50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

A good week of training for me despite the ice/snow/rain/sleet/cold. I ran some of the week indoors and was able to cover 42.7 miles over 6 days and one day of cross training. Here's my week:

M = 6.6 Easy

T = 5.7 Easy with strides

W = 6.5 With 10 1:00 pickups

T = 5.7 Easy with strides

F = Cross train

S = 6.2 Last 3 mi. hard

S = 12

I've got a 10k scheduled for next weekend. Its a hilly course and is a good measure of fitness. Although it's not my 10k goal race and I'll be training through it, I'd still like to run a solid time.

racerdb - I might have seen you on the Swamp Rabbit last week...

Paul061- welcome to the group :--)

DrT - congratulations on the return to racing

Spikez - keep up the good work - hope to see you at Nationals

LucKY - good job on increasing the mileage despite the weather

I miss hearing from Gretehund too. I hope she is doing well and will keep in touch. I always enjoyed reading her posts.

Lets hope March brings some spring weather!

Old guy II, if you need to strengthen your hammies, try stair running. I don't use any weight training for my hams; only stairs. Running stairs once a week has kept me free of hamstring trauma for over a year and it used to be a big issue for me.

Congrats to another world record to my friend Anselm. Remarkable 4:13 for indoor 1500m today at age 56!!!!!!!! Check out the USATFtv site for a great video replay.

KP wrote:

Congrats to another world record to my friend Anselm. Remarkable 4:13 for indoor 1500m today at age 56!!!!!!!! Check out the USATFtv site for a great video replay.

Wow again. The top masters are killing it this indoor season with the likes of Lagat and Trautman too.

Sort of a recovery week, following the 10 miler last Saturday, that wrapped up decently. We got a ton of snow here, about 15-18 inches in a week with more on the way.

Made for some dicey running for a few days. Just ran an easy 5-7 through the week with a 22 min tempo effort on Wednesday. Saturday made my way to the Buffalo Ranch and did 25 km of skiing on the groomed trail including 40 min at effort varying between threshold and MP. Basically doing figure 8s and hitting the climbs at a good effort. Brisk 12.5 miler today, including a long 500-550 ft climb toward the end.

Missing the Tour of Anchorage ski race for the first time in a decade, a lot of good memories, but while on the subject of off weather it's been cancelled for just the 2nd time in the race's 30 year history. Last year they had to cut the 50K short, to just 26K. This year not even enough snow to have it. So while some parts of the continent are getting hammered the far west and NW are in a drought.

Spikez wrote:

Old guy II, if you need to strengthen your hammies, try stair running. I don't use any weight training for my hams; only stairs. Running stairs once a week has kept me free of hamstring trauma for over a year and it used to be a big issue for me.

Spikez, thanks for the suggestion. While I don't run stairs, my regular Saturday run with my son and daughter-in-law includes a fairly steep ~250ft climb at about 1-1/4 miles and again at about 4-1/2 miles. I try to run both of those pretty hard. Also, for about two months now, 2-3x/week I have been doing an eccentric hamstring strengthening exercise where you kneel and hook your feet under the edge of a couch or chair and then lean forward and try to hold yourself from falling forward as strongly as you can. I now am doing a set of 12 of these. The exercise was developed by someone who studied hamstring injuries in college soccer players and concluded that the majority of hamstring injuries occur during eccentric efforts. I know my hamstrings are getting stronger, but stuff like that improves a lot more slowly when you're 65 I am finding :>)

Mon. 1 h 8 m paddling kayak on the lake. 5 km easy run.

Tue. 1 h 47 m mountain bike ride.

Wed. 3 km running before opting to pull the pin and just hike through the hills as my right hip and hamstring felt really tight.

Thu. 1 h paddling kayak on the lake.

Fri. 1 h 35 m mountain bike ride in the forest.

Sat. My wife and I headed up into the northeast for a weekend away. We stopped at Bonnie Doon and went for a spin on the bikes along a railtrail that led us across a long former railbridge that crosses Lake Eildon. For me it was a relaxed 18 kms of easy spinning. We then headed to the lake where I hammered a solid 45 mins in the kayak before swapping with my wife.

Sun. A leisurely 11km spin on another section of railtrail with my wife before heading for home.

In the late afternoon I headed up into the hills behind home for a rugged 12.8 km with 450 m of elevation gain using some of the more technical trails.

A pretty low key week. My lower back was giving me some issues during night shift. I suspect the current hammy/hip issue stems from that although the back was more left sided and this is on the right.

M: rest.

T: 7 miles easy.

W; 8 miles progression.

R: 7 miles easy.

F: 5 miles easy.

SA: rest.

SU: half marathon (1:36:27, 5th in AG)

My goal for the half was 1:35 and top 3 in my age group, and I missed both. 1:35 would have got me the 2nd place, and the AG winner was at 1:34:xx.

The course was flatter, but we had to share the course with 10k walkers for the last 2 miles. I had similar experiences with marathon/half and 10k/5k, but this one seemed tougher as there were more walkers and the streets were narrower. It was hard to concentrate on racing, as I had to be careful not to bump into a sea of walkers. The weather was decent, if you call mid 30s with light rain decent.

What I learned in this race is that I am not one of those people who can train slow and race fast. If I want to run a good half, I need to train at my HM pace. Out of 500 miles I ran in January and February, only 4 of them were faster than 7:20 pace. My next race is a marathon, and my goal pace is much slower. But after that, I need to start some fast paced training. Not 200/400 repeat or vVo2Max, but at least some threshold work on a regular basis.

Hi Paul061,

Are you training with a group or perhaps a coach? Which is your target marathon?

Hi Alan

I'm using Hal Higdons intermediate 1 program for mileage. The owner of the local runing store is giving me advice on training but for the most part I'm going it alone :-). My first marathon is The Tacoma City Marathon May 10th, that one is just to get one under my belt. I'm hoping to make The Portland Marathon in October my real effort at a Boston qualifying time of 3:30:00.

I have a half marathon in two weeks. That should give me some idea of my fitness and how well the training is working current PR is 1:39:27.

I feel myself getting stronger every week and my times for my training loops are getting better with the same or lower heartbeat. Right now I'm just concentrating on getting the miles in. I'm at 42 MPW. I'm an ex motocross racer and current mountain bike rider so I have a pretty high exertion/pain threshold. My biggest struggle is throttling back on the training runs. On the HM races my avg heart rate is usually in 180 range. I've had my VO2 max tested and it was 46 and anearobic threshold was 166 bpm.

Thanks for listening to a rookie ramble :-).

Two things about the Portland Marathon, which maybe you already know:

1) In the past, the sports drink has not contained calories and the RD did not plan to offer any additional nutrition along the course--verify, train and plan accordingly

2) The race course crosses railroad tracks and the runners have to wait until the trains pass

The bottom line is that PDX may not be your best bet for a BQ

Mahala

Thanks for the heads up Mahala

I plan on bringing my own gel (8) and normally only drink water.

Interesting about the train

UGGGGHHHH why are some days easy, fast effortless and some days I feel like I'm running in mud? Did 8 miles today, higher heartrate, slower pace crappier feeling than 17 I did last week. I hope the 18 tomorrow is better.

I have a HM race on Saturday, I think I'm really going to back off this week and recover, then 6 weeks to marathon.

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Week 196

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Greetings 50+ers! Weather, weather, and more weather (started early morning Wednesday, first 2” of rain fell, followed by a record 17” of snow Wednesday night into Thursday midday, then temps plummeted to sub-zero…..sheesh!) Knock on wood, we’ve seen the last big winter storm for the season and that spring is just around the corner. I was determined to top last week’s miles, and thankfully I found a way to get in 30 miles on what I’ll call 5-½ days (note: everything was late afternoon or early evening.) Here’s the log:

Sun: 5.2 easy-to-hard (7:27 avg)

Mon: 2 easy (jogged home from work plus a bit with a backpack….this is my half-day)

Tue: 6.5 with 1.3@6:19 pace

Wed: Off (rainy, then snowy)

Thur: 4.2 easy (but icy)

Fri: 4.3 w/5x1/4mi@6:00 pace (treadmill @1.5%)

Sat: 7.9 steady (7:38 avg)

-Sunday was a good acceleration run. Started at over 8 min/mi pace, and dropped the pace each mile. There was about a 0.4-mile stretch near the end, that I was running in the 5:40 range; that felt pretty good.

-Tuesday’s sub-6:20 pace section was in the middle of the run. Most the rest of the run was in the 7:45 to 8-min/mi pace.

-Wednesday, they called off evening classes around 3pm in anticipation of the impending snowstorm, so I thought I could sneak into the gym to run the treadmill for ½-hour, but, of course, they were also closing early for the same reason, so Wednesday was lost. Then Thursday, despite the snow (and because of the closed gym), I went down to UK campus to get some mileage in. They are typically the first to get their walks cleaned and I figured that by evening they’d be OK, but even theirs were still pretty slick in spots and quite a few hadn’t yet been plowed. I was just glad to get a few in, though.

-Friday, the gym reopened, so I used that opportunity to try to get a little speed work in. Happy to increase the reps from 4 to 5; and really happy that I even felt I could have done a sixth. Progress!

-Saturday afternoon, it warmed up enough that I actually ran in shorts! UK’s walk paths were much clearer now (but a lot of melting snow made for some pretty big puddles). The plan was to run for an hour…..almost made it 8 miles.

But enough about me. John Trautman was awesome last Sunday, but can we talk about Anselm LeBourne? I think it’s not been emphasized enough just how awesome that performance was! KP and Co57 get it, as I’m sure most on this thread do, too. I finally got to watch the 1500m race mid-week (when the weather turned.)

http://www.usatf.tv/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=45365&do=videos&video_id=135997

The race announcers tried, but clearly didn’t really know these athletes or their histories. Even then the news blurb at USATF was a bit underwhelming. But for him to have moved the indoor 1500m age-group world record by a full 8 seconds this year is simply jaw-dropping (granted the 55 AG record was a couple seconds soft compared to the 50 and 60, but still.)

http://www.usatf.org/News/World-Masters-record-set-at-USATF-Indoor-Champions.aspx

With all due respect to the likes of Whiteman, Trautman, and Young (all fantastic runners, that I admire in the utmost), so far this year it has been Anselm and Bernie that have completely redefined to what masters middle-distance runners can aspire. Incidentally, on my run yesterday, I ran across a friend of mine (also out running, imagine that) who used to train with Trautman back in the day; said he was tough as nails to train with back then, and it didn’t surprise him that JT still has that fire in him. What a year for masters middle-distance so far!

OK. On to other things. Welcome Paul061! Thanks for sharing your training and aspirations. As for your tough run yesterday….happens to me all the time. But don’t fret, a day or two can make a world of difference. I’ve never been able to figure out what specifically causes those “down” days (other than the obvious, like the day after a really hard work-out): lack of sleep, poor fueling, or other life stressors all can play a roll. You just hope it doesn’t hit on race day. Running Formula Racer, I think that’s an OK time based on your training, but I do agree that you need to mix it up with some speed. It’s a bit of a misconception that Ed Whitlock doesn’t do speed work, he just doesn’t do it in work-outs; he does it by racing short races frequently.

Kudos to everyone else getting out there and getting it done! Hope you’ve all had a great week, and look forward to hearing about it!

All the best!

I see that copy and paste is stripping out my apostrophes again. And there seem to be a few 1/2's that got removed, too, like "what I'll call 5-1/2 days". Oops! C'est la vie.

Good week lucKY. LeBourne and Troutman are really inspiring. Makes one ALMOST believe one’s legs won’t fall off when pressing the pace.

Mon = 3, easy road

Tue = 5, hard, Greenway 6:59, 6:47, 6:52 w 300 meter and 200 meter walks between

Wed = 3, easy road

Thr = 3, easy, road (more snow!)

Fri = 2, easy, road

Sat = 5, hard, miles of 6:32, 6:35, 6:36 w 440 yard walk between (55 degrees!)

Sun = 2 easy

Total = 23

It was a very good week. I can't believe it snowed yet again and set record lows on Thr and Fri. But thankfully Sat and today (Sunday) warmed up nicely.

Tuesday I was still a little sore from the race Sun but I felt pretty good and was pleased to get anything under 7 min pace.

On Sat I waited until 2pm to run so the track had time to melt. It was a little breezy but it just felt so good to not be freezing cold! This is an imperial track so 4 laps is a mile. My mile times are showing some improvement so I am hopeful I can gradually keep nudging them down. Again, the goal is to just gradually improve my overall running fitness and try not to be too aggressive in moving my paces downward. I’ve lost a lot of fitness over the last 3 years and it aint comin back quickly or easily.

Next Sat I’m racing a 5K. Actually, the course is notoriously long. A few years ago I helped time this race and it was almost comical to hear people swearing as they looked at the clock at the finish line. And, surprisingly, the course is officially “certified” by the USATF to be…..exactly……3.21 miles? WTF?

So it’s a 5.17K to be exact.

Anyway, it’s one of the race series races so I’m doing it for place and points. I sure hope the weather is better than the first race which was 30 degrees with 33 mph winds, or the second with 27 degrees and freezing rain.

Wishing a warm week for everyone!

Keep posting up those great workouts! It keeps one inspired. I had to battle a slight stomach bug this past week. It didn't put me in bed but it kept me from working out. I'd make it through the day, get home, and crash. Lots of rest seemed to do the trick. So early this morning I drove down to the indoor track facility for my first workout in almost a week....and it was excellent. Starts out of the blocks and hurdle work were on the menu and everything was very smooth and very strong. I guess lots of sleep really helped! This put me in an excellent mood, however with the time change and the early start to the workout (7:15 a.m.) my eyes are now drooping and I think I need an old lady nap.

But more good news! Our townhouse was on the market for 2 days and we got a full-price cash offer (which we accepted!) My husband and I received a call from our agent when we were heading out to dinner, so we promptly celebrated by ordering a bottle of wine at the restaurant. Closing date should be around the 3rd week of April. I should be settled into our Los Angeles place just in time for the outdoor season.

Run and train wisely and well!

racerdb wrote:

L2b... I almost messaged you Monday as I passed thru Lexington on my way home from SC, to have lunch. Decided to just do a Subway carryout and forge on down the road... Set a new one way record of 10hrs:34min!!!

Dave

Sorry, Dave. Meant to comment on this earlier this week. Would have been great to do lunch, but it probably wouldn't have worked out anyways, given my teaching schedule. Nice fast trip home!

Rtype, thanks! Nice miles Saturday!

Spikez, bet you're looking forward to returning to sunny SoCal! Glad your house sold so quickly. Surprising for this time of year. Good luck with your training heading into Indoor Nationals!

This was a planned easier week, but it ended up a bit lower mileage than I had in my training plan. I got in 20 miles of easy to moderate effort running. I may have had some minor bug the first part of the week since I felt very tired and had a dizzy spell on Tuesday that I had to sit down and take a few minutes to get over. The end of the week felt better, but still not that great. It's one week to my road mile and I believe the best thing I can do at this point is just get the legs as fresh as possible. I'll probably run 3-4 easy miles every day with a few strides at the end and pray I"ll be sharp for next Sunday.

L2b, it sounds like you finally are past your injury challenges and getting some solid fitness back. Good running to everyone!

Week 195: 3 hours 12 minutes in 3 runs.Week 196: 3 hours 21 minutes in 3 runs.My mantra is "there is no training going on here".

Paul061 wrote:

UGGGGHHHH why are some days easy, fast effortless and some days I feel like I'm running in mud?

I agree with what lucKY2b said, it could be anything. This is what's great about training with a group - you get out on a long run and just hash these things out. BTW, if you can't get your HR in the correct zone, you should seriously consider bagging the run.