The master's mile thread

I traveled this road a few years ago with a goal of running sub 4:40 at age 42 and had a blast chasing it.

CC in the Fall helped tremendously for strength and turnover. 5 to 8K trail races with tempo runs, longer repeats/intervals + a Sunday long run. At my advancing age and declining circumstances, I stayed on the trails and off the roads as much as possible.

In the Spring, a typical week included 1 track or interval workout, a race (usually the mile or 1500, but sometimes a 3K) and/or a shorter tempo run + a Sunday long run (creature of habit) a week. Lots of races (5+) were key in getting to my target time.

Prudently increased daily paces when I wasn't doing a workout or racing. My favorite pace: medium. Listening to the body was critical; if I felt good, I would push it a bit. If I felt lousy, I would plod. Nothing more than 45 mpw, usually closer to 30-40.

If you want my workout details, let me know and I dig them up and post. Large luck.

Cool thread. Another old guy here with some experience on this. Important note: if you feel a twinge or niggle-pre or post workout- postpone the workout. Good luck! Hope you'll post along the way.

Although I'm not currently chasing a mile time, I probably will train up for one in mid/late June. I've got XC training until December 8th. Then I'll switch to 10/half training through mid May. Goal mile time in June would be 4:35ish.

Just turned 40 couple months ago, been running consistently nearly 2 years now. Never ran when i was younger so my PR's aren't impressive. Would like to try to run a sub 5 mile also before i get too old. Ran a 5:20 (PR) 2 months ago with no rest in the middle of half marathon training; 30-40mpw the last 4 months. Good luck with your quest.

I ran 4:38 in high school and basically took the next 30 years off. At 47, I started training again in January 2018 and ran a 3:09 marathon in April. I then went on the Daniels 40-50 mpw 5K plan. During the cycle my mile went from 5:21 to 5:10. (5K down to 17:58.) I’d say the training plan is effective but be careful with injuries. I kept getting niggles on my right leg...maybe because of a strength imbalance or just overall weakness from so many years off.

sub5 at 50 is borderline elite! Every year I say I'll start doing hardcore speedwork and race a fast mile, but then I back out and do aerobic runs for longer races. In 2018 I'll at least do some fast short sprints, and hopefully psyche myself up for some KILLER 400s.

*2019

mwh wrote:

sub5 at 50 is borderline elite! .

Sub 4.30 maybe.

Ran 4:20’s in hs on cinders

Now in my 50’s still occasionally do the mile

Mile requires high high speed

I would regularly do a session of 10-15-20 x 100 sprints or very close to full sprints (faster than strides) in addition to regular training

Also some of the neuromuscular drills are good such as a b c skips butt kicks

Getting up on toes esp

Good thread, I'd like to follow and contribute. I sprinted at school then was sedentary until 4 years ago. I'm a lot slower (6 mile, 21 5K = VDOT 47) but feel I should be around 5:30, 19:00. I've got quite good speed (as in 100/200) and ok endurance, but poor aerobic power, so mile-5K kills me but that's my target, plus I'd like to race the odd 10K and HM. One big difference between now and being a kid is I get less sleep (my own fault, not being disciplined about bedtimes) and I'm wondering if it's harming my progress as I'm not seeing much improvement from training.

The mile is not really my strongest distance, but I started specific mid-distance training a year ago, aged almost 39.

I have a group track session with a once a week, and we start with 45minutes of strength/mobility training. Our intervals are between 80m and 600m, between all-out and mile pace, depending on periodization. 200m and 150m repeats make the bulk of our intervals.

The rest of the week I do cross-training (cycling, weight training), relaxed intervals between 200m and 1k, and the occasional long run.

I plan on doing more mile-pace intervals for aerobic power, like 5x600m with 2 min recovery. I also started doing more heavy lifting for raw speed.

At the moment I'm injured, developed fibroma under my foot with racing and speed work on spikes that were too flexible. Should have done some strength training to prevent that.

I guess my advice is to do tons of strength training, and get spikes with a full-length plate, like the Adidas Avanti.

I did this same thing last year. I did it in December in an indoor meet at age 43. I definitely recommend going for it. I used Daniel's somewhat, mostly using his R pace stuff: 3x800 at mile pace with 2:1 rest or 2x(8,4,4) at mile pace with 2:1 rest.

Read about it here:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8554317

mid-4:20s PR post-college but mostly focused on longer stuff.

mostly injured for more than a year at 38-39, but got healthy again at 39.5. I was able to bump up to 30-40 mpw in about a month and in another month was running mid 17s for 5K and high 35s for 10K. Crept up to 40-50 mpw over the winter and got times down to about 17:00 and 35:00. Started with weekly hill reps (45-90 sec fairly fast) in April-May, and transitioned to speed work on turf or track at the end of May (after 4-5 weeks).

To prepare for peak, kept mileage at 40-50, weekly speed session at mile pace or under for a few reps, weekly V02 type workout, and a tempo every two weeks or so to maintain some endurance.

In June started a track series and ran about 4:48/2:12 for mile/800. By July got 5K down to 16:20, mile 4:38, and 2:09 for the 800. It was a fun journey (hobby jogger level by letsrun standards) but moved back up to longer distances after that.

sample #47 wrote:

Anyone else focusing on the mile for your spring races?

I

52 y.o. here in the Houston area, making a switch to try to do more masters' track. Twenty plus years of running at all distances from 5k to ultras. I'm probably looking at the 800/1500 and am using a purchased McMillan Running program for the 8/15. I'm pretty slow with recent 5k of 21:44, a mile TT in May of 6:35 and an 800 TT in August of 2:52. So I'm basically just focused on trying to generally get faster, work on improving turnover, etc. I tend to be a lower mileage runner, so am around 30 mpw for now. The McMillan plan I have only has one workout per week and, honestly, I feel like I could handle another, maybe on alternating weeks.

As far as races, there's a USATF masters indoor meet at the University of Houston on 10 Feb that I will probably jump into. I may run the Manzano Mile in Austin on 16 Feb as well. Otherwise, it's basically waiting to see what masters meets pop up on the calendar for next year.

Thanks for posting and good luck to all.

Texas A&M have an Open Indoor Meet, open to all, except high schoolers, in February. Last place in the mile was 5:04 or so last year.

Races 3 months apart won't do it. All the evidence is that your best mid-dist race will come after 6-7 races that season. So plan a "season" of 8 weeks or so, with some 800s, some 1500s, a 3000 and a couple of mile races if you can find them. The early races will help you get sharp and learn to put all that effort into "one hard rep" instead of an interval session.

For periodisation, read anything about training with "Coe" on the cover. Just don't copy the sessions, you're older and slower ;-)

Aggie good wrote:

Texas A&M have an Open Indoor Meet, open to all, except high schoolers, in February. Last place in the mile was 5:04 or so last year.

Yeah, I'd DFL that by a long way. I'll be lucky to be sub-6 by Feb.

At 50 I decided to try to break 5 and began using the Daniels program. I eased into it like you are doing but each time I’d get to the end of Phase II or the beginning of Phase III, I’d get injured. I eventually got down to 5:02 indoors at 51 but got injured again. I learned that 3 quality workouts/week were too much for me. After that I modified the Daniels down to 2 quality days a week by eliminating a Q1 or Q3 during a week - maybe eliminating just the Q3s would have be better. Only two quality days helped with injuries but then it seemed easier to miss one of them and lose focus. I’m 59 now and ratcheting up for 60. I’d like to see a Daniels for Geezers or something similar. Like others have said, be wary of those slight pains. I’d also recommend doing some kind of core/hip/leg strenghtening program. Good luck and keep us posted!

I concur. I have switched my entire schedule to a 10-12 day cycle and take days off at the smallest hint on discomfort. It's better to err on the side of caution once you turn 40 than to push through things. I take a minimum of two days between hard efforts and a minimum of two days off completely each week. This limits my mileage, but I am healthy and able to run still.

I have also almost completely stopped stretching. Let me tell you, that has been the best change ever. I warm up slower and longer and my muscles and joints feel better than they did when I was young. No joke. I have blown out a calf twice in the last 4 years and I am 100% certain that I hurt it while stretching. In fact, when I used to stretch religiously, my calves were constantly tight and sore and knotted up. Now, I just warm up slow and long. They feel better than ever.