50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

AK-56 wrote:Big news is that I am moving back to Colorado in a couple months.

I'm not quite 50 but i'm knocking on the door and this thread looks like a place where someone may have some good input.

I've been coming back from an injury (long time hamstring issues). I've used a HRM since i was in my mid 20s. The mafftone formula (180-) has always worked really well for me. I've been crosstraining on an elliptical at 130-145 HR, bike, swim, and lift so i've maintained good fitness.

During this comeback, it has been hard to get the HR up to what would be an easy training pace i.e 130-135. My theory is that I'm very efficient aerobically but that my muscles have deteriorated over the years and that my hams aren't strong enough to push the heart.

In my 20s and 30s, getting the HR up was never a problem. I just wonder if this is biomechanical deterioration due to aging and injury? can i get strong enough again to be able to run at a normal pace again. I'm wondering if lots of hill sprints and more strength work will help?

Anyone have any experience with this?

thanks

I'm a sprinter/hurdler so realize my advice doesn't directly tie into your type of training, but I have suffered through my share of hamstring issues in the past. I tend to be quad-dominant in that my hams can lag behind in strength unless I concentrate on working them. I use deadlifts and stair running. My chiropractor recommended stairs as a way to strengthen my hams after a pull. The range of motion needed for the stairs didn't strain the hamstrings yet they received a very effective workout. Deadlifts are also a great exercise. Go on youtube to see demonstrations of proper form.

You are correct in wondering if your muscles have deteriorated over the years. Unfortunately, we can lose anywhere from 2 to 5% of muscle mass per decade after age 30. The docs call it sarcopenia. Strength training becomes vital. In addition, you didn't mention diet but how many grams of protein do you eat per day? Recommended amounts vary but I strive for approx. .7 grams per lb of body weight. Some sources recommend more, but that amount seems to work for me. Eat from a variety of sources (include animal proteins for the complete amino acid profile), spread it throughout the day, and strive for approx. 25 to 30 grams within 30 minutes of your workout to fuel muscle growth. A protein shake is ideal.

These are all statements based upon my experience and what works well for my body. Hopefully other posters can chime in so you can get a wider viewpoint.

Welcome aboard knockknock. This is a good thread for the 50ish crowd. Started several years ago and still going strong.

Funny how you mention hamstring issues as mine have been acting up lately. Have had off and on problems with them in the past. This morning on a 4x1600 wo I had to stop after the 2nd interval. It started half way through at about the 800 mark and I slowed down a bit and finished the 1600. It didn't get better during the 2 min rest so I bagged it and ran some slow miles to get my usual 7 miles in. With a key 5k next Sat this is not what I needed right now.

About 10 years ago my only dnf out of about 100 races was due to a hamstring problem. Made it through 2 miles of a half marathon and it locked up completely. Tried several times to continue but no go. Limped 2 miles back to my car.

I think my problems come from lack of water and electrolytes. I'm a heavy sweater and lose alot of both, especially during the summer months. My weight is currently at a 4 year low. This happening to me now really sucks because I've been on the comeback for 3 years now and have gotten faster every year since taking a year off due to a groin problem. I have some good hay in the barn this year and was hoping for a good race next weekend but now that's in question. Hopefully it will be okay but as anyone with hamstring issues knows these are very unpredictable and can be very problematic. Sometimes they can just go away and other times they seem to linger forever.

My only humble advice, which I dont always follow to well myself, is make sure you're fully hydrated and replenish your electrolytes as much as possible.

As for HR, I dont train using a monitor so cant add much there. As we get older we do in fact lose muscle mass so maybe you're onto something.

hey guys,

thanks for the replies. my high hamstring issues started around 10 years ago but i've was able to strength train through them and do some pretty decent 1/2m racing. Then last year, since i maxed out my 1/2 time, i decided to train for a marathon, which i hadn't done since the late 90s. I had ham issues throughout even though i kept up the strength work but i just broke. 2 days after an MP run, i felt a pull and it triggered a cascade of hamstring issues that i had not experience before. I finally started PT 6 weeks ago and have made great progress. The key problem was loss of flexibility. I was very strong but had a very limited range of motion. Now that i'm getting mobility back, running feels biomechanically smoother than it has in a long time. but i'm so freaking slow and the HR is so low.

i do a ton of strength training along with PT and my diet is really solid.

I am wondering if any of you have been using a HRM over the past 20 years and what patterns have you seen in your training and racing ranges.

in my younger days, when i was going hard, i knew if i hit 180+ that i'd better not have more than a couple of miles left or i was toast. in the past several years, that number has gone done to around 174 but i found i can sit in the low 160s for a very long time.

but it's the easy days that are intriguing me. getting the HR above 130 takes work these days which seems so weird. i'm hoping that once i feel it's safe for the hams, doing hill sprints and striders will help get some bounce back. i just feel like things aren't firing enough to get the ticker going.

You might want to try fartleks and/or sprints with short rest intervals to get your HR up and the muscle memory back for faster paces. I haven't trained with an HR for years, but when I did for a while and wanted to check on max HR I would do hard 200s with a 50 jog on the track, or hard :30 with a :10 recovery up about a 5% hill until I hit max HR (which hasn't changed much over the years for me - about 193 in my mid-30s and 189 now at 64).

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Week 170

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Salutations, 50+ers. Glad to see some discussion on issues facing knockknock; wish I had some illuminating insights. Old Guy II, that is absolutely incredible that your max HR has not dropped that much. Mine is significantly lower than my younger days. At 19, my max HR was over 210….I think it was about 215-220, now it’s down to about 182…..and I’ve just turned 55, who knows what the next decade will bring. But I don’t train by HR, so I can’t really add much to the discussion, other than I know that 140-150 is a typical range @ 7:45/mile (based on the few times I have worn an HRM on a long run). I just found my Garmin (w/HRM) that I misplaced a couple months back, so maybe I’ll take it out for a spin on our easy club run tonight and report back.

On to my week. Still trying to adjust my schedule with the fall teaching assignments. It’s been so dang humid this past week, that I haven’t felt the urge to get out in the morning and go, I prefer to run in the evening when it’s hotter, but less humid…and that’s caused complications, but even so I managed to get in about 40 miles on six days of running. Log reads as such:

Sun: 7.6 easy

Mon: 4.1 easy-to-moderate (7:30 pace avg)

Tue: 6.1 w/3x(1200m, 30s rest, 400m, full recovery between reps)

Wed: 4.0 easy

Thur: off

Fri: 5.5 w/1.0@6:14 (in middle) the rest was easy pace

Sat: 12.5 2/1.2@6:15 pace (around mile 8) most of the rest was in the 7:30-7:45 range

Times for Tuesday’s workout were: 4:41,80,4:43,82,4:41,81, so the 1200’s were just above current 5k pace, and I think the 400’s were at about current 2k pace. The recoveries were easy jogs for just over 4 minutes. The faster miles during the Friday and Saturday runs were mostly because I realized I was not going to get a decent tempo run in this week (too humid to want to go long and hard), and I felt the urge to inject at least a little pace for the week. Saturday’s run (the only morning run for the week) had a more progressive nature, starting at around 8:00/mile and getting down to 7:00/mile before we pushed hard for the 1.2 (to be honest, though, it had more downhill than up, so the 6:15 pace is a little misleading). We eased off quite a bit for the final 4.

Take away for the week. I’m at about 75% where I was pre-injury; 40 miles/week is something that I can handle, and I think I can push that to 45-50 over the coming months. At which point, aerobically, I’ll be in pretty good shape, and I can go back to putting more focus on the strength that I’ve lost through this whole ordeal…..at least, that’s the plan for the coming fall and winter. To that end, this month we’ll be having a strength-training specialist coming to our club meeting to answer questions about strength training for distance runners. If I get any good insights, I’ll report those. Hopefully, by spring I’ll be in good shape in this new age group.

From April’s Running Times Magazine:

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/strength-training-misconceptions

Quote for the week: "The five S's of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit." -Ken Doherty (1905-1995) decathlete champion and U of Mich. T&F coach.

OK, Long-winded post as usual. Hope you all had good weeks; looking forward to reading how it’s going in your corner of the globe. Stay hydrated out there!

Back to running after a planned week off. I'm now training for the USATF Master's XC Championships held here, Nov. 8th. Hope to meet some of you there.

We're planning a fundraiser for WOC later this month. If any of you want to get the word out to your club, buddies, etc. let me know. Here is the preliminary e-vent link:

https://thedriven.net/e-race-cancer-site/

Essentially, it is a soft call out to the fitness communities to give back a small donation towards research on something we all are doing anyway, working out.

Have a good week all!

lucKY2b wrote:

AK-56 wrote:Big news is that I am moving back to Colorado in a couple months.

Going from one outdoor adventureland to another. Good luck on your move. Nice race, by the way.

Thanks, I'll have to create a new name as well. Going to be a lot of big changes.

73 for the week. Now taper for trail marathon.

AK-56 wrote:Big news is that I am moving back to Colorado in a couple months.

Lucky you! We plan on moving back to CO in a couple of years...already have our retirement home purchased. I just have to get the last kid out of college. We're in the home stretch! I am looking forward to the lower humidity (segue into the next paragraph)...

because the weather here has been brutal. Highs near 90 which isn't bad but the humidity has been oppressive. Trying to run is like breathing through a hot damp towel. My workout partner couldn't suck in enough air. He said it felt like it was sticking in his throat. My spouse and I attended the CU/UMass football game and I was sweating bullets just sitting still. My workouts in this steam bath have been: Saturday 6x200, 1x400, Sunday weights, Monday hurdle work, Wednesday 6x80 with 15 sec rest which about brought me to my knees plus 1x400, Saturday hurdle and block work, and today, weights and stairs. Looking forward to cooler temps and lower humidity next week! Have a good one.

47.7 miles this week. 12.7 this morning, slow. My hamstring I tweeked yesterday felt pretty good today at the slower pace. It's still there though. As long as I dont do anything faster than 6:30 pace this week I should be okay. My race next Sat is another story. I'll have to be well under 6:30 to consider it a good run. I plan on doing a longer warm-up than usual. That should help. Fingers crossed.

Saw the heart doc Friday and got my results from the echocardiogram. Doc says things look okay, nothing serious going on. He ordered some blood work for my thyroid and said he was going to talk to another doc who specializes in a-fib, especially the electrical issues. It's good because I wanted some bloodwork done anyway. Check out the electrolyte levels, sugar, etc.

Lucky, I hear you about the humidity. It's like night and day running in high humidity. I get soaked with sweat during high humidity runs, even if I go slow. And It's like running in quicksand.

Happy running

Still healthy for the most part with the pesky sore heal flaring up every now-and-then.

My goal race yesterday was a bit of a let down; partially due to my effort the last mile and the other part being a long course. Anyhow, course was 3.19, went 17:06 (5:17,5:21,5:28,:59.6) Hit 3 miles in 16:06 so I knew I had mid 16:30 going. No freaking way it took me a minute to run the last 10th!!! Oh well, whatever... 17:06 for 3.19 AG's to 91.89% so I should probably be happier with the day. Kind of pissed though that a 19 year old passed me with 20 yds to go for the win...

I guess my season is done. No more races planned for as far as I can see. Going to be 'just running' for a while...though I may consider running the Masters 5K XC Champs but I don't have a team at this point.

All the Best,

Dave

Another solid week of progress on fitness. 39 miles with a good 19x:30hard/:30float up my 2 mile hill on Thursday, followed by a strong progressive 9 mile trail run on Saturday with my kids. I am tired today but nothing feels damaged by the hard running. Two weeks until the next XC race of the season.

REALLY liked the Ken Doherty quote Lucky...thank you!

Good week here at 58.3 years young including 3,000 time trial, 1200,1000, 800 session and then 8x 300 today average 60 (finish in 56) with 100 walk/jog

...slowly but surely trying to get back in the game

Wishing everybody a week of greatness...and spirit

yoyr pal,

MF

Hi All,

I've been a lurker for a while so I feel as if I know many of you. I'm a 60+ distance runner from the Palmetto State (talk about humidity!). I usually run 45-50 mpw and compete in events from 5k to the 1/2m on the roads and the 5,000m and 10,000m on the track. I competed at Outdoor Nationals in NC and hope to be in Jacksonville next summer.

I was a competitive swimmer until my 30s when kids and work required my focus. I started running 3 years ago to keep up with my family; my husband coaches XC and track at our local HS and my youngest son competes at college in Virginia.

I'm currently training for a 2-mile race on the BMW test track on 9/19 and a 1/2m in October. I really appreciate how you all support each other and I'm looking forward to contributing to the forum and meeting you in person!

SCgal, welcome to the best thread on the boards.

Hey SCgal! Glad you've decided to join the discussion. Sounds like you've got a very broad palette of racing interests! Good luck on those upcoming events. Hope we'll get to learn more about your training and progress, and that you'll get encouragement from us (and maybe even some generate some discussion on questions you might have.)

@knockknock: OK, so I ran a fairly easy 5 miles this evening with my newly-found Garmin w/HRM. We did blitz the last half mile, but it was pretty steady going (with a slight accel) prior to that. Breathing was conversational until that blitz at the end. Here's a link to the Garmin page for that run.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/585552165

Hope it's of some use.

SCgal good to see you here...the smartest ongoing thread...we hope to benefit from your experiences and you from ours....welcome!

Welcome aboard SCgal