50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Greetings, fellow 50+ers! Happy Rosh Hashanah to those celebrating.

Things continue on an upward trend here. If you’ll allow me to begin my week on Monday, I can report 17+ actual running miles for the week. Relatively speaking, that’s a big one! The leg fatigue has dissipated and the right leg wonkiness continues to improve. My confidence is returning and I am actually considering racing a 5k next weekend. Crazy, huh?

Mon: 59’ CR w/ utility pole fartlek (5 x 2 on/off); body wt ex + med ball routine

Tue: off

Wed: 39’ running (2); body wt ex

Thu: off

Fri: 46’ CR; body wt ex + free wts

Sat: off

Sun: 57’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

All the best!

I'm working my way back into running after a heart attack in December and open heart surgery in February. So far it has been going better than expected. Last week was my highest mileage of the year with 36.5 miles of running and some cross training. I also did a little faster running, but didn't let my heart rate get too high, since my doctor said I was ok to run, but take it easy. I'm on Jardiance which I've been told keeps the heart rate down. But I'm very little slower than than I had been at the same heart rate, and at what I think is about the same effort is only about 20 to 30 seconds slower per mile than I had been running. With a damaged heart and months off I was expecting a lot more slow down. So happy with how things are going and slowly ramping it up.

Had a good month of mileage after returning from overseas for our son's wedding, with 4 weeks of 70-76 miles. Cut back last week with 56 in to ready for the USATF 12K road championship. Got another 90% age grade and an age group win to wrap up the age group grand prix title. So it all worked out. Last year it was brutally hot, humid, and windy, so I ran about a minute faster this time and had more fun. Training and being are going well, and I don't take that for granted. After many years on the circuit you get to know a lot of runners and it was good to see everyone. Hope everyone here managing well, even though there are challenges.

CM, my sincere congratulations, bravo! What were the conditions and course this year and how the race was developing for you (split times and competition wise)? I am almost sure you were way faster the others in your 65-69 age group, but assume you were fighting with younger groups, were not you?

Congratulations CM! My 67yr old team mate was 2nd to CM just about 5 minutes back, and 3rd was another two minutes behind 2nd.

Thanks OG and Orient. I went out a little slower than goal pace, about 6:10-12 for the first mile, and then gradually brought it down. ogII's teammate ran with me for the first mile and from the race photos was about 20 or 30 m back at the first turn at 2K. My splits were between 6:00 and 6:09 per mile (3:45-50/km) until the last half mile, where I ran as hard as I could and that was at 5:45 (low 3:30s) pace. The 60-64 age group is stacked, top 3 were 42, 43, and 44 minutes, and then there were a bunch of guys in the 46s and 47s. Nat set another American record. I spent most of the way in stark no man's land from mile 2 on, picking off a few runners here and there. But one 50 yr old guy went with me at about half way and ran with me, cajoling and shaming me if I slowed up, for about 2 miles before he took off. And another caught me over the last mile and I was able to stay within a few seconds by the finish.

Good to see lots of familiar posters posting last few weeks.

I have managed to very slowly progress my fitness. There's still a long way to go.

My hardly amazing "training" week.

Mon. 34 min kayaking on the Cockatoo Hill Reservoir (3 kms from our new home, very handy). Was squeezed for time so short and sweet with 3 fast 3 min efforts in the middle.

Tue. 70 min mountain bike ride on rolling gravel and dirt roads/tracks a few harder 2 km efforts enroute.

Wed 10 km run in an hour along the water channel track, I did run 3 x 1 km in 5.30 to 40, just gently harder than my plodding easy pace.

Thu. 57 min pretty slow kayaking in the reservoir, pretty windy.

Fri. 90 min mountain bike ride good solid trail, gravel ride.

Sat. 11 km, 77 min trail run inc the good tough Eagles Nest climb. About 200m elevation gain overall, last km was about 5.30. My longest run for a long time.

Sun. Day out with my wife but included some good steep hiking arMelville Caves. Threw in a relaxed35 min spin on the mountain bike.

Dropped the car at the mechanic yesterday (Monday) rode the 8 km home. Later in the day I decided to ride to the shop to pick up the newspaper then home again 38 km undulating trail riding in just under 2 hours.

Today I ran 6 kms on hilly rugged trails with 4 reps up short steep loose climb 43 mins 120 m elevation gain last flattish k in 5.30.

Probably won't get the car back until Friday at the earliest so no kayaking during the week.

Also doing a simple strength routine nearly everyday.

Also try to hit 15 to 25,000 steps per day every day.

Theses guys are fast! This will be fun to track over the next week and a half.

The men's 55 1500 top 2 seeds- mile conversion 4:28.92 and 4:33.04

Top 6 in M55 in 800 are all under 2:08

https://www.fidal.it/risultati/2023/COD10831/Iscrizioni/IndexPerCategoria.html#gM55

10,000 scheduled for tommorow.

Here are the athletes from U.S.- Euro indoors are in Torun, but they only allow foreign competitors in middle distance to race in the heats.

https://www.fidal.it/risultati/2023/COD10831/Iscrizioni/USA.html

Greetings!

My previous week was mostly tapering before the 10K race on Sunday (national masters).
Felt pretty good before the race, the legs became fresh. Had some muscle tension in the
right piriformis, but did not pay much attention to that because never had any troubles with them before. Was more concerned with the hamstring on the same side.

The race started well. I noticed that 2 other guys of my year of birth (1958) who were always faster than me were yet in the 60-64 AG because their birthdays are later in the year. Thus, there were only 3 of us in the 65-69 AG who had more or less similar results this year (about 38:30) and we started running altogether.

The course was flat though not fast; the weather was good (surprisingly warm 75-76F this time of the year for 58 deg north latitude). The wind was strong, though. First 2 miles of the course were very uncomfortable. There were road works in the city, and the asphalt was taken off the long street we had to run through. So, we had to run twice on a sort of a cobble-stone for about 1.5 mile. Nevertheless, the 3:50/km pace was OK for the first 3 km. Out of the blue, after 3.5K I felt an acute pain in the gluteal region, just a strike. Maybe this cobble-stone was the reason of this trouble, or maybe not, but the first thought was “the race is over for you”. But because I would anyway have had to return back along the same street, I resumed running, but at a slow 4:15-4:20/km pace just dragging the right leg. The last 3K it all went even worse because the asymmetry affected other muscles and the hamstring started severely hurting too. The pace reduced further, and the finish time was 42:07, terrible.

The winner showed his “regular” 38:40, the second one was in low 39 (he said he had not
yet recovered from an injury he got a month ago). Surprisingly I was 4th in my AG, the third guy passed me by just 1 mile prior to the finish.

I feel really frustrated because this season was the only one when I had no injuries and was running consistently. The bad day occurred unexpectedly. I think that maybe one of the contributing factors was my mountain running for 2+ weeks (gluts got overloaded).
So, a long recovery period will follow…

Happy and injury-free running to all!

Greetings, fellow 50+ers and Happy Yom Kippur to those celebrating!

This was a positive week with a bit if a race taper leading to 13 miles of actual running. The 5k race went well enough for me to get onto the podium. Not bad for my first race in 5 years. It helps that the age group participation experiences some attrition as the years go by. Anyway, my grandkids were impressed with my medal!

Mon: off

Tue: 46’ CR w/ utility pole fartlek (4 x 2 on/off); body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 44’ running (3); body wt ex

Fri-Sat: off

Sun: 53’ running (3)

All the best!

M55 euro outdoor final: 2:06

Figured it out. Age 52 Russell has 800 times listed for the 55 year old Russell who doesn't race the 800.

A bit of dearth right now in M55 U.S 800-1500m runners, other than Novak.at least compared to how fast these Europeans are. That could change in 2024, but these Euro runners won't slow down much over the next few years. I could be wrong but I don't see any 54 year olds moving up next year racing times like 2:04 - 4:15.

Way out of my league!

mastersrankings.com

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mastersrankings.com

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Follow the Rankings View Rankings Recently Added Other Competition Results Recently Added Submit Results Meet the Athletes Age Grading Age Grading is an adjustment for a performance (time, height or distance) based on age so...

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while i'll agree with your use of the term "dearth," i seem to recall another 55 year old american running 4:23.11 1500m back in march and a 4:39.28 mile in june (which would comfortably convert to at least a 4:19.0 1500m by every decent conversion method i'm familiar with). can't remember his name, though...

Good time! Yes, converts to 4:19 or better. I just stopped at first American on list is all.

Pretty slim pickings, more in the 800m I guess. Compared to Euro- not a lot of Americans moving into M55 category with 2:04, :06, :08 800m times. 1500 scarce to you'd agree. There is certainly talent here, but I'm just impressed with the depth in Europe.

I haven't posted anything about training in a very long time, but on Friday I had what appears to be a breakthrough.

How I got here: F65, a runner all my adult life, once a sub-elite marathoner. In March of 2020 I was running 70 mpw training for a marathon when the COVID shutdowns hit. At the same time I suddenly developed severe autoimmune symptoms that were eventually diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis. I kept trying to run for another 6 months or so but with increasing pain, and finally gave up and started walking instead. In February of 2021 I tripped and fell while walking and broke my shoulder. That healed pretty quickly, but in June 2021 I developed a neurological problem with my left leg that was eventually diagnosed as a focal dystonia ("runner's dystonia", but at the time I was only walking). During the second half of 2021 I could barely even walk (but could still ride a bike just fine, and did so to maintain some fitness). Around the start of 2022 the walking started to improve and by a year ago I was regularly walking about 7 miles at 14-15 min/mile pace. I could still barely run at all, though--it felt uncoordinated and very, very difficult. I kept working at running and by spring of this year I had worked up to over 2 miles of continuous jogging, but it felt just awful--I was having to work very hard at picking my left leg up with each stride, and jogging 12 min miles felt like a maximum aerobic effort. In April I pulled something in the back of my knee and decided to quit trying to run at all until summer backpacking season was over.

We declared backpacking season over a few days ago and yesterday I overslept and was late getting out for my walk, so I decided to try a little jogging. Miraculously, I found that jogging or even slow running felt almost fine! I stuck to just short running segments broken up by lots of walking, but I ended up running probably 2+ miles in total. My stride felt almost normal and I was no longer getting winded at a slow pace.

Unsurprisingly, today I have sore hamstrings as a result of running 2 miles after five months of nothing. I won't try to run again until Monday at the earliest. But I'm really hopeful that I have finally turned a corner and may, eventually, be able to run semi-regularly again. I doubt that I'll ever run another marathon, but right now running a 5K in a couple of months doesn't seem out of the question!

Hello runners,

my base week:

Mo 11 km with 16x1 min on/off

Tu 13 km very easy

We 13 km very easy

Th 12 km with 4x1,6 km in 7:00 and 2:30 jog

Fr 13 km very easy

Sa 17 km in the hill with firdt half easy, second half steady

Su off, will do some kids sprint games

Will repeat this structure and build base until I feel for something different.

Have fun, enjoy nature, BR

The link went wrong and should mean: amkelley, happy to read your progress.

Orient: greetings towards east, good recovery and happy comeback.

AmKelly - excellent. just simply an excellent first step.

In-laws are both dealing with immediate adverse effects from Covid. Wife is slipping daily with her MS. Youngest grandboy is improving from an undiagnosed virus while he remains in the hospital.
M: 8M(7x5:00@8:20 pace;400m recovery)

T: treadmill- 5.15M@11:45 pace

W: morning treadmill- 5M@12:20 pace; afternoon treadmill - 3M@12:40 pave

Th: work

F: treadmill before flight to see grandkids - 3M@12:48 pace

Sat: 5M(10x200@7:31 pace/200 recovery)

S: 7M @ 11:00 pace on unknown, hilly course

Enjoy the week