

mo'pak

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 6:51AM - in reply to rlb

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Mon- Hard fast 1hr mountain bike session on pretty smooth trails. Also a good weight session in the evening.

Tue- 90min run/18kms. Undulating forest trails, quite a solid effort on this terrain.

Wed- A solid hour on the mountain bike, rougher trails. Pretty cold (1deg C)so took a bit to get the workrate up.

Thu- 90min run/18kms on the same course at the same pace and effort as Tuesday.

Fri- Tired so skipped the planned easy ride and kyak session in the morning. Ended up working from 9am-11.30pm so proved to be a good decision.

Sat- Morning session in the kyak, about 7-8kms on the lake, strong and steady.
Then off to the Wellsford Forest for our club 10k handicap race. Easy 4km warmup.
10k course is rough, course marshall took 23mins to drive his 4x4 and trailer back from the turnaround.
First (uphill) km a sluggish 4.30 and feeling a bit stitchy (probably from paddling). Hit the lead at 4kms 1n 17mins15, turned in 21.45. Still felt tight across the abs and back, arms a bit heavy too. I realised I had a probable winning margin over everyone as I made my way back. I pretty much just held my form through the rough terrain and hit the 8km 34.30. Pushed pretty hard up the next hill and snuck a quick peek over the shoulder. I still had a handy lead so took the rocky descent much easier than normal. 100m from the finish I hear footsteps coming quickly so had to muster a very sudden kick which was enough to hold out the fastest guy in the field. The time was 42.40, slow but the course doesn't lend itself to fast times. I didn't knock myself around too much as the body wasn't feeling great, I still had that stitchy feeling at the finish.
Jumped on the bike and rode the course at a nice relaxed effort, I tried to follow the same lines I ran as there is a lot of diverging single tracks, wash outs and large puddles along the route. Measured it at 10170m.
Happy to collect my $20 gift voucher. My fast clubmate clocked a 38.30 or so, he can run sub 37 on the road.

Sun- Out to the Whipstick Forest for a 6.5km club handicap (different club). The course starts with a grass 400m lap around the sponsor's house then out on a dirt road then a long climb on good forestry roads before undulating through a forest loop then back onto the dirt road and finishing with another lap of the house.
Warmed up about 3.5kms.
Handicapped to start 10.10 behind the front marker and 5.00 in front of the back marker.
Off to a fast start, one of the guys (Scott) off my mark likes to go out hard. I struggled too stay with him up the road and then dropped off 5m or so up the long hill.
Through 1.5km in 5.46.
I was passed by another runner (Hutchy) who started 10secs behind me.
Pace felt right so I just settled into the climb.
Once we levelled off, Scott and Hutchy came back to me and then we hit the first downhill and I was off.
I dropped them quickly and started working my way through the field.
By the time we came out of the forest onto the road with about 1k to go I had nearly caught a group of 6 runners and could see 3 more well out in front of me. I kicked past 5 of them on the road then another as we started our lap of the house. The other 3 were out of reach.
Happy with 4th place and that I held off all those starting behind me.
The time was a good 25.20, meaning I'd run my last 5k in close to 19.30.
Jogged a few easy kms.

lucKY2b

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 7:40AM - in reply to lucKY2b

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*************************
Week 54
*************************

Greetings all, giving my usual bump for the week on this fine June day.

Ahhh, nice to be home from travels and to not be cooped-up in a car for so long. Just started my summer teaching, this Thursday, but that left me with plenty of free time to crank out (relatively speaking, of course) some miles. Happy to have logged 60+ miles this week for the first time in over a year, even if I am a bit sore this morning....but it's a good kind of sore. My week's log looks as such:

Sun: 8 with 5@6:58 pace
Mon: 5.1 easy
Tue: 11.3 with 7.3@6;55 pace
Wed: 6.7 with 4,3,2,1 cut-down laps our the funky 4-laps-to-a-1500 track with a hill.
Thu: 6 easy
Fri: 10 (6.5 noon w/ 2x(2x9 stories stairs) and 2:58 trail half, 3.5 evening)
Sat:13.3 easy (first 8.3@7:33 pace, last 5@8:15 pace)

Notes:
1) I probably wouldn't have chosen to run as far or as hard on Tuesday, but I ran with my marathon buddy, who seems to be keyed in on about a 7 minute pace for most his runs these days. Interesting how our training has become so different, as my paces and distances vary much more than his do. He says he finds it very difficult to go below about a 6:10 pace, which I thought was interesting.

2) Wednesday's cutdown laps were 5:36(4), 4:08(3), 2:44(2), 1:15(1) with 1-lap jog recovery between each. They didn't speed up as much as I'd like, as I started out too fast on the four-lapper (5:36 = 6:00 mile). I was pretty tapped out by the time I finished those. Probably not my best track workout.

3) On Friday, I just felt great. I never got back to talking about the stairs last time I reported doing them, so here it is. Near our house, they've built a 10-story parking garage. It has staircases up the front and the back. Given their locations, I'm not sure how much the back staircase will ever be used in its normal operation; this means its pretty free to use as a training vehicle. So I chose to incorporate stair climbs into my route. In this case, I ran 2 miles, did 2 sets of stairs, ran another 3/4-mile up to a 1/2-mile trail loop in the arboretum (ran the loop hard), then ran back to the stairs did another 2 sets and then reverse-coursed 2-miles back home. The times for my climbs were all 65 or under, which was about 3.5s average faster than I did them 2-1/2 weeks earlier, and I did the hard half in between this time.
Here's a little physics reality check: each story is about 3.5 meters, so the total climb is about 31.5 m and my weight is about 160lbs=710N. This means I did E = mgh = 710N x 31.5 m = 22,400 Joules of work in lifting my body in about t=64s. This corresponds to a power output of about P = E/t = 350 Watts. By comparison, at his prime, Lance Armstrong won a Tour de France time-trial climb up the L'alpe de Huez in about 40 minutes. I estimate that his average power output for the entire climb was 365 Watts. So he could maintain a power output for 40 minutes that was more than what I could hold for one minute.

4) For Saturday's run, I started off to run the whole thing at a 7:30-ish pace, but I started too late in the day, and it was getting warmer by the minute. My wife was involved in a charity fund raiser at the Walmart a few miles from our house. So I figured I'd run about half my run out there, take a water break, visit for a bit, and the run the rest back home. I took a circuitous route out there and reached the Walmart at 8.3 miles. By then, I was pretty dehydrated and was actually getting a little light-headed. I took in a lot of fluids, visited for quite a bit, cooled off in the store to the point where I was feeling good again. But energy-wise, I was pretty tapped, so I took it really easy on the 5 miles home on a more direct route. Still a good day...and a good week.

5) I should mention that I have dropped a few pounds (down to 160) this week with a combination of portion control, and increased activity. I think I'll be back in the mid-150's in a week or so. We'll see how that translates into race times in the coming months.

In racing news:
Props to Keith Miller on both winning the 50-54 division at the USATF 10k National Championships up in Ann Arbor last weekend in 33-flat, and also for being the featured "Age-group Ace" in this month's edition to Running Times Magazine. His story reads a lot like mine, only he's a lot faster. Christine Kennedy (57) also clocked a fine time of 39:20 at the same event (oddly, there is no listed AR for her age division on the USATF website...hmm.)

As was mentioned last week, Pete Magill continues to assault the 5k AR now down to 15:06.83, whether or not it will become "official", but we all know what's what.

Also, the ever-fast Nolan Shaheed has lowered the 60-64 mile AR to 4:53.01 up at the Portland Track Festival. A lot of fine times run there. Any reports? http://www.sheltoninvite.com/SI/live/6912/

We will be looking forward to Tim's (imarunr) report on his Three Sisters Marathon adventure, no results posted as yet. Any other racing news?

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. As usual, we'd love to hear what's going on, regardless of where you're at.

Cheers!

lucKY2b

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 8:09AM - in reply to mo'pak

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Mo'pak, you got your weekly report in just before I posted, I don't want anybody to overlook it with my demarcation. I enjoyed reading your nice race reports; always nice to get cash awards. Well done!

AK-54

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 9:46AM - in reply to Racerdb

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Racerdb wrote:

Think I'll have about 60 miles this week, if I run today. Real happy with my 10K at Sunburst yesterday. Went 34:47, felt strong, passing much younger runners all the way in! Went 536,533,529,529,551 with a couple of good hills,528. 4th overall and won the Masters. Good way to end my Spring season.

No race plans for the summer just a bunch of miles. Might jump in some local low key races. Thinking about which half marathon to run for my Fall race; leaning towards Indianapolis Monumental. Going to bypass the 5K stuff this year...

Might be more of a lurker here though...Kind of getting tired of the internet. Seems like it's a real time waster! Even deactivated my FB yesterday. Just wasn't for me.

All the Best,

Dave

Hope that you can stick around here some, Dave. You've consistently been putting up some fast times over the years and have been a good influence here.

Did 55 miles and a couple circuit training workouts.

After all my complaints about the track meets last week we actually had an okay opener, maybe a dozen people showing up and eight or nine in the mile.

I felt ready to go 5:05 or faster.

It was a weird race because we had a couple 25 yr olds capable of going 4:30s 4:40s but they let me lead--at a slow pace--for a lap and half! One went by on the backstretch and I tried to keep in his slipstream without surging too much; the other hung behind me but with 500 to go blasted around in pursuit, so I got no help from him.

Really struggled the final lap.

So it was 78 for 400 (too slow, wondering why these guys were back there), 2:35, 3:50, and 5:09.6. So I still have some work to do. My ability to accelerate has fallen off compared to a few years ago.

WAVA/WMA 84.9, which is actually better than my PR and that makes no sense!

5000 with a bunch of faster young guys on Thursday. Did Pete Magill just run 15:01 the other day?!

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 10:18AM - in reply to lucKY2b

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Greetings M50+Friends.

I had the honor of being a last minute add to the Portland Mile to help Nolan go after the WR for M60. I thought it would help me as well to get something under 5:00 for this here M52 guy trying to come back. So we were gapped from the incredible field immediately - leaving me to 'rabbit' Nolan for 1320. I'm not so sure it was all that good. 72-2:26-3:41 was all I could muster. And then the great Shaheed blew by me for his 72 bell lap and new AR 4:53point. Missed the WR by 1.5secs.

Me? I didn't even finish the race. Stepped off with 300 to go. Ugh! I've got lots of work to do before Lisle. I'm all ears for help with the mental confidence part. Note to self "finish every race!".

Meanwhile onward with my week x week training.

KP

Rtype

RE: 50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum 6/10/2012 10:26AM - in reply to AK-54

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Mon = 4 @ 8:00 pace
Tue = 4 with 8 1 min accelerations with 2 min jog
Wed = 4 @ 8:07 pace, hilly run
Thr = rest
Fri = rest
Sat = 7, 5:52 1600, 8 400's at 88 Ave
Sun = 6, easy run

Total = 25

Two weeks in a row of 25 miles and a little improvement in speed on the track. Most importantly, all parts are well with no twings, twangs, or pings under the hood. I am very, very thankful for that.

Looking forward to Tim’s report as well.

AK, 5:09 for someone who just weeks ago dug out of a snow cave seems quite good!

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