I agree: Alactic speed sessions once or twice a week during base can work wonders. Anaerobic training (i.e. killer track workouts) on the other hand are highly overrated.
I agree: Alactic speed sessions once or twice a week during base can work wonders. Anaerobic training (i.e. killer track workouts) on the other hand are highly overrated.
amazing.... wrote:
imagnine if the guys who ran in sub 49 category in high school and college, actually ran masters, 30 years later, instead of suburban white guys, I wonder what the list would look like....impressive, none-the-less.
Bill Collins, Stan Whitley, Ron Johnson and Charlie Allie (to name a few) will be rather surprised to be termed 'suburban white guys'! They weren't exactly slow at college either, Bill was on a USA WR setting 4x100 (38.03, at the '77 World Cup in Dusseldorf)!
another canuck wrote:
Without intending to get into the debate as to the merits of Lydiard v. Martin/Coe, I really think that for those of us over 40, and particularly over 45/50, you need to maintain some level of speed all year. It can be as little as 8x200 in 35-37, but otherwise I think it is too much of a shock to the system to run 50-60 mi per week and then start running 65 sec 400s in June. Just my opinion of course.
AC,
No debate here. Don't tell any of the 'Lydiard Templar Knights', but I plan to run one workout per week of either 1) a 20 minute tempo run 6:15 for me, or 2) Diagonals (135 meters on my local soccer field) at sub 4:20 pace on the alternating weeks to maintain sprint form.
I plan on running 400 and either 800 or Mile at the indoor Nationals in March so I don't want to toe the line with only base. At our age that is a sure bet for strained hamstrings!
Speedwork helps your times across the board but old guys don't like speedwork because you are pushing yourself to the breaking point and there is no telling where that breaking point is. It takes along time to heal so there is that fear constantly in the back of one's mind. But I think at some point you just have to bust loose and let it fly for awhile. I mean Christ you know it ain't easy and have some fun. I'm 53 and sometimes I fall down and I laugh at myself and think well this is what the running life is really about....And then I laugh some more.
Earl Fee of course has been running 7-8 seconds under his age for more than a decade now. (Now 78 yrs old)
To answer a question above.. no woman has ever run her age in the 400 (far as I know) - closest is 3 seconds off (:68.21 by Diane Palmason, 65). Oldest man to do it was 86, I think. 1:26.94 by Roderick Parker (and he broke his age at 85, 1:22.40).
Ed Whitlock wrote:
Earl Fee of course has been running 7-8 seconds under his age for more than a decade now. (Now 78 yrs old)
Amen to that. My first time watching Earl run was at the 2004 Indoor Nationals in Boston. He was 75 that year and ran 66 for 400, 2:32 for 800 and 5:41 for the mile.
He certainly deserved his 'Hollywood Moment' in that Axa commercial a few years ago.