50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

racerdb wrote:

Had a real nice week here... Feeling like I'm starting to come around. 69.5 miles...most runs were good.

M: am; 4 easy pm; 6.6 easy w/10x100 post run strides @ mile pace

T: 10.1 miles w/5xmile @ 554.1,552.9,551.1,548.3,544.1 + 5x100 @ 5:00 pace

W: am: 4 easy pm: 4 easy

Th: 9.5 miles @ 7:19/mi + 10x100 @ 5:00 pace

F: 7.5 miles @ 7:34/mi

S: 15.0 miles @ 7:18/mi

S: 8.0 miles @ 8:20/mi with my daughter

Dave

Can I borrow some of that 7:00 for my upcoming marathon?

My glute/hamsring problem was at least partially cause by pseudo leg discrepancy due to pelvic tilt. My PT had to pull my leg (literally) to fix this problem. The things I am doing to keep my pelvis straight are:

1. Avoid crossing my legs on a chair. Always sit "straight" and on a balance ball instead of a chair when it is possible.

2. Avoid carrying heavy stuffs on one side only. If I carry a dumbbell or weight plate on one side, make sure I spend the same time carrying it on the other side.

3. "Pelvic tilt" exercise twice a day.

4. "Cat and Camel" exercise twice a day.

My pain was in remission from November to early March. Since the latest injury, I have added some extra eccentric exercise to the ones I was already doing.

Treadmill pull (discussed here.)

http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-treatment/pain-rear-high-hamstring-tendinitis?page=single

Reverse plank with leg lift.

The next thing I will try is prone leg curl machine, lifting with both legs and lowering with one leg.

Can you describe the "cat and camel" exercise? Thx.

Slow miler 1 wrote:

Can you describe the "cat and camel" exercise? Thx.

Here it is.

Thanks.

Tough week for me so far. I'm outta gas. felt sluggish Monday so no running. Did 6 Tuesday but legs felt like lead, heart rate up. Did 8 Wed on the hill course, same thing. Took Thursday off, Friday only could muster 3. I don't think I'm sick as I feel fine. I'm going to try 12 tomorrow and see how it goes. Part of it, I think is most of my running is after work and I have been pretty swamped and stressed at work. Tomorrows 12 will be first thing in the morning. Tuesday starts two weeks of taper before the marathon, I hopes this comes around. Thanks for listening to me whine :-)

Will be joining all you tomorrow.

Been ill and having treatment but still planning a comeback!

Stress is stress, your body can't tell the difference. You are doing the right thing by taking days off as needed. I wouldn't worry about HR, temps are up. In fact, during the taper you may want to aim for the hottest part of the day, in case race day is warm. At this point, there is not much you can do to make yourself faster. The best you can do is not make yourself slower.

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Week 202

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Greetings 50+ers! Spring has fully sprung now in the Bluegrass, and the deluge of rain continues. I think that we're close to all-time monthly record (it'll rain all day today, which should put us over), and we're only just past the mid-month mark. Not weather related, but I was down a bit from last week (missed two days entirely), reaching only 31 miles on five days of running, but did my first actual full workout in a loooong time! The week's log reads as such:

Sun: off

Mon: off

Tue: 6.5 w/10x400 (87-88 range), 200 jog recovery (66-68s range)

Wed: 4.5 easy

Thur: 5.2 w/1@6:14

Fri: 5.0 easy

Sat: 10.0 mostly easy, finish last 3@~7:00 pace (grade adjusted)

Missed Sunday on account of I needed a break after 10 straight days of running; Monday was all about meetings and grading....just couldn't catch a break (teaching a 5-9 evening class and lab doesn't help either.) Finally ventured onto the track on Tuesday. Was hoping to do 10x400 in the 90-92 range, but I guess the couple of days off helped my legs, because 87/88s felt pretty good. One rep hit 86, followed by the penultimate that slipped to 89. The recovery 200-m jogs were about 65-66s, but slipped to 69s for the last three. Thursday, I accelerated through the first three miles (7:22,6:40,6:14) before letting up and running easier (7:45) for the remainder. Saturday's long run was meant to be easy, and was until the last three miles, where I increased the effort some. Adjusting for the %grade of the road, the last three averaged to 7:00/mi pace. I hadn't appreciated the GAP (Grade-Adjusted Pace) feature of Stava; I think I like it, but would welcome opinions.

A lot of great discussion on the thread last week! Thanks!

Props especially to Co-57 on an awesome HM @altitude.

I'm also stoked at the idea of racerdb going for the 5k 55-59 AR.....that would be awesome! Let it be a good counterpoint to this notion that all fast masters started late and have "fresh legs" (whatever that means). Kudos on your 70,000 lifetime miles....here's to many more!

OK, that's about it for me. I'll get a few runs in early this week, but plan on going easy towards the end with the 8-man, 80-mile River-to-River Relay coming up next weekend. I'll be position 1, which means my first two legs are on gravel (ugh!), but at least the first one is all downhill. It's a 6am start time and an hour's drive from the hotel, so we'll be heading to the start at about 4:30am! We'll see how that plays out....and just a heads up that I may be posting pretty late next Sunday.

That's what's happening in my neck of the woods; how are things in yours? Any races to report?

Cheers!

Good workout LucKY2b. Very promising I'm sure. Sounds like a cool event in your River Relay. Enjoy it.

I recovered fine off my seasonal Mile debut at Pepsi. Monster workout this past Friday with…. 4 mile tempo on roads at 25:00 to the track for 2 x 600 @ 1:51-52, 3 x 400 @ 75-74, 4 x 200 @ 35-34 (equal distance rest). If THIS doesn't get me fitter nothing will. Y'all talk about aching glutes, hammys, etc… i had to jump in my car to drive 4+ hours so Ashland right after that workout to enjoy both sons race for Southern OR Track. Risky Biz i know. but all is well now as I'm about to enjoy a terrific long run at the base of Grizz Mtn along the winery roads.

MASSIVE best wishes to all those running from Hopkinton to The Pru tomorrow.

KP

And a perfect run it was along the base of Grizzly Peak to the SOU track for 90mins with last 3miles on track as planned > 6:30-6:15-6:00. That part was hard. Back to PDX up I-5 now.

Go Bahston Ruhnahs!

KP

What's your next race, KP? Hayward classic?

Thanks lucky2b and of course thanks for keeping this island of sanity in what can be a very dark place.

The half wiped me out. I just ran about 5 miles a day through the week until today, with Tuesday off, and I'm still feeling it. Couldn't even complete an hour run yesterday and ended up walk-jogging for 4 miles. I don't don't if that was allergies, low blood sugar, fatigue or what but can't remember feeling so bad on a run.

Anyway, today went much better and I did 12 at 7:12 pace in Boulder with a training group--a lot of good runners in there. So it went pretty quickly.

Another highlight was a store fun run in a downpour on Thursday. Just a brisk 5 miler--with a 3:56 miler.about half my age. I didn't figure that out until we were 3/4 of the way through the run!

Nice workouts lucKY, gittin there.

KP that was a heck of a Fri workout.

Co57, I guess the snow is not helping much?

Mon = 3, easy, cemetery

Tue = 4, hard, 7X 1 min on 2 min off accelerations

Wed = 3, easy road

Thr = 2, easy

Fri = 1, easy

Sat = 4, 5K Race, 20:56, 4th OA

Sun 3, medium, at 4000 feet in sleet and 30 mph winds

Total = 20

Pretty good week where my allergies finally eased up. Tue I wanted to do something different so I dredged up my old 1 min on/2 min off workout. I was supposed to do 6 but lost count and did 7. The goal with these things is all about maintaining form at top speed and, for me, increasing my cadence. I was well above 180 steps per minute and I peaked out @ ~ 5:30 pace on most of them. This ends up being the easiest fast workout I know and its actually kinda fun to do.

I ran a race Sat, my 4th of the year. Its a hilly course and normally I don't do hilly courses. But this race was part of the race series and I wanted to score points. The course was a bit short but the hills more than made up for it. So, this ends up being about a 10 second improvement over the last race and about 45 seconds improvement over my first race in Feb. I ended up 4th overall and won my age group.

Today, Sun, was an adventure run at 4000 feet, actually inside a cloud with sleet and big-time wind. Although the valley is all leafed-out, not a single leaf out up there yet. No allergies up there.

A quiet week of training for me - trying to fit in workouts between the rainstorms and end of semester activities. I had to take 2 days off due to minor arm surgery but my runs are feeling good so I hope I'm ready for my HM next weekend. Its a race in our club series that I'm running for points but not a goal race for me so I'll be training through it. The course is hilly but its new so anything I run will be a course PR for me. Here's my week (40 miles):

S: 12 easy

M: 6 easy,hills

T: off

W: off

R: 4 + 8X400/200

F: 6 easy + strides

S: 4 + 2X2mi/800

LucKY - good to see the interval work!

Rtype - Congrats on the win and your time improvement. Your run today didn't sound fun.

KP - What a workout; I wouldn't have been able to get out of the car!

Co57 - Congrats on your 86.2 Age Grade. Maybe it's good you didn't know sooner about the fast miler.

racerdb - How was your Notre Dame race?

Stay healthy everyone!

I am finally on the west coast and it's sunny and 74 degrees. I'm going to like it here. I did an easy workout at Santa Monica College track which is a beautiful facility. The track is in excellent shape and there is adequate street parking, plus porta-potties are available! (Important!) However all their hurdles were chained up which isn't surprising. I asked my husband for an early birthday present - a set of practice hurdles. He said they would be forthcoming. Yeah!

We are still living in a hotel until the furniture comes. I can hardly wait to move in to my new place!

Have a great week everyone!

Spikez,

Glad to hear you survived the first half of your move. I can't imagine having to get everything done so quickly. Enjoy the sunshine and rest up for the second half :-)

For the most part a good week here. Had a nice workout Tuesday, rested a few days then got sick.

M: 10.2 miles @ 7:22/mi w/10x100 strides @ 5:05 pace

T: 9.75 miles w/6x1000 3:28.5,3:27.6,3:25.5,3:25.4,3:26.5,3:23.9 w/300 jog rest and 5x100 on/off 17.3,18.4,17.6,18.4,18.1

W: am: 4ez pm: 4ez

Th: 9 miles @ 7:34 w/5x40 sec @ 5:00 pace

F: 4.5 ez

S: 5K race 17:11 (see below)

S: off sick day

So...doe's anyone want to hear about Dave's continuing story of race day woes? For what it's worth, the weather was perfect...

Copied my race report from my log:

"Now this was a very good day, and a race I'm kind of proud of...(considering the circumstances...) Woke up sick as a dog, sore throat, sinus issues, coughing and fatigued. My Spring cold has really kicked in. Told daughter Megan on the way over I'll probably run with her and forget the race. So with that being said, I did only a 1 mile warmup, 1 stride at the line, then decided to race the first mile and see how it goes. I told Megan I may stop and wait for her after a mile. First mile goes 5:26. I'm in second but only by about 15 yards. Wasn't feeling too bad, fatigued but ok. 2nd mile was on a dirt trail around a lake. I go 5:37 but the leader is still right there. At about 2.5 I'm pretty much jogging and concede the race. 2nd's not bad, is it? My watch pace says 6:04 pace but the leader is still right there 15 yds ahead. Looked at my watch at 2.91 and decided I'm not going to just let this guy have the race. I don't know how but I went after him, caught and passed him for the win by .3 seconds!!!! Unbelievable. Mile 3 went 5:48. Ended up 17:11, won $100 Fleet Feet gift card, and a real sense of satisfaction today for not quitting. Megan is 3-0 this year in the 25-29 ag going 23:39. And I bet that 20 year old that lead the whole way is pretty pissed right now.... AG to 89.18% / 14:33"

I'm trying to find a photo of the finish. I think I leaned...

I'm still remaining optimistic. I think I'm in pretty good shape, the speed is coming along but the times I've run are nowhere near where I want to be and what I think I'm capable of. My training partner who knows me better than I know me is thinking 16:20's right now but until you do it, you haven't done it! So for now it's 4 weeks of solid training before the next race on May 16th (my last race in the 50-54 ag)

That's it from here,

Dave

A good 56 mile training week for me.

Mon. 8 mile hill loop

Tue. 8 mile hill loop

Wed. 2 mile w.u., 3x hard mile/easy mile with hard miles 7:31 ave.

Thu. 8 mile hill loop

Fri. 8 mile hill loop

Sat. hard trail 9 miles

Sun, 2 mile w.u. 4x100 strides, 8x200 at 0:44 with 200 recovery, 1.5 mi. w.d.

I plan 2 more weeks at this level and then an adaptation week at about 70% of this volume. So far, so good.