50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

" I would think it is on the uphill section that the calves get more eccentric work, during the stance phase, since the heel has to drop further to touch down."

I would guess the increase in eccentric strength and range of motion has to do with how the ankle joint is moving during foot plant to toe off. Uphill running the ankle moves very little but down hill the ankle has to flex forward a great deal. This is where the calf is working really hard eccentrically. If you are walking/hiking you get less impact but a really good smooth expansion of the muscles. Also applies to the achilles tendon. Just some thoughts.

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Week 190

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Salutations, 50+ers!

-Nice discussion on hills and eccentric exercises, Charlie and Alan. I wonder where climbing up and down stairs would fall in this category.

-SCGal, so glad that your MRI results revealed a simpler problem to deal with; hope that you've had a good week as you prepare for indoors.

-Nice to see a post from you, DrT! It's been a while! Glad to see you getting back into it. Yes, world XC in the neighborhood is a must do! Good luck and keep us informed!

-Good to see so many getting in good work even with the fluctuating wintry weather.

Had another less-then-stellar week. Felt very lethargic---don't know whether it's January blues or something physical, but I had a difficult time getting out the door after Monday. Only managed 15+ miles, that also included a couple of stair sessions, in three days of work.

Sun: off (needed a day off from the end of the previous week)

Mon: Nice hike during the day, 5.1-mile moderate progression run PM.

Tue: off

Wed: 3.6 miles + 4x11 stories of stairs (135-140 seconds, reach ~180bpm on the fourth one)

Thur & Fri: off

Sat: 7 miles (~8-flat pace) + 3x11 stories of stairs

Lovely hike on MLK Day down at Raven's Run. It was pretty muddy in some spots, but the 4+ miles of up and down trails by the Kentucky River on an unseasonably warm day was delightful. In the evening, went for a 5 mile run from a local running store. Started out about 8:15 pace, but we picked it up slowly and were running low 7's by the last couple miles. Felt good. However, next day I just felt dead, and really struggled for the rest of the week. Wednesday afternoon's stair work about did me in.

Went to the Rod McCravy Memorial T&F Meet Friday and Saturday; watching these young graceful gazelles rejuvenated/inspired me enough to get out for a decent workout in the late afternoon Saturday...but the 8-minute pace was still a struggle and the hip was feeling pretty stiff by mile 5, The stairs at mile 6 did loosen things up a bit and the cool down mile afterwards felt OK, but I tightened up again in the evening. BTW-the U. of Oregon distance men (3k and 5k) were very impressive; they really put on quite a show!

Hoping that my current feelings of lethargy will abate, and I can get back to some good runs (I know it'll get better). Sorry for my less than inspiring report; hope you all are fairing better.

Almost forgot! How about Anselm LeBourne's 55-59 AG WR in the mile! Now there's some inspiration!

http://www.runnersworld.com/masters-profiles/anselm-lebourne-55-runs-a-437-indoor-mile

All the Best!

Due to finalizing the year end financial statements at work, my past week has been a tough one. After having Monday off for MLK, I worked 3 ten hour days and one 11 hour day. This certainly cut into training, but I still squeezed in: Monday - weights and stairs Wednesday - hurdles at the track Friday - speed endurance at the track Saturday - snowy day leading to intervals on the treadmill. So, not bad really but the whole week was exhausting (especially mentally). I took a long nap Saturday, went out to dinner that night, and slept until almost 9:00 this morning! I am still feeling a bit dragged out, so no workout today. I will probably do intervals on the treadmill tomorrow and it appears that I will be logging in remotely and working from home on Tuesday since a huge a$$ blizzard is making its way toward us late Monday. We'll find out how much is hype, but a forecast of 2 feet of snow makes me wary. I just finished my grocery shopping and I have fire logs and batteries in case of an outage. Wednesday I hope that we are shoveled out enough to allow an indoor track workout in preparation for Sunday's meet. The meet has age-graded performance prizes for both men and women - if all goes well I may bring home a little cash!

Have a great week ahead.

Week 190: 2 hours 45 minutes in 3 runs, all outdoors. :)

Still in a holding pattern. Any attempts to bump up the pace leave my heel very sore. And I am unwilling to give up any of my 3 REST days per week. So I will just keep doing the same for as long as I need. In a strange way it is validating to read that others are struggling. Not schadenfreude, it just means that my own struggles might be normal and not (necessarily) due to stupidity on my part.

Still not convinced that downhill walking gives the calves much eccentric work. Charlie's statement that his calves feel GREAT (but his quads are sore at first) supports my view. I think uphill running gives more load for the calves both concentrically and eccentrically. As it happens, last night I went to a talk, on biomechanics and injury prevention, by Ajit Chaudhari of the OSU Sports Biomechanics Lab.

OSU Sports Biomechanics Lab

http://u.osu.edu/osusportsbiomechanics/

Ajit Chaudhari is standing with a clipboard under Nik Wallenda in the picture on the main page.

One of the slides (I didn't find it at the link) was a composite (3 parts) comparison of running gait and walking gait, for the same individual. I estimate running speed was more than 2x walking speed. The peak ground reaction force for running was about 3x (if I remember correctly) of peak walking force, but more significantly the running force was monotonic, but the walking force was split into two pieces of about equal area. The first piece is when the heel contacts the ground, the second piece is when the ball pushes off the ground. I believe in downhill walking the first force piece is bigger and the second piece is smaller. In uphill walking the reverse is true. Thus my contention that downhill walking doesn't do much eccentrically for the calves. The heel takes most of the force going downhill, and the calf lengthening during the next part of the stride has little load. How to explain the benefits Charlie observes? Well, what goes down must first have gone up. I think it was the combination of uphill work and downhill rest/stretch that was giving him good results.

As for stairs: This has two parts, upstairs and downstairs. The upstairs part I think depends on how you do them. At one extreme (going nowhere) you have calf drops, which is about as eccentric a calf exercise as you can get. At the other extreme you can just sprint up on your toes the whole way, this is maybe a little more eccentric than sprinting on the flat but not by much. The downstairs part is very interesting, because most athletes walk downstairs ball first heel second (the opposite to downhill walking) and I don't think it makes much difference (for the calves -- the quads might disagree) how fast you go down. So my speculation is that downstairs walking is more eccentric work than downhill walking. But because the stair is level, it is perhaps less eccentric stretch than downhill walking.

Note that with my calf/peroneal issue, I have to set the treadmill at 0%. I also have to walk up any hill that is more than gentle. Occasionally I test that limit, so far my heel always fails the test. But just writing all the above has given me an idea for easing into stair work -- I could walk up and run down. I'll give it a try and let y'all know how it goes.

I've had a nice last two weeks here (68 & 71 miles). Still cold & blustery but able to get most runs done outside. Pretty much doing the faster stuff on the treadmill; the easier and long runs outside.

Getting used to Tinman's training. I seem to feel good most days. Nailing the harder Tues/Thurs workouts and running pretty well on the Saturday 15 milers. Happy with where I'm at...fitness and health wise. I think I'm getting in decent shape and have zero injuries to report!

Have a good one everyone,

Dave

Mon = 3, rocky trail

Tue = 4, hard, greenway 5K@7:32 pace

Wed = 1, easy, road, tired

Thr = 3, easy, road and trail, turned 56

Fri = 1, medium, road, 32 and raining hard

Sat = 4, hard, very windy track 5K@7:14 pace

Sun = 5, hard, steep hike with actual climbing

Total = 21

My stomach was still bugging me from last week's flu for Tuesday's hard one, so a 7:32 pace actually felt like I was working really hard. It took until Thursday before I could finally eat normally. For Sat’s hard one the wind was really up on the track. I really hate the wind. You know you are hurting when you come through the second mile of a 3 mile run and think you are finished. Boy did that 3rd mile hurt!

I turned 56 Thursday but since it’s not a new age group it does not seem very significant. Last year when I turned 55 I was really pushing myself to get into race shape. Of course I injured myself in the process. Sooo predictable.

Have a great week everyone!

This was a good week for me; 37.5 miles in 6 workouts. I took one unplanned day off since I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck at work. I was so exhausted I could hardly go up and down the stairs. Many of my students have the flu or strep throat and I don't want to get sick. I slept for 11 hours that night and ran the next even though I wasn't 100%. I ran intervals two days on the track and started doing stretches and strength work and could really feel it in my tired legs.

Sun: Track - 5 miles (3X1600)

Mon: Road - 6.6

Tue: Road - 7.3

Wed: Track - 5 (2 sets 4X400) ran stadium stairs

Thur: off

Fri: Treadmill - 6 (leg press, hip add, hams)

Sat: 7.6 - felt good

LucKY - hope you feel peppier fast!

Spikez - Thanks for the advice about the SC. No one my age actually hurdles the barriers but I'm still going to work on your suggestions so I don't kill myself! Good luck at your meet next weekend. We'll look forward to hearing your report.

Have a great week everyone!

The week wasn't what was in the training plan, but felt good and finished on a modestly successful note. I was feeling tired and my legs felt dead at the beginning of the week, so I ran an easy 4 miles on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday felt a little better, but since I was racing Saturday I just did another easy 4 miles, but then 6x50 hard sprints at the end. I could hardly believe how tough it was to sprint 50m and how slow I seemed. I really haven't done any quality speed work in a couple of years because of achilles issues and my past racing schedule. It is clear that I now need to do some focused rebuilding of my top end speed. Thursday and Friday I continued with the 4 miles easy. Saturday I did a 5k that had a 200+ foot hill from about mile 1.75 to mile 2.75. I ran 20:47, which was :10 faster than I ran on an easier course last year. I had hoped to be around 20:00, but I was happy with my effort and the race felt good. Lat year my achilles was so sore after the race that I could only walk to warm down and I didn't run for a week. Today I felt good and went out and did an easy 6 miles for a total of 34 for the week.

My next planned race is a road mile in 7 weeks. I now plan to do another 6x50 speed set this coming week, and some drills, and then increase to 6x100 the following week, 6x150 the week after that, and then stay at 6x150 once a week until my road mile.

4:37 mile is so fast for 55-59!

Speed is where I'm losing it the most. Although it's January.

Did the RRCA state champs 5 mile last week and was sort of meh. The first 3 felt just slightly faster than a tempo and I thought I'd pull away easily from the competition but we had a net uphill finish and I blew up after attempting a surge at 3.5 miles. So I got 2nd in AG and 2nd grand masters by about 25 sec.

Past two weeks were

at about 8.5 hours with ~45 miles running and 2-2.5 hours xc skiing. Did a concentric face plant at 35 mph last week and dinged my head. I was all achey for the next day and ribs still hurt a week later.

Been tinkering with HR monitor the past week, calibrating paces and training zones. I have it pretty well dialed in, but ugghh. Not feeling comfortable at faster paces.

4 mile XC tune up race next weekend and the weekend after that USATF XC in Boulder.

I don't think it's hype. NOAA is calling it a "nor'easter". Unfortunately their map doesn't extend far enough east for me to tell if it will be a true nor'easter, but if it is, then hang onto your hat.

Note that nor'easter refers to the wind direction: FROM the north-east.

A nor'easter has three parts: (1) a low pressure area tracking up ("down" in Maine speak) along the Atlantic seaboard; (2) a cold front moving in from Canada; (3) a high pressure area over Greenland. When the low bumps into the high, it stalls and pinwheels in place -- straddling the coast. The southern extent sweeps out over the warm Atlantic (yay! Gulf Stream), where it picks up water. Then the northern extent sweeps back over land, from the nor'east, where it meets the cold front which turns it all into snow (lucky you!), falling on New England and states as far south as Delaware. When the high eventually moves off to the east, the low can move out to sea and the shoveling begins.

It's enough to make me homesick.

L2B nice article on Anselm LeBourne.

Alan thanks for your point of view. It got me to reexamine my thinking.

Here are a few links to articles I just found interesting and yes they support my position;)

http://runnersconnect.net/running-injury-prevention/age-and-calf-injuries/

"

The authors also cite other work which indicates that calf injury occurs not as you push off the ground (a concentric contraction), but just as you transition from landing to supporting and beginning to drive off the ground (eccentric and isometric muscle contractions). This is significant because it can help us predict strategies for prevention."

Exactly what I experienced. Long downhill hikes fixed these calf issues. This progressed to the point to where I could run downhill with no issues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1332286/pdf/brjsmed00010-0019.pdf

"Soreness and tenderness

Tenderness, measured by pressure transducers (e.g.

Penny and Giles Myometer, Christchurch, Dorset,

UK) is greatest in the gluteus maximus, rectus

femoris, vastus medialis, vastus laterali, tibialis

anterior, gastrocnemius and biceps femoris when

measured 2 days after downhill running'2"

Biomechanics of downhill running

During normal locomotion (walking and running) the

extensor muscles in the lower limbs perform eccentric

contraction during each stride to decelerate the centre

Br J Sp Med 1995; 29(2) 91Downhill running: physiological and biomechanical considerations: R. G. Eston et al.

of mass after the foot touches the ground'.

Following downhill running, greater DOMS is

produced in the gluteal muscles, the quadriceps, and

the anterior and posterior tibial muscles, than for an

equivalent bout of level running'2.

Armstrong et al.2 suggested that it is primarily the

eccentric contraction phase that causes muscle

damage during normal level running since the

highest tensions in the leg extensor muscles are

produced whilst the muscles are lengthening after

the foot touches the ground and the centre of mass is

decelerating.

Few studies have examined the kinematic differences

between downhill and level running and

highlighted the differences in the knee angle between

footstrike and peak flexion angle45 46. The overall

change in angle is greater in downhill running, with

peak flexion angle significantly greater. This means

that the muscle is working eccentrically at a greater

length during downhill running. As alluded to

earlier, there appears to be a length-dependant

component in the production of muscle damage"7. In

downhill running the knee extensor muscle group is

worked over a greater length, with more work at its

longer length. This is exemplified from the following

kinematic data.

During downhill running the overall change in

knee angle from footstrike to peak flexion angle is

much greater than in level running. "

There is much more information in the article. I will probably reread it a few times but overall I think the article supports my experience with long downhill hikes (4000 feet over 7 miles) eventually leading to me being able to run down these hills with reckless abandon. BTW I never did get injured just took a break to focus on other stuff .

Congrats on the race OGII. Going faster with less soreness afterwards is always a plus.

M: Rest.

T: 3 miles easy / 6 miles easy.

W: 12 miles progression.

R: 3 miles easy / 6 miles easy.

F: 9 miles progression.

SA: 7 miles easy.

SU: 20 miles.

So I did the first doubles of the year, and the first 20 miler of the year in the same week. Another cold, rainy Sunday, but the 20 miler went reasonably well with a little pick-up on the last mile (about 7:33/mile). Looks like I have decent endurance, so the remaining question is how to regain my speed. I haven't run anything fast since my injury last fall. I also haven't done any hills. The road course I am running on Sundays is a very flat loop, and I am currently setting the treadmill at 1%.

From my past experience with injuries, I have no problem with increasing the mileage as long as it is gradual, but doing any speed work scares me. And now with this new injury, I am very cautious about hills. (I was doing the "Tegra" workout on the treadmill once a week about this time last year, all the way up to 6.5% max. Now I don't know when I can resume that workout.) I probably need to get some hill workout before the marathon in April, which will be on a hilly course.

According to Chaudhari, the old theory was sprinters needed to stretch the hamstrings to ward off hamstring pulls. The new theory is they need to stretch the hip flexors. Maybe this applies to you as well.

Charlie wrote:

There is much more information in the article. I will probably reread it a few times ...

Agreed, there is too much to quickly wrap my head around. Where they mention other studies there seems to be some contradictions. But I need to read more than once to make sense of this.

Alan Bennet wrote:

According to Chaudhari, the old theory was sprinters needed to stretch the hamstrings to ward off hamstring pulls. The new theory is they need to stretch the hip flexors. Maybe this applies to you as well.

Thanks for the tip. My PT pointed out last fall that my hips were too tight. I have been working on them since, and I think I have made some progress.

Haven't updated in a while...continuing 40+ mile weeks with 10-12 mile long runs. Recent workouts of note; 3 x 2-mile @ 13:00 w2' rest last week and then 5 x 800 @ 3:00 w/2' rest followed by 4k at threshold (6:45 pace) this week. Looking at a 1/2 marathon the first weekend of March.

Keep it going Steve. Wonderful to see not only your overall health progress but that you are enjoying running hard again. Awesome.

KP

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Week 191

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Greetings, 50+ers! And good riddance, January!

Thanks for the continued discussion on eccentric loading, DOMS, and all that, associated with downhill running. I do not have enough biochemical literacy to fully comprehend the implications of the technical research into the body\'s response to these stressors. I\'m glad there are some people that can break it down for me. Some time ago, I had talked about retro-running as a way to help rehab the knee, and most associated studies have focused on the reduce eccentric loading on the knee. A few studies have mentioned the calves, as well, but that hasn\'t been the focus of the research. I\'m guessing that there is much benefit here, as well. When I talked with a sports medicine doctor at UK a few year\'s ago, he was very positive about the overall benefits of retro-running on restoring balance among all the muscles in the lower leg, and that there was a period when all the UK runners were incorporating retro-running into their training regimen. However, he says that they were probably a little too aggressive in utilizing it, and they ended up with too many stress fractures and abandoned the practice. He was sorry that it was abandoned rather than modified, as he really felt there was benefit to the program. I was running well when I incorporated a little retro-running (100-200 steps) after all my runs, and like most preventative measures, I have a tendency to fall off of using them when the going is good....I\'m back to trying to reintroduce a little backward running into my runs. At any rate, this all just food for thought.

So on to my week. I managed to get in 5 days of running this week, but the volume was still only in the low 20\'s. Log read as such:

Sun: 5.2 miles (mostly easy, but last mile had a decent pickup)

Mon: off

Tue: 4.2 miles with 1.3@6:24 pace.

Wed: off

Thur: 4 miles mostly 8:00 pace, but with 4x400@6:00 pace (treadmill @1.5% grade)

Fri: 3.9 miles easy with 4x11 stories of stairs

Sat: 5 easy (8:10 pace...I did struggle a bit)

I think it was a good (not great) week. Both Sunday and Saturday were a bit of a struggle as my lunch never fully digested in time for the runs (note to self: barbecue/potluck at 1pm will no longer be well digested by 5pm...not as young as I used to be.) The treadmill on Thursday was in lieu of running in 35-40 mph wind gusts!! I added the speed work just to overcome the monotony. The stairs Friday were good: did them all ~95s going up; catch my breath for about 15s (HR 170-180 @top) before descending; would start again at 4-minutes, which meant ~30s rest at the bottom between rep\'s.

Coach Steve, so nice to see that you are putting in some quality miles! Thanks for checking in!

Props to OGII on a nice race!

Spikez, I hope that you are surviving the crazy Boston weather and that your meet went well today.....but I can\'t root for the Patriots tonight....sorry.

Happy Birthday, Rtype!

Dave, you are a machine. Looking forward to seeing where this new training program takes you!

SCGal, sounds like your training has really been solid since your knee scare!

Co56: I was going to tell you about a guy asking some XC skiing/running related questions....but I see that you were right on that (

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6307292

).

OK. That\'s about all I\'ve got this week, except that I still haven\'t taken off any of that weight that I gained these past few months; still sitting at 173-174.

Good luck to any that are running in the USATF XC Championships next week (Co56, I see that you\'re in! Who else?) Then there is the 8k masters championships in Brea, CA later this month, and the indoor masters T&F next month in Winston-Salem, NC. Good Stuff!

Look forward to reading about how things are going in your corner of the globe!

All the Best!