50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Happy Father's Day, guys!!

Nothing too exciting to report. Now that all my children are home for the summer and two are training for xc, it's a little bit of a challenge to coordinate all our runs (and I'm the only one who drives). We tried to accommodate all our schedules and managed to get our runs (and workouts) in. My son ran his longest run ever - 7 1/2 miles. It was supposed to be 7, but I kind of miscalculated (in my defense, it's on trails and nothing is exact mileage). About 18 minutes into the run, I knew we'd be a bit off. My daughter caught on about half way through, but told me not to tell her brother. But, he figured it out about a mile later and accused us of trying to sabotage him! ;-)

On Saturday, I did an "adventure race". It's one where you figure out clues and run to checkpoints. I have done a lot of them in the past - and done really well- but my partner was gone last year and we haven't done one in two years. We were a bit disorganized and made a pretty major error and finished out of the money (but only 10 minutes out of first -- and we ran an extra 3 miles!) It was fun nonetheless.

Oldest daughter did computer support, while the younger two ran with us for the first half (they only had to do 5 miles on their schedule). Funniest moment - At one point, we were racing over a bridge when we noticed the gate was closed on the pedestrian path, meaning the bridge was going to lift. We didn't want to wait and when a bus and car went over the bridge, my partner went around the gate and starting running over with me and the kids following. A bell was ringing, signaling the lift?, and zoom! Son in the rear, sprints by everyone, closely followed by his sister who was yelling "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!!" It was hard to keep running while I was laughing. ;-)

Mileage has been steady in the mid-60s and I'm doing at least one hard-ish workout a week. I might have to add some if I keep trying to coordinate to the kids' schedules. My weight is down almost to perfect race weight - just a few last ones to go. No big races on the agenda until the fall.

Have a great week!

I was good this week and backed off a bit as I felt a little soreness in one hamstring. The timing was unfortunate as I had hoped to get both of my sons and their ladies in a 5K with me for Fathers Day. They were probably just as happy to sleep in on Sunday.

As I gain in fitness, I think my pattern of two hard workouts back-to-back on the weekends is taking me too close too the edge. After a solid workout on Saturday, I am getting too enthusiastic on Sunday. My solution is to switch to a new pattern of doing my standard 8 mile tempo on Saturday, followed by a 10 mile easy run on Sunday. Then, I'll do a 5-6 mile workout that is mostly repeat hills on Wednesday. I'll begin this new pattern next weekend, and see what happens. I don't think it will reduce my level of fitness and hopefully will be more sustainable.

wxboy wrote:

... a new pattern of doing my standard 8 mile tempo on Saturday, followed by a 10 mile easy run on Sunday. Then, I'll do a 5-6 mile workout that is mostly repeat hills on Wednesday. ...

I like that pattern, I was doing almost the exact same thing for several months last December and into this spring. Week one Tuesday workout (hills, progression, etc.), Saturday long run 2-and-3/4 hours. Week two Tuesday workout, Friday tempo, Saturday long run 2 hours. The running fitness part was going great! The first bad patch was when I neglected to take a proper down week; and eventually I was tripped up by my core fitness, or lack thereof.

muddy girl wrote:

We didn't want to wait and when a bus and car went over the bridge, my partner went around the gate and starting running over with me and the kids following. A bell was ringing, signaling the lift?, and zoom!

We LOVE it! Kindred spirit.

Alan Bennet wrote:

We LOVE it! Kindred spirit.

MG, I'll second that. Sounds like a fun adventure.

Thanks rlb for the suggestion. I'm still just taking a few days off and massaging the hell out of my left quad and IT band. I've discovered a very deep muscle on my left side that really hurts to roll out, but when I get it partially loosened, the pain eases. So that is definitely helping with the pain, but it's also creating muscle tension imbalances, that are moving this knot of pain around the knee. I'm cautiously optimistic that when I get these muscles loosened and balanced, things won't devolve into what they were last summer.

AK-54, absolutely awesome race!

MikeF, wish I could join you at the Wild Duck. Should be an interesting OT. A lot unknowns, that's for sure.

Glad to see others are making progress and getting their mileage up.

Charlie, haven't heard of anyone here running in the Skecher GoRun shoe. Glad you're finding success with it.

If you've looked on masterstrack.com, I'm sure you've seen that Nolan Shaheed continues to assault the record books, this time it's in the Steeplechase. Also, Whiteman continues to attack the middle-distance masters records.

Cheers!

lucKY2b wrote:

Thanks rlb for the suggestion. I'm still just taking a few days off and massaging the hell out of my left quad and IT band.

Does this parking garage by any chance spiral clockwise when you are going down?

I'm hoping for some advice from some of my fellow 50+ runners. I'm sidelined with a pain in my 2nd metatarsal - tried a couple cortisone shots and a metatarsal pad. The podiatrist seems stumped that it hasn't resolved yet. He calls it "encapsulated".

Anybody have a similar experience?

No to similar experience with a metatarsal.

Yes to similar experience with a doctor.

Mon- 28k/1.13 mtb ride and a 35min kyak session on the lake.

Tue- 1h 4m run around a hilly course. Stopped to do the run during the 120km drive home from visiting my parents. Had planned a 2hr run but it was getting dark and my motivation to get home overode the motivation to run.

Wed- 1h 9m easy run before work, in the local forests, cold misty morning and the body took a good while to warmup. The run inc a measured 5k and 4k loop in 25.30 and 20.15.

Thu- 50m kyak session on the lake before work. Water was icy cold.

Fri- Continued the pattern of a lazy week by choosing to stay in bed an extra hour rather than get out for a cold bike ride.

Sat- 1 hour mtn bike ride from the lake, 23.5k. then a 30min kyak session. Then onto our club family relay day. 6k jogging and a sluggish 3k relay leg in 12.15. and an easy km jog.

Sun- One of our feature events of the winter season. A "4 mile" point to point handicap road race from the "Borough" to the City.

I Had a good warmup and felt spot on.

The first 4.5kms is mostly uphill inc a very tough 1km pinch from 3.5-4.5.

Through 1.5k in 5.50, at 3.5k in (13.45) I could spot the leaders about 1/2 a km up the hill ahead of me.

Naturally slowed on the big climb and through 4.5k in 14.55 but passing plenty of the frontmarkers.

Hammered through the next fairly flat km and heard I was in the top 10 (remember this is a hcp).

Just before the km point we turn onto a steep downhill road. Here I could see the the leader was still about 300 plus metres ahead of me. I was passed from behind for the first time at the km to go mark by a tiny lass and then passed again by a fella nearly 2 metres tall a few seconds later. As we neared the turn to the finish I was told I was 8th. As we turned for the final 150 metre run to the finish 2 more "flashes" ran by me. I sprinted desperately to hold off 3 of the backmarkers who were closing quickly.

I ran 25.30 which was pretty much what I expected.

The winner was our club's O/60 World 400m Womens champ. She ran a solid 30.20, a good effort on a tough course for a 61yo sprinter.

Last year's fastest runner, a young AFL boundary umpire from Melbourne was again fastest. Last year he broke 20m but couldn't this year running 20.16. He umpires at the highest level. All the boundary umpires are super fit, they cover huge distances in a game. If you can't run close to 15 for 5k you won't make it at senior level.

Our club's promising young gun ran a sharp20.52 I think he's just 17 so a pleasing time on such a tough course. He ran a solid 8.55 3k earlier this year. He's only just started running the last 12 months.

I was 3d fastest over 50 behind 24.50 and 25.06

Alan Bennet wrote:Does this parking garage by any chance spiral clockwise when you are going down?

Yes it does. And I thought about that, but I wasn't running very hard going down, so I didn't feel like I put much undo stress on that left IT...but maybe it was enough to trigger something that much later in the week (effects of a workout Monday only show up on the next Sunday????), who knows. It was only one workout, but I'm laying off it anyways. I do have to keep reminding myself that at our age when we do something different, it should be introduced gradually. Our bodies are just not as malleable as they once were, and we just don't adapt as quickly as we did when we were younger. I remember as a teen, we'd go to speedskating boot camp in the mid-summer; it was one hellacious week of training! On the very first day, we'd be doing a circuit workout in the morning, training theory classes during the mid-day, then more drills in the afternoon, followed by an evening easy run. The next morning our quads were sooooo sore we could barely erect ourselves out of bed....and yet we'd do it (or some variant) all again every day throughout the week. Never got injured diving into intense training like that as a teen. It'd be an instant train wreck doing something like that these days.

Bad Toe wrote:I'm hoping for some advice from some of my fellow 50+ runners. I'm sidelined with a pain in my 2nd metatarsal - tried a couple cortisone shots and a metatarsal pad. The podiatrist seems stumped that it hasn't resolved yet. He calls it "encapsulated".

Anybody have a similar experience?

Sorry for your trouble, Bad Toe. When I was 20, I had many cortisone shots to try to deal with inflammation....but mine was in the hallucis flexor longus, the shots never resolved a thing, so I'm not surprised by the results you've had. The doctors ultimately said that the only way to resolve the tendinitis was to completely stay off my feet for a month; I never could follow through with that advice....and it only ever fully cleared up a decade later (I know, depressing thought). I do suffer some low-grade chronic issues with the 2nd metatarsal (I have Morton's toe), and it does get tender from time to time. But luckily it's never persistent, so I can run with. I don't do anything in particular to deal with it, so I don't think I can be of much help for your situation. Sorry.

Well, time for packing up and heading off to the Trials. My wife and I headed to the track last night for 8 x 300, and I knew I'd have some fatigue left from my last race, on Father's Day, a 4.5 mile run as part of my Corp Challenge tri team. Hot and windy day, and so I managed 5 of those, and my legs said enough. My wife, who turns 55 next month, did all 8, and averaged 71.6. I think she can run very close to 6:30 for the mile next week, at the "Jogger's Mile" held Tuesday night in Eugene. If I can scare 6:50, that would be great.

lucKY2b wrote:

... I wasn't running very hard going down ...

You were running very hard UP, the asymmetry meant the down was not a true recovery.

I'm big on symmetry, I make it a point to stay centered when sitting, driving, walking, etc. I hope I am centered when running but have never taken a video.

When I am forced to be asymmetrical I alternate, and do it with a calendar mnemonic. So today I wore my running watch on the left wrist because 20 is an even number and left has an even number of letters. When I had the bad carpal tunnel syndrome switching wrists was a necessity, now it's a preventive habit. Computer mouse gets switched weekly. Solo runs are out and back. Intervals are on the road rather than the track. Stretching I always do the less flexible side first and then the other side only stretch to match.

A funny thing about centered posture: I find it changes the way I think. It's particularly noticeable while driving. One bad posture I keep sliding into is with the left arm straight and the left hand on the wheel at 2 o'clock, but with the palm kind of cocked over the wheel instead of gripping it. That's not just me, I notice a lot of men drive in this position, some with the right hand though. Seems innocuous, but there's just enough tension (stress) that I start getting angry with the other drivers. And I drive more aggressively in response. The fix is to sit straight up and put both hands on the wheel at 5 and 7 o'clock, palms up with a relaxed grip. It doesn't make me approve of all the other drivers, but I can start to just let go.

Alan Bennet wrote:I'm big on symmetry, I make it a point to stay centered when sitting, driving, walking, etc. I hope I am centered when running but have never taken a video.

Yeah, Alan. I totally get that, and I was thinking about that as I was running the spiral down (another reason why I ran them easy). I even rationalized that Wednesday's track workout would be run counter-clockwise and so would balance out...to some degree. BTW-the track is so narrow, that it's hard to have multiple groups running in opposite directions, something I'm not thrilled about. I'm not convinced Monday's workout lead to Sunday's fallout, it could have been the trail halves on Friday, for example; it has a lot of sharp turns. Who knows.

I'm not as zealous about it as you are, but I do keep a mental inventory of asymmetries that I encounter and try to balance them out: running on the left and right sides of roads, for example (usually I try to run up the middle, if I can.) One asymmetry I can do nothing about (barring surgery, which was deemed dicey...could do more harm than good) is that I broke my right big toe years ago, and it never did heal properly, so I can't push off quite the same way from both legs, but I manage.

At any rate, the good news is that the deep self-massages of the IT band and the muscle that is beneath it (the biceps femuris short-head, maybe??) have worked and the knee pain is completely gone; there is not a bit of pain going up or down stairs, for example. Even so, I can sense that a few other muscles around the knee were also compromised, which I can tell when I make sharp rotations at the knee; it's not painful, but it just feels odd. So I'm preceding cautiously, continuing with the deep massages and no training. I did jog a VERY easy mile (like 10-minute pace) last evening, which felt just fine, and there is no discomfort this morning, so that may be what I continue to do until things start feeling more normal.

Such is life.

Ugh. proceeding cautiously, not preceding.....sigh.

Bad Toe wrote:

I'm hoping for some advice from some of my fellow 50+ runners. I'm sidelined with a pain in my 2nd metatarsal - tried a couple cortisone shots and a metatarsal pad. The podiatrist seems stumped that it hasn't resolved yet. He calls it "encapsulated".

Yes I had it a while back. I got it from running on very slanted gullies on trails. I took time off, did PT and finally figured I just gut it out. Now 18 months later is has improved but I still notice on occassion. I went with a wider toe box shoe and that seemed to help. I thought for sure I had a neuroma but podiatrist told me it was encapuslated.

Frustrating injury as it did not stop me , just was annoying.

Anybody have a similar experience?

Yes I had it a while back. I got it from running on very slanted gullies on trails. I took time off, did PT and finally figured I just gut it out. Now 18 months later is has improved but I still notice on occassion. I went with a wider toe box shoe and that seemed to help. I thought for sure I had a neuroma but podiatrist told me it was encapuslated.

Frustrating injury as it did not stop me , just was annoying.

cgray wrote:

Yes I had it a while back. I got it from running on very slanted gullies on trails. I took time off, did PT and finally figured I just gut it out. Now 18 months later is has improved but I still notice on occassion. I went with a wider toe box shoe and that seemed to help. I thought for sure I had a neuroma but podiatrist told me it was encapuslated.

Frustrating injury as it did not stop me , just was annoying.

Thanks! I can put in the distance, but the faster stuff really hurts. What type of routine did the PT recommend? I was thinking massage might loosen it up some...going to try the larger toe box as well.

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Week 55

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Greetings fellow grand-masters. Let me go ahead and get the ball rolling for this week. Not a lot to report as I've basically taken the week off due to the knee pain that I suddenly started experiencing last Sunday.

So, for the books, logged 6 total miles:

no miles Sun.-Tue. (but a lot of foam roller)

one mile each day Wed.-Fri. (no knee pain), and

3 miles Sat.

During the 3-mile run, I even ramped it up to about 6:20 pace for the third mile. I wanted to briefly provide a little more stress to it, so that I could see how the knee felt today; it's a little tight, but no pain. Even though I'll be doing a bit more this week, I project it'll still be mostly easy stuff. There is no pain, but I can tell that things are still not quite right.

Probably one of my training-discipline weaknesses is that I like to run, and I don't really enjoy all the other stuff (even though I know it's good for me). So I tend to fall off doing the ancillary exercises that got me healthy from previous physical issues. In this case, I'd pretty much stopped the retro-running that proved instrumental in rehabbing last summer's knee....in "retro"-spect, that wasn't a good idea. I'm going to go back to including a little retro (50-steps each foot should be enough) into the ends of all my runs from now on.

OK, so I'm on the mend, and lesson learned (again!<---should be read long and drawn out...uuuhhhh-gain). Any life lessons you'd like to pass along?

Hoping you all are having a more productive week.

All the best!