50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Posted by Steve Magness

The Evolution of Training:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2010/06/evolution-and-history-of-training.html

Kinda interesting guy very opinionated ;)

So L2B allergies suck I remember austin and cedar fever , eugene and grass pollen.

Alf maybe the sicknees and snow gave you the recovery time you might have needed. Sounds like you are getting STRONG.

Alan always error on the side of caution smart move How much longer before the marathon?

Rtype I gotta tell ya my lingering pf that kept me scared of volume and intensity is gone like never before since I shortened my stride 2 weeks ago. It still is a bit awkward and I have to make a conscious effort not to reach out.

MikeF periodization always bothered me pyramids are too pointy they do not stack well!

So the ID nor the Ego are behind injury from training too hard it is the SuperEgo from wiki:

The super-ego aims for perfection.[22] It comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called "conscience") that criticizes and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions. "The Super-ego can be thought of as a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt.

The only way to reason with the SuperEgo is through training that works. My initial hard run soothes this OCD part of me then the next day I can run a bit ezr without guilt and by third day the superego is totally on board. This also sets up the recovery days because without complete recovery you just dig yourself a hole.

April 7th Sunday Effort 7 Powell Butted 5:15 for lap plus partial starting at the trail split take the right do one lap then back to the trail that starts the climb about 2/3 rds of the way around the loop the loop is 3:08 almost a half mile I guess.

The 5:15 was hard using conscious effort to shorten stride

On the climb I hit the steep down trail at 4:43 vs 5 flat a few weeks ago.

Took 14 minutes to the top but I ran the last part ez to hit 14

Did 45 seconds at a low grade for the hard part felt ok

No pf next day just a small amount only after putting on shoes where the shoe pushes up I could feel just a bit

April 8th Effort 6 Glendoveer 13:47 a few pains in my calf muscles but minor again I did the short stride and continued to the 6 minutes mark nice steady effort

April Effort 5 3 minutes on the flats then up powell butte in about 14 minutes this is from memory so no hr

april 10,11,12 1,1,2

april 13th 3-4

April 14th start of new week ran before post and was happy with this run so

Glendoveer in 12:57(prior fastest was 13:22) HR 90% at 180. This is 6:01 pace at 2.15 miles then ran another 6 minutes at same effort/HR

So now I have more options since the pf looks like it is finally beaten I can run more than 30 minutes a day and or run hard workouts. But not so fast I am gonna just work on my slow twitch fitness by taking the 3rd hard day and slowing it down and running longer slowly hitting 1 hour at say 80 percent. The rest stays the same except I have added a 2nd 1 minute hill during the hard days.

Onward

oh yea my weight is 142 down a few pounds.

Echo Alan's observations on all going on with this group.

Like Mike F's break recommendation.

Pollen, snow, all relative from my vantage point ; )

Thoughts & prayers to your wife lucKY2b.

Admire your vision Rtype but sorry about the spikes & you.

I've run for about 10 of 11 days with one session on a stationary bike in the isolation ward to measure my: oxygen saturation (97-99% throughout the ride), blood pressure (hard to reliably get while exercising - gets uncomfortable too), & heart rate.

Doing the usual 30 min effort each session, the best I did was 4 X 3 min intervals @ 8mph & 2% grade on Friday with 2 min jog @ 6mph recovery. Blood counts must be above transfusion level otherwise I'd probably be walking, which I anticipate sometime after tomorrow's last drug to take out my stem cells. Last counts Tuesday: RBC'S 3.55, Hemoglobin 10.9, Hematocrit 32.8, platelets 230.

'Bro-marrow transplant Tuesday, brother has been out walking - I'm having him wear the Garmin! LOL, tears, and thanks!

Good week to all!

Ken

Charlie wrote:

The only way to reason with the SuperEgo is through training that works.

So the theory of the id, ego and super-ego is prominent in our culture, but it's not the only theory. I don't know much about it yet but yoga has something they call puppy mind. And there is this one, which I find particularly interesting:

(I don't endorse that link, I just googled mitote and picked the first result that was on topic.)

My marathon is the Flying Pig on 5/5, thanks for inquiring. So hard to stay healthy. I sprained my left big toe tonight doing yoga. Too tired from the long run, the bandas weren't engaged, and I caught it on the mat. I guess it evens out with the right big toe which is still bothering me.

I'm going to give your shorter stride idea a try. AFTER the marathon.

Charlie wrote:

Rtype I gotta tell ya my lingering pf that kept me scared of volume and intensity is gone like never before since I shortened my stride 2 weeks ago. It still is a bit awkward and I have to make a conscious effort not to reach out.

That's a good idea since the problem is the push-off. I've always been a big over-strider on the track. But I can't help but remember Miki Gorman's 200 step stride when I think about it too much.....

Alan, thanks for the reference. I still love how running makes me feel, even if two of those guys in my age group lapped me in the USATF XC Nationals! It's amazing to see such talent go by at "my age". The irony is that I took 2nd yesterday out of 31 in my age group at a local 5 km (be it noted that all the "studs" were in the 1/2 marathon.

Ken, thoughts and prayers going your way. Hasn't been a day going by this week that I haven't given healthy thoughts to you while out on the roads. Looking forward to the day you can join us all.

Best luck on Tuesday and the ensuing weeks.

Banging the cowbells and gheering for you today Ken.

Edgewood

Word of the day for Patriot's Day: senseless

Word of the day for today: perseverance

Hey guys.

Just wanted to let you know I heard from Ken some hours back. He was through surgery, tired and off to get some sleep.

A Duck wrote:

Hey guys.

Just wanted to let you know I heard from Ken some hours back. He was through surgery, tired and off to get some sleep.

Thanks for the update. Did things go as well as expected?

Dave

My thoughts and prayers are with you Ken.

Thanks A Duck

and I did intend to type 'cheering' earlier

Go Ken

racerdb wrote:

A Duck wrote:

Hey guys.

Just wanted to let you know I heard from Ken some hours back. He was through surgery, tired and off to get some sleep.

Thanks for the update. Did things go as well as expected?

Dave

From his Facebook page, seems to have gone well. Nice pic of Ken and his honey in his hospital room post-procedure.

Continued good vibes sent your way, Ken!

Didn't log in at all on LetsRun this week. Monday to avoid seeing anything on the Boston Marathon until I could watch our recording of it "live" that night on TV. The rest of the week just too weirded out by the event at Boston to even post about my training.

Appreciate all the great feedback and experience from all, especially muddygirl's tempo guidance. My running notebook now has lots of LR posts that I have cut out and put into it!

Last week started out slow, but ended up ok. Incorporated a "muddygirl tempo run" into my schedule on Thursday, which seemed to shake the cobwebs loose.

Mon: a.m. 10 mi easy p.m. 4 mi easy

Tues: a.m. 8 mi easy

Wed: OFF

Thurs: 9 mi with attempted 6 mi "muddygirl tempo" HMRP. Did not look at watch and only able to hold 4.5 mi. Only hit 1 mi at HMRP of 6:45 - rest were 7 to 6:50. Slowed to comfortable pace of 7:30. Felt great physically after the run.

Fri: easy 6 mi - 3 mi with the dogs

Sat: 14 mi

Sun: 12 mi with 3 at 7, 6:50, 6:48 pace; 1 mi recovery and 2 at MRP (7:45).

I am clearly not capable of holding the hoped for HMRP of 6:45 to hit my goal right now. But liked the test of just running on feel and evaluating afterward where I am at. So much, I find, depends on sleep, work stress, family events, temperatures, humidity, yada, yada.....

In the end, does it really matter what the number on the watch reads if we know we did the best we could for that day?

And I am very happy that I have found something that, for me, provides health, happiness and peace whenever I do it. Wishing all a good week.

I am a 55-year-old who trains in complete isolation, and rarely gets the chance to run in either races with decent sized fields to get towed along, flat courses, or decent weather.

So, I'm wondering what kind of training good 3k/5k runners in this age group do, and where my best kind of efforts would fall. Best recent rep sessions would be 4 x 1000m with 3 min recovery in 3:19, 3:19, 3:20,3:12, 4 x 1 mile in 5:41, 5:38, 5:36: 5:33 with five min recover; and a couple of time-trials of 2 x 1 1/2 miles in 8:26 and 8:17 with 7 min rest (17:24 5k pace) and 2 x 1 mile at 5:21 and 5:18 with 5 min recovery.

Ran 4 mile road race (measured but very hilly course) basically totally solo (second 1 min behind winner) in 23:48 at the weekend.

Anybody in the 50+ bunch got any idea what that sort training is like relative to their times - I'd just like to get some sort of gauge how it compares with good competitive age group runners.

In the end, no it does not really matter what the number on the watch says. Btw, 4 1/2 miles of tempo effort is a good effort - don't beat yourself up because you didn't do 6. You did over 30 minutes at tempo effort and that's a great workout. Even better, your legs felt great. I generally only do that effort for 20-30 minutes.

Interestingly, you managed to do another mini tempo workout just two days later, running 3 miles at about the same pace as your tempo run. You might want to space out your efforts a bit more than 2 days since you are now in your 50s.

I'm not a huge proponent of Jack Daniels' Running Formula (I find his workout to be too hard, by and large), but he has a table where you adjust your tempo pace (slowing down) for every 5 minutes over 20 minutes you run. So, if you were running a 20 min. tempo run at 6:51 pace (which is roughly 1:31 half or 3:10 full capability), you'd slow the pace down as follows:

25 min - 6:56 pace

30 min - 7:00 pace

35 min - 7:03 pace

40 min - 7:05 pace

45 min - 7:07 pace.

So, actually, based on that table and reflecting on your recent races, you did a great job. On Thursday, you did over 30 minutes at an average pace of 6:53-6:55. On Saturday, you did about 20 minutes averaging 6:52/mile.

Try only doing one tempo effort a week (or every 10 days), keep your long run at a steady effort (not pushing the pace) and do a faster paced workout every 7-10 days as well and see how that goes.

I think I am becoming jealous.

According to this age grading link below:

That 4 mile time converts to an 82.58 percent age grade and that is considered "national class" by definition. I stopped giving detailed training advice to people I can't see with my own eyeballs, but, in general, if whatever you are doing can yield a national ranking on a slow course then that is a very good thing. Find what works, and KEEP doing it. Amazingly, people actually don't follow that advice, present company very much included.

Rtype mentioned the age graded calculator and that is about as good a Rank Order Measure you are going to find.

Your rep times are FAST. Everyone is different but I would be shooting for a sub 17 5000 as in on the TRACK where there are no hills to factor in.

So you came to the right place but it looks like at least for me I am more curious about your current training and running background please do join in.