Masters Weekend Runs and Races

I had a high mileage week for me, 85.48 miles in 9:44.26 hours. This week I may run only 2 times. I'm gonna do some other things.

I did not run on Sunday.

Monday was a long run.

Tuesday was 2 times 3000, 2000, 1000 with 200 jogs. It was fast for me.

Wednesday was a long run.

Thursday I did not run.

Friday was 24 times 200 with 200.

Saturday was a really slow long run but I ran 10,000 meters of it at a comfortable faster pace on a flat and well kept XC course. I ran the faster part where I did not breathe hard.

My running had lots of small hills. More than 90% was on natural surfaces.

My week was good/bad. Good in that I am running and training very well in anticipation of next Saturday's meet (MF is also running!) I had only 4 workouts this past week due to a tough work schedule but each of them were excellent. Weights Monday, 5x300 on Tuesday (with 300 walk), 900 stairs and 30 box jumps on Thursday, hurdles yesterday with a 60m time trial. My time was well under my indoor best this year, which wasn't all that great of a performance since I was still healing from a ham pull at the time. I was expecting my time trial to be faster, but it was MUCH faster. Very encouraging. So that was the "good."

The "bad" is that I had a very long and stressful week. Our company is going through a merger and I am asked to produce lots of interim reports and data. On top of that my assistant had an emergency in her family and she was unexpectedly called out of town (she should return Wednesday). I have been battling a borderline cold/sore throat all week that I should have knocked back days ago, but it is still lingering. Last night I went out with friends for Mexican food. I had one margarita but the acidity trashed my throat. The restaurant was noisy and my companions all have loud speaking voices, so I was straining mine in order to be heard. Last night I slept very fitfully and this morning the cold is getting the better of me. So I've decided that I would rather forego this last bit of conditioning in favor of being healthy for my races next Saturday. Today will be a "take it easy and take a nap" type of day.

My contribution for a quote: "Progress is not linear."

That kept me going when I was coming back from injury and things weren't going as smoothly as I would have liked. I was reviewing my training log from last year and there were plenty of ups and downs!

Have a great week masters, and remember that "ups and downs" are all part of the journey.

Get some rest SpikeZ tis the season for colds and stress - at least in our northern hemisphere. I'm sure i'm next.

Was great to run some XC yesterday with our new Bowerman Track Club (we changed from BAC) kit and teammates. Our masters captain, Everett Whiteside, has rallied up a fine group of 28 BTC Masters here in Oregon. We have 2 strong M40 and M50 squads. I', pleased to be on the winning M50 team of the Stumptown XC Series race #1 yesterday. We averaged about 18:40 for the Nike Team Nationals High School XC course. I was 18:43 2 years ago & 18:43 yesterday. Gotta love that when you are 2 years older in "masters years". Particularly when I flew back from my own stressful week in Hong Kong a day and a half before.

Have a good fall week of xc training my friends.

KP

As KP mentioned we BTC masters raced yesterday at the Pre Nationals XC course for high schoolers. I had planned a 10k road race else where but really wanted the team aspect feeling so switched to this one. Was happy with my first XC rust buster. Didn't have a watch on it, so didn't know the pace during the race, so I could just focus on competing.

It's funny to have two masters runners leading a pretty competive race for about 1.5 miles though, I figured the young kids would love to take it out, but no one did. Around 1.5 miles, a CNW runner took over and I simply let him go, as I didn't know if I was willing to hurt at that point. There was a pack of five guys behind him jostling for second, so I tucked in there and let them buck the wind for a while. With about 400 to go I really thought about digging into my pain box, but settled for the "it's too early in the season to put it all out there mindset"

The line for second strung out slightly and I crossed the finish in 6th about 3 seconds back, so I felt like I was in it for the most part. Results were 1-15:22-----2nd 15:44----3rd 15:44----4th 15:46----5th 15:46-----me 15:47

Our 40 yr masters team might have won the overall team title, but they didn't score it that way as they scored it masters against masters and open against open, so we would up going 1-2-3-4-5 in the masters race with 15:47--15:58--16:00--16:18--16:56

Or open team went

15:55--15:56--16:26--16:31

I was also impressed that I would have been 15th overall in the high school championship race. Not bad for this old fart; well not as old as KP.

BTW; I really dig our new uniforms.

Looking forward to more fall racing, a getting more grizzled on the XC courses.

Ahrlin

M- 0

T- 5 on TM

W- 5 in 3203

R - 5 w/ one quicker mile in 613

F- 0

S- 5, tired from working outside all day

S- 5

Still haven't gotten the mileage up. Shooting for 6m/day next week. Impressive racing guys. Keep it up and have a good week.

Reading about lacing up the XC spikes energizes me. Nice race reports. At my age, I'm now spending more 'time on the course' than I used to I guess that happens with age. On the bright side, I guess I am getting more for my money now when I race. So, yesterday, I 'raced' a 5K and wanted to run 5:30 pace. All went well; ran 5:27 pace and won (you just need to find small races :) The only problem for me was that it should have been a whole lot easier than it was. Oh well.

The week was good but I got in too much work as I had three sessions with the HS kids and a long run this morning (13 miles). Maybe that had an impact on my 5K as well?

In other good news, I had 3 Seniors go on college visits this weekend and that really opens their eyes. Plus, the younger guys all begin thinking of college and choices, etc. It's all very good.

Have a good week.

It's been some time since I have visited this site. I have been just chilling the last couple of years. I am gearing up for 60 in a few weeks. Training hard with sites on some 60+ records. Hitting 70 mpw. Workouts this week included an 8 miler at 5:48 pace, a comfortable 10 miler at 6:10 pace, and a repeat 400 meter workout on the track with a 15 miler today. RB

almost 60 wrote:

I am gearing up for 60 in a few weeks. Training hard with sites on some 60+ records. Hitting 70 mpw. Workouts this week included an 8 miler at 5:48 pace, a comfortable 10 miler at 6:10 pace, and a repeat 400 meter workout on the track with a 15 miler today. RB

Ok, I'm impressed! Nicely done...

Dave

Greetings to all this fine Sunday. Did my normal 120 miles of biking but just one run this week of 45 minutes. Went to a picnic yesterday put on by some friends who make their living on the water. It's was a shrimp and flounder fest to end all seafood festivals.

XC in full swing. Crunching leaf with every step now. Beautiful.

Ahrlin - love the new kit. Sharp. Rick .. Stay healthy and I know those 60's marks are doable.

As for me, 70 miles on six days with two good efforts & today's two hour run actually felt good.

Tues - 8x :45 hill w/:25 sec push on the flat.

Fri - 20 mins (5:27's), 2:00 rest, 3x 5:00 (5:20 - 5:05), 2:00 rest

Marathon = 105 laps @ :70 &$!?/%#*

Cheers

TY

Of course our M40 BTC Masters team is fast but I must say THAT is embarrassing to be the be on any of the open teams. Where is everyone? The Stumptown Series is a terrific local grass roots inexpensive 4 events xc race.

Nice racing from BTC! Tough to run sub 16 on that NXN course.

back up to 100 miles per week for me. I am over my cold but still dealt all week with the congestion from it and was still hacking up stuff even today. On easy days I wasn't going 7:00 pace this week. But I had a hard week and got back into the 3 hard days. I'll just have to bump the mileage up another time to 112 miles soon when I'm two months out from the marathon.

M 13 w/about 8 at 7:30 pace

T 14 w/5x1600m (400j-2-2:30)-5:27,5:23,5:23,5:22,5:24

W 14 w/8 around 7:30 pace

Th 14 w/5xstadium steps and 16x200 w/about half in 34 and half in 36. I was feeling a bit sore but finished with a 32 or 33.

F 14 w/8 around 7:30 pace

Sa 11@7:15 pace, 10 laps in the pool, 5 minutes hard rowing and upper and lower body weights>quite sore from this but I was getting weak again

Su 20 in 2:15 (6:45/M). Did roughly the last 12 or 13 at 6:30 or better with a lot of low 6s. This was tough with sore legs from the squats Saturday.

You need to go through the pain before you get the breakthroughs.

Nice races Ahrlin and KP! The new uniform is much more visible than the white one - easier to pick out.

I missed my season's xc opener last week because my achilles felt a little tight and I didn't want to risk it -- thought about yesterday's race instead, but didn't do it. Stumptown is fine, I guess, but I'd rather pay the same $15 and run in some of the college races instead. Back at my speed, a college race has a lot more female competition where Stumptown is way too spread out. I get a better race experience with the college kids than chasing someone 30 seconds ahead of me.

Late to the party this week. But better than last week when I missed it completely!

First, sorry to hear about your struggles with the viral invader, Spikes, but love your quote about progress not being linear. So true!!

As for those Bowerman boys ... sheesh!

As for me, the running has suffered for a couple weeks. Drove up to Los Altos last week to discuss a new job--then ended up taking it, and am now editor of a new magazine, Double Runner, that Bob Anderson is publishing in conjunction with his Double Racing series. The deadline for the first issue is absolutely crazy, but I've got good and VERY talented friends who are chipping in with writing, photography, and art contributions to help me put together a first-rate magazine. Already have a couple interesting articles (including an interview with the author of a blow-your-mind study in exercise physiology that has so far flown below the radar ... but could very well change the way people train in the coming years ... No, that's not a teaser for the mag, I'm just really excited about it!!) and some great photo spreads. But my oh my, is this going to be a long, hard, exhausting month!

Okay, aiming for the Masters 5K XC race in a little over a month. Hope to get the training back on track in time to run well. And hope everyone else has a great week coming up!

Pete, congrats on the new gig !

A high-mileage week for me, at 98 miles, 80 of which with the stroller. Feeling pretty good overall. My easy run pace is gradually getting faster, and I think I'll start doing a regular fartlek effort in addition to a tempo effort each week.

My tempo effort this week was 35 minutes, on trails. I'm going to increase that to 40-45 minutes or so before trying to do one on the track. I suspect the tempo pace is quite slow right now, so I'm just as happy not knowing :-)

Have a great week everyone!

Maurits

98 miles ? I don't know how you guys do it. Great job !!

Only 4 runs and 21 miles this week, including 10x 300 starting at 3k pace and finishing at mile pace. On Saturday I competed in ElliptiGO's World Championships outside San Diego, finishing 5th. It's 11.7 miles up 4200 feet. I was really pleased with the result, but I rode too conservatively throughout not wanting to bonk.

That had been my goal race for the year, since until recently I haven't had any success with a running comeback. Now it's time to start focusing more on running.

JM

80 with the stroller?? That is unbelievable. The most I regularly ran with my daughter was about 20 and now I'm doing around 12 a week with my son. Whatever it takes!