50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

sounds like your training is going really well. I hope the smoke stays away. I set the tone for a Commanders win today by having a decent 2:00 run this morning. Back pain/stiffness that arose two weeks ago has continued to be a problem and prevented any fast running. Seeing PT and doing lots of her homework stretching/strengthening, which seems to be helping some.

4 weeks out from marathon, so not likely to be able to race it, but still hopeful I can participate. have a great week,

Dave

No biking this week, but 56.1 running miles for the week, with weights twice, other cross training twice, and some good speed work.

At 71 my PR days are over except for a new distance. But I'm feeling good enough I figured out my age adjusted times for the common races for 71, 72, and 73 years old. Got to think positive. I might have a shot at it in a marathon I have coming up with a lot of downhill, but I probably won't count it even if it does happen.

Had a solid half today in less than ideal conditions. Four weeks out from my Marathon on a big mileage week. Really pleased. Hoping to PR in the Marathon. The equivalents on this suggest it's possible.

The Balboa 4 mile was a hot, difficult, hilly race. I was a little disappointed to run about 5 secs/mi slower than last year, but this year was really hot, probably on the high side of 80 by the time we were finishing. However, I am very happy with the consistency of my past month plus of training. I've had 7 straight weeks of training averaging about 42 mi/week, and running at least 5mi/day seven days a week. If I can stay healthy and continue this for another 6-8 weeks, this training will get me back to close to my best possible fitness. At that point I'll know what kind of times I realistically can run now. I believe that I can improve another 20-25 secs/mi on race pace, and that aging has not slowed me down to a 7:30/mi 5k runner yet, but I hope to be fit enough to really know if that's true by the beginning of November. Next XC race is a relatively fast 5k course next Saturday.

Good running to all!

Happy world championships. Delighted to see my fellow teacher and citizen of the DMV, Susanna Sullivan, get 4th in the marathon last night. She's really worked hard and improved so much over the years. I can remember when she would finish ahead of me, but not by all that much, in races maybe 10-12 years ago.

on more of a participatory rather than TV viewing note, my physical therapy for back is going well. Ran a half-marathon this morning on flat, fast course in 1:31:59 (343rd OA, 2nd AG). I was cautious at first (7:45 mile 1, 23:35 5k) but as it loosened up I was able to lower the pace and was really racing the second half (last 5k 21:05). Will see how I feel tomorrow, but guardedly optimistic i can at least run and finish Twin Cities Marathon in 3 weeks even if not at original goal time.

Have a great week,

Dave

That's good news about your back, dhaaga, and getting in a good prep race. Best of luck at Twin Cities!

I also enjoyed watching the WC women's marathon and seeing Susanna Sullivan run so well. I assumed that after she was caught by the African pack she would fold. Hanging in there and scrambling back for 4th place, with only about a 2 minute positive split under roasting conditions, is really impressive.

Getting older has made me not only much slower but also so much more fragile, in all sorts of ways. Yesterday afternoon, while getting ready for a backpacking trip I hope to start tomorrow morning, I dropped a plastic water bottle onto my bare foot. It hurt like heck and my little toe swelled up and turned black and blue. It didn't feel all that bad just walking around and I thought it would be just an annoyance, but when I took off for what was supposed to be a long run this morning I quickly discovered that I can't tolerate the required flexion in the forefoot and toes. I shut it down after about a dozen strides and went for a bike ride instead. I expect hiking boots are stiff enough that I'll still be able to backpack tomorrow, but this really threw a wrench into my preparation for a half-marathon I was hoping to run in 14 days. It seems ridiculous that a 1-pound plastic object dropped from a height of 2 feet or so could do that much damage, but it did. This is why I almost never enter races very far in advance!

Looking forward to watching the men's marathon later today.

Greetings!

dhaaga: congratulations on your impressive HM!

amkelley: wish you recover soon from the injury. What a ridiculous accident. I share your concern and observations about getting more fragile as our years go by (I am the same age
as you).

Watched 10000 m men at the Worlds recently. What a strange race! I wonder if all those elite guys really understand that after a 9.5K of "jogging" it all converts into a lottery and any “stranger” can shoot and kill them all.

As for me, I am still struggling with my left hip joint. On vacation now and undergo 2 PTs per day plus a massage. But don’t give up running because surprisingly it goes OK uphill, and I am hoping to be able to take part at a mountain trail on Oct. 19.

So, summary for this week:
4:25 total running time and 2:08 on elliptical. Emphasis on intensity: 1:08 uphill running at LT+ HR (2/3 at 5-6% inclination and 1/3 at 10-12%). Not hill repeats, but 8-11 min long intervals.

Happy and injury-free running to all!

Greetings 50+ers. Have had a pretty good summer training block, putting in the miles and doing B to B- workouts (tempos, pace, progressions) every week. Works for me.

Capped off the summer in our new digs with a 1:24 half and was happy with that. Have three big races coming up over the next couple of months and I'm grateful to have the time and good health to continue with this sport.

Regards and may your runs be fun and fruitful.

52.5 miles for the week, with one 20 mile run. Some training programs would say that long run is too far for my weekly mileage, but I also do a fair amount of other training which to me counts somewhat towards training. And it works pretty well for me. Tapering off now, 2 more marathons and 2 other races yet this year.

Just checking in to update on my retirement from competition and my quest to be a normal regular fit 65 year old hobby jogger...

Well, it backfired.

Little did I know that by dropping my weekly miles from 60 to 23'ish, running every-other-day instead of every day, dropping the weekly long run, focusing on a full body balanced fitness approach instead of just running by adding walking and/or biking on in between days, committing to a lot of pushups, lifting weights 2-3 times per week, stop chasing numbers, and escaping the psychotic obsession with feeling the need to wake up everyday wondering what I'm going today do to hopefully run a fast race on Saturday...

Would make me better at everything!?!? Coming up on a year and a half of this, it's clear and obvious everyday and with 100% certainty, I'm much healthier, fitter, stronger and without throwing out a bunch of numbers, I'm just as fast! My Vo2 max has risen 2 points to 57. I've only gained 2-3 pounds and it's not fat.

So now it's got me wondering if I've/we've been doing it wrong all these years? I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned here somewhere...

Anyhow, See you at the Turkey Trot,

Dave

If you are staying fit, no matter how you do it, you are doing everything right. You will live longer, have few adverse health outcomes, and enjoy the years you living. It takes hard work and discipline. Well done.

Dave, good to see you doing well. I run regularly with a 78 and 81 year old. In the largest race in Boise this past weekend the 81 year old was the only finisher 80-99, ran faster than the 75-79 runners, broke 1:10 for 10k. Talk about playing in the long game.

That’s fantastic! I don’t think you were doing anything wrong. I recall you were the USATF 5K champ a few years back. That’s something! It sure feels nice to not kill yourself and still go fast. I think I was beating the “less is more” drum since I came on this thread in 2009. The law of diminishing returns is a real thing. I found I could get 70% of the benefit with 50% of the training. I ran less because of being injury prone, but got a lot out of what I did run. I have finally settled on 4 days a week of running as “the Goldilocks zone” for me. Now I run trails. Maybe I’ll race next year, but don’t really care because I feel good. I don’t post much since I have no races to report.

Here's to injury-free running to all!

Racerdb, happy to hear you've found a regimen that allows you to stay very fit without the mental stress of trying to maximize running performance.

Damaging my little toe by dropping a water bottle on it 15 days ago has really thrown a monkey wrench in my plans. I tried running a couple of times in the week after the injury but had to shut it down quickly. I finally managed to run 8 days later (last Sunday) and it didn't feel too bad, but it got worse after the run so I shut down for another three days. I was finally able to resume something like normal running on Thursday, and ran Thurs-Fri-Sun with a longish (11 mile) run today. The toe is still painful but running now doesn't seem to make it any worse, so I think I've turned the corner.

Having missed the half-marathon I had been planning to run today, I'm still considering entering the "backup" HM next Sunday. Today's 11-miler went well. The race has an entry cap and there are currently only 9 spots left, so I will need to make a decision quickly!

Happy and healthy running to all.

Greetings!

Rtype, it looks like I am doing a bit similar. Being very injury prone (still struggling with the left hip joint), now run more trails than road races. The latest trail was on a pretty fast course. Only about 20% of the 10K distance were through real mud and bogs, 40% - narrow and winding paths in the forest, and the rest 40% - a kind of a hilly and slippery parkrun. Finished at 45:50 and was 21 of 343 OA, 20 of 159 male and 9th in the age category 45+ (I am 67).

Happy and injury-free running to all!

I recently got another marathon done in a new state for me. Another Boston qualifier, pretty even pace to hit the time I planned. I'm looking what I want to do next. I see the Las Vegas marathon changed their course to have over twice as much down hill, so that could be a real quad killer without a lot of time to adjust the training for it. Must be a Revel series connection. Grandma's just sold out in a short time, I didn't sign up for it. Pretty good race, but high hotel prices. But like a lot of us older runners my retirement money is doing well. Maybe time to do that more expensive marathon in Hawaii.

Nice race, Orient! It's tough to have to compete in a 45+ age group.

I went ahead and ran my "backup" half-marathon today. I was really not happy with my time of 2:07:39, the second slowest of the five HMs I've done this year, but I'm not sure why I was so slow. I think I didn't go hard enough in the early part of the race. I started to pick it up about the 8.5 mile mark and I ran down quite a few people between 9 and 12 miles, then hit two short but very steep hills right at 12 miles which left me totally gassed, but at least didn't get passed by anyone in the final mile. Everything felt fine including my little toe (probably because I took a Naproxen before the race) and five minutes after finishing I felt like I could go out and run again. Oh well. I was second of 9 finishers in my 10-year age group, but the winner and I were in almost a dead heat based on age graded conversions.

I finished the week with 44 miles. Next week will be low mileage, as I'm going on another overnight backpacking trip Mon-Tues and then plan to run a 10K on Saturday. I know 6 days isn't really enough recovery from a HM so I won't worry if the 10K is slow too. October is a wonderful time of the year here for racing and I'd like to get it while I can!

glad you're getting some good October racing in. Nice going.

I ran Twin Cities marathon yesterday in 3:22:17 (3rd M60-64). Unusual for me in being a small negative split (1:42:19/1:39:58), especially in that the most notable uphills were past mile 20.

Started this training block thinking 3:15 would be a good goal, but after back injury 6 weeks out set me back for about a month I was waffling between 3:25 and 3:30 as a goal. Challenging weather conditions persuaded me to start with 3:30 pace group. (I won't rehash the temperature part, which generated a lengthy letsrun thread, but the wind was noteworthy -- i think I saw it was 15-20mph steady and gusts to 30-40mph -- a few times when going uphill directly into significant gusts I was questioning my life choices).

Turned out 3:30 was a large pace group, and I was finding it a little awkward (e.g., chopping my stride when someone would cut me off to get to water stop), so I let myself drift ahead, and I had a good stretch in the middle and passed 3:25 group as well by about mile 16, then finished in decent form.

great weekend to visit my daughter in Minneapolis, and now on to recovery mode.

have a great week,

Dave

Nice race at Twin Cities, dhaaga! Negative splitting a race feels great, even if you suspect you might have finished with a slightly better time if you'd gone out a little faster. Well done!

I ran my 10K on Saturday and apparently the 6-day turnaround from the half-marathon wasn't a problem. I didn't make the mistake of going out too slowly this time, and after the first lap of the two-lap race I was wondering whether I'd gone out too fast, but I managed to move up just a bit through the second lap and finished with 58:19, which passes for a decent time for me nowadays. First out of six in my 10-year age group and just squeaked into the top half of all finishers. I enjoyed the event and I'm glad I went.

Next up is my 6th half-marathon of the calendar year, 3 weeks from yesterday. I hope to do a long run this weekend if everything feels OK, and then back off before the race.

Major weather moving into the Sierras today, so it looks like backpacking season is over until next summer. Time to focus on running now.