50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Week 217: 5 hours 36 minutes in 7 runs. 6 @42 mins and Saturday @1 hr 24 mins. All easy except Saturday, when I started with the 9:15/mile group for 1:06, finished solo for 18 mins at half-marathon race effort (maybe around 7:00/mile).

Slowly ticking over with +8 mins each week. After 18 weeks (not counting one week lost to the instant flu), the left calf is not perfect, but it is 99% and in fact is less bothersome than the niggle in my right Achilles. In another 13 weeks I should be in old guy II territory. If all continues to go well, I will stick with it through the end of 2015 before making a new plan as my New Year's resolution.

Run well, KP.

Trying....Trying..

Ran 35 miles this week.

Ran 21 of 31 days in July..raced twice.

Ill be 60 in a few weeks.

To be honest, I could have taken more days off..

When I realized that I had taken 10 days off, I was horrified..

But, really, I could have taken more off..

It's great trying to train and race again though...

Well, I'm totally not surprised with the diagnosis to the neck/back/arm pain issue. Could be better but could be much worse and it will just have to be something to deal with.

Arthritis on cervical vertebrae, causing a pinched nerve and resulting pain-inflammation. Will be on some meds for a week and then PT to strengthen things out and maybe even stretch out my neck a few mm.

Still planning on Pikes Peak climb as long as the pain subsides a bit.

This was an abbreviated training week - Monday, weights, Tuesday, speed endurance intervals at the track, Wednesday, hurdles, then my spouse and I took off for Jackson Hole, WY to celebrate another trip around the sun for me - I turned 55 yesterday. It was a fabulous birthday - fly fishing, horseback riding, pool time, cocktails, a massage, wine, excellent food. And now we're ready to fly home. I did not do any workouts during our vacation but we did a couple of hikes, and at 6000+ altitude I was breathing heavily! Back to it tomorrow with a focus on the W55 hurdle AR attempt at a meet on August 30.

Have a great week!

Greetings all.

Running is going progressively better each week. All the guidance, experience, etc from all the posters here really, really helps when I was trying to come back from injury. Here's my week:

Mon: 6 mi with training group; 3 mi easy

Tues: 7 mi easy

Wed: 6 mi with training group

Thurs: 8 mi easy

Fri: OFF

Sat: 17 mi easy

Sun: 5 mi easy

Total: 52 mi (better mileage this week).

So that's the good news. But now the really good news -- our transfer papers came last week so we are officially going to move to Colorado this Spring. My husband and I have been waiting for all the kids to go off to college and the last one leaves this spring. Decided on Golden - just outside of Denver. Will have to make some side trips over to CoSprings - maybe do Pikes Peak next year with CO57! Also excited to have my running posts look like mo'paks jaunts over hill and dale (instead of the flatTexas landscapes I currently run).

Quick notes to the other ladies on the board - Happy bday to Spikez! Recover quickly, SCGal! Sending out good wishes to Muddygirl also.

Best to all and thanks for keeping the board going Lucky!

M: off.

T: 3 miles / 6 miles.

W: 3 miles / 6 miles.

R: 9 miles.

F: 3 miles / 6 miles.

SA: 7 miles.

SU: 14 miles.

Monday was the first real "off" day in 4 weeks. I had a massage session, and decided not to go to the swimming pool.

This was my first 9 session week since last summer. There is no reason to divide 57 miles into 9 runs. I just wanted to get used to it before increasing my mileage. Thursday's 9 miles was a progression run that went 9:40-8:58-8:20-8:00-7:53-7:47-7:41-7:35-9:08. I plan to continue this for a few more weeks before doing 10 miles progression runs.

It's so easy to decide not to do things after a massage.

Gretehund, Golden would be a great place. Real estate is tight there (and everywhere in the area right now). Golden has either run down student houses, or just run down, or very pricey (and quite large) houses on the north and west part of the town. Arvada, Lakewood, and Applewood (kind of in between the two and S Table Mountain) are good options.

Anyway, lots of good running out here and so many options for races.

* KP: Knock it out of the park!

* Co57: Man...that doesn't sound too good. Hope you can find a good PT and get things fixed...

* Spikez: Welcome to the 55's! Get that AR...

My week went well. Pretty good workout and a decent race. Ran a rust buster 5K in 17:05. Two young punks beat me, barely. AG's to a 90.1% so I'll take it. Course wasn't the fastest with most of the 2nd mile on dirt path. Went 5:26,5:33,5:33,:33 May have been a bit tired from Tuesdays workout and hanging 12 foot sheets of drywall by myself on W-Th-F.

M: am: 6 miles easy pm: 4 miles easy

T: 7 miles inc 1/4-1/2-3/4-mile-1/4 with 1/4 jog rest. 76.5, 2:40, 3:59.0, 5:14.1, 78.7

W: 8 miles easy

Th: 5.5 miles easy

F: 4 miles easy

S: 5k race 17:05

S: 10 miles easy

This week will be about the same...trackwork on Wed maybe a longer tempo Saturday. Heel pain has been tolerable these days but drywalling 9' ceilings has tons of up and downs and it seems to be really irritating it. Glad this job will be done soon...

Have a good week,

Dave

Co57 wrote:

Gretehund, Golden would be a great place. Real estate is tight there (and everywhere in the area right now). Golden has either run down student houses, or just run down, or very pricey (and quite large) houses on the north and west part of the town. Arvada, Lakewood, and Applewood (kind of in between the two and S Table Mountain) are good options.

Anyway, lots of good running out here and so many options for races.

Co57 - Real estate is SCARY there, especially after living in Texas for 25+ years. I keep telling my husband that we may be living in our RV! Will be heading out there in September to start the house hunt.

Much thanks for the recommendations - will include those areas in our search.

Can't wait to enjoy skiing, running in the hills, fly fishing, etc - all within 2 hours of home. WOW!

Just crazy awesome Dave...17:05.

I am excited to be out of July, in which I didn't run more than I ran.

Switched from zero drop shoes to Adidas Boston and can now run more than 1 day in a row without my calves feeling like they are going to rupture. In fact, have run 6 of last 7 days for the first time since June and as you might expect with that much rest and fresh legs it has been impossible to hold back. Yes, I'm stupid. But at least I didn't go to the track.

Ran a 5 and 6 miler at 5k plus 60seconds. And a couple of runs where I finished the last mile in well better than 5k pace. My legs definitely are getting more beat up in the Bostons than the Hokas. Or it could be that i doubled my mileage from the Max of prior 4 weeks.

I discovered segments on Strava and I.ve got a 0.9 mile segment to finish my runs that was fun for about a week. Then I discovered the premium leader board Where I'm third best in my segment for 45-54 (yay) except that the guy that is first did it at the end of a 22 mile run and it's usually at the end of my measley 6 mile run. The monster ran 22 miles at 7:15 a average for a training run. That's a reality check.

Vacation next week to the Michigan and Indiana dunes. (Living in Minnesota now) my high school cc team would go to the Michigan and Ripley street (IN) dunes for summer training. We did 3 workouts. A 60 min run, 36x100 in ankle deep water, and team relays in the deep sand. brutal. And as my 14 yo. daughter said to me after a hard workout last year... It was great, I almost threw up.

Here's hoping I can beat her up that hill this year. She smoked me last year.

C’est la vie KP!

Greetings les amis Masters.

Hot 800 rounds here in Lyon for the World Masters Athletics Champs. Talkin’ 97F for Prelims & 102F for Semi-Finals of back to back days of racing. Furnace Hot Homestretch Headwinds to top it off. No Evian. No AC. No Athletes allowed in the cooler locker rooms before the shortened warm-ups. They say Lyon is the Global Gastronomy Guru. Gotta agree with that but they sure could use a Geek, not a chef, to run a track meet. Not an excuse as ALL of us were in the same French oven.

I am a fortunate one to have participated in five WMA Champs in three competitive age-groups. This time, after 3-5 years of foot problems, surgeries & rehabs, a few more lbs, a great friend & coach Mike D, a hamstrung glute medius 600 time-trial in 1:33, and newborn M55-er, I had great expectations. Maybe a shot at some medals like San Sabastian and Linz from my banner years as a M45/46 youngster still able to run just behind LeBourne with my 1:58 800m & 4:04 1500m. Maybe my 2015 seasonal bests 2:11 and 4:34 would fare faster even with East-Bound 9hr jet-lag. Maybe not rattled by KLM losing my luggage for two days. But you guessed it. I’m just not 45 anymore. But neither are ANY of the 80 fine gentlemen from the M55 middle distance countries. So today I share my story with a big plate of humble pie and renewed respect and camaraderie as I tap this keyboard as “The First Man Out” finishing 6th in my 800 SF, 13th in the world, missing the Finals by 0.08secs. I now wait days to toe the line for another race. The 1500 Semis will be 5 races loaded with talented horses and all around great guys. We will run it like a Final just as we were forced to in each of the 800 races. As there are only 5 “”Big Qs” to be had. Only the winner of each race advanced automatically. Huh? Get a refill of your Sunday morning café avec du lait and read on.

800 Prelims was 6 heats of 12 athletes with only ONE Big Q automatically advancing to the next round. What the hell? We all had to run it like a fast-final to ensure getting through on time… 6 Heat winner plus next 18 fastest times (little qs). One would think 18 would be a sure thing. But friends, our generation is STILL the deepest fastest in Masters Athletics history. Whether we were 40, 45, 50 or now 55. And when held in Europe this proves true. So this here narrator drew Heat 2 with Ray Kner (2:03 at Mt SAC) and 10 unknowns. So after lickety-split Ray took the first lap in 70, I figured I better take charge for a mean bell lap to be fast enough to force the next 4 heats to do the same and maybe get a little q. Ran a strong 350 but got run down in the home stretch by Ray & one of the Russians. Close call but my 3rd in H2 & 2:16 time was fast enough to advance to the Semi-Final as “little q #11”. Damn that was scary. Was hot too. But that fluky Oregon June/July Heat-Wave & St Paul SR Games same weather acclimated me just fine; until the next day.

800 Semi-Final was brutally hot and wild. My draw was Heat 1 of 2. After one false start the gun cracked and sent 12 of us to turn one pushing and shoving for position. Just like that Benoit from France stormed away in a 61 to the bell. Y’all all know every semi-finalist has the same strength and speed and generally the same strat plan (except Benoit). Get out hard, find a position inside/outside lane one, stay upright, get to the bell, hit the backstretch for the first move for a good spot to launch a kick from the top of the last turn… even if its into the unGodly hot headwind down the homestretch. I mean 102 in the shade has gotta be 122 on a Rekortan synthetic track. But the French Cooks don’t measure that or they might have invested in Evian for us pour souls. True - no H2O provided for the Athletes. Back to the race and how I screwed up my SF. I don’t know. It was a sizzling blur. I ran 2:13. I kicked hard to pass 3. But could have used one more foot-plant for a lean or a dive chasing down the guy from France. Viva La France I suppose. Even though I don’t hear it in big races, someone told me I split 68-65 but could not have told you so for what it felt like. “Too slow 68 KP?” I would run that race the same way 1000x. It is a bummer that maybe a fresher body would have yielded at least the 2:11 I ran a month ago. Jet lag has been rough - waking up for the day between midnight and 2am 3 nights in a row. And this dang left hammy/glute injury from my final workout 10 days ago. Oh well. Or is it C'est la vie? Yes, that’s life. “C’est la vie KP!"

Would you at least agree with me that these challenges are exactly why we still love spiking up to try and fool Father Time as an old racing hound?

I know you would say what really matters most is the new found or reacquainted friends-for-life… all toeing the line with a similar story as mine, or yours, or The Russians, the French, even a guy from Iceland in 40C conditions. That one of twelve ‘World Finalists’ or not we raise our glasses, we pay for rounds, at places like “Le 405 Rugby Bar” to honor what we all do. And just this morning when I took communion at the wonderful St George’s Cathedral I was reminded again how lucky we are.

Un hommage a vous! From “C’est la vie KP"

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Week 218

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Salutations, 50+ers! Another week of just trying to get by. The nuclear experiment we've been running finally ended yesterday morning. Also, I gave the kiddos their final exams on Thursday for my summer classes. After I get grades submitted by noon Monday, I'll be back to a more normal schedule! About time! Managed only 4 days of running and another meager 20+ miles. Log read as such:

Sun: 5.0 easy (8:08 pace)

Mon: off

Tue: 6.2 w/ladder workout 1,2,3,3,2,1 laps.

Wed: off

Thur: off

Fri: 4.3 (7:14 avg) A bit of progression (7:40 -> 6:40)

Sat: 5.3 not sure what to call it, average moving pace of 6:48, but....

Yet again, not very happy with the week, but glad to put something in the books and to get some decent effort out of the week. Tuesday's track workout went well. The times were: 88,3:04,4:46,4:44,3:01,86 with rest Intervals of 65 (200m jog) after the first 400, and about 2:13 (400m jog) from there on out. Happy to come down the ladder faster than I went up. Exhausted and underslept (no more than 6 hours of sleep a night all week), I opted out of the evening race that I usually run. My run Saturday was more like 3 1-mile repeats with 2-minutes standing recovery. I just kept speeding up until I ran out of gas and stopped to recover, so I first made it 2.3 miles (with 1.3@6:24 pace) and stopped, rested a couple minutes, ran another 0.9 (@6:41 pace) and stopped, ran another 1.2 (@6:34 pace) and stopped before finally running the last mile home @7:17. Not sure what my objective was, other than to get a decent workout in before I headed out to dinner.

- Stiff competition in the M 55-59 age group at Worlds in Leon. Hope to hear KP's story on that.

- Nice 5k from last week, Dave!

- Welcome "weds", I hear where you are coming from; it's hard to find the right balance. Keep at it!

- Glad your weeks are progressing, Gretehund! Moving to Colorado sounds awesome! Bye-bye endless days of sweltering heat!

- Sorry about the arthritis, Co57. Hope the PT is able to alleviate some of the discomfort. The good news is that most arthritis is not a show stopper; but it will take some adjusting.

OK, that's all I've got. Lot's of grading to finish up today! Hope you are in a good place!

All the Best!

I see KP snuck his report in just as I was posting. What a race report, KP, thanks for sharing! Sorry about just missing the finals, but what an experience! I've been reading about the brutal weather; Bonne Chance dans le 1500!

Yes, Lyon....not Leon. Oops!

Great report KP! What an experience. Sweet.

I have not reported in a while as I had been debating taking several months off running to let myself heal up. But I distinctly remember quitting several times in the past and the junk just did not go away with ZERO running. So, may as well hang in there.

It seems I failed to avoid my yearly perfunctory injury. In 2014 right after my two May races I had problems with my left knee. This year, actually, I had some right knee irritation as early as April but raced anyway. So I was already hurting some for my May races, but it really was minor.

I had cycled down and cut the miles and was just building my time back up to 30 min a day when my office building burned. I re-injured my right knee during that and in the process developed a problem with my left ankle, the peroneal tendon, probably due to compensation for the knee.

I kept trying different things: retro running, superfeet, different stretches, cadence, stride length, icing, massage, different shoes, arnica gel, heat, Epson salt, and different surfaces among other things.

What finally worked, besides just time, I think, was switching to mostly trails and stopping stretching. I’m not 100% but I am much better. As far as I can figure I was stretching incorrectly and creating an imbalance between my hams and quads. Maybe I need to create a little: You’re doing it wrong! Meme video of me stretching. Or; Caution, stupid people should not stretch!

Anyway, here's the week:

Mon = 1.4 easy trail

Tue = 1.5 easy trail

Wed = 1.6 hard trail

Thr = 1.7 easy cemetery

Fri = 1.8 easy trail

Sat = 1.9 easy mountain trail

Sun = 2 easy trail

Tot = 11.4

Great write up,kp! Marche rapide dans le 1500. Nous seron de jois pour vous!

I'm still feeling my hamstring/glue issue so my week was filled with therapy sessions, pool running, therapy exercises, massage and a little bit of running (8 miles in 3 sessions). I still feel a dull ache in my upper hamstring but I can bring my leg through when I run and I don't have to sleep with a pillow between my legs so I feel like I'm making slow progress. My hips are getting stronger but I still have a long way to go before I'll be putting in much mileage on the roads.

In the meantime, I'm burning up the pool bobbing around in the deep end with the old folks. Yesterday, I put in 70 minutes of pool running plus 1,000yds with a pull buoy so my upper body strength should improve too. It feels great to be back training in the pool after almost forty years but I do feel like I'm pickled in chlorine. Maybe this will inspire me to try a triathalon or two!

The major event in my family this week was my son, the runner, jammed his little toe into a piece of furniture and broke it with two weeks to go before the start of XC season! He can't run on it and the repair timeline is 4-6 weeks. I feel so sorry for him. He battled his way through mono and emergency surgery last spring and was in great shape to have an outstanding season with his team. It sure is hard to watch children go through disappointments.

Luckily, I'm heading to ATL tomorrow to have my hamstring examined by a sports medicine dr. who specializes in repetitive stress injuries. So now both my son and I will be going. Maybe we'll get a volume discount :-)

Be grateful for what you can do!

INCREDIBLY well expressed and well raced Kevin Paulk...race ferociously in the impending metric mile...mine will be the thunderous voice you hear yelling "JAILBREAK!" while emerging from the penultimate turn...

BTW, I checked the historical temperatures for our upcoming 2016 World Championship 800 meter races in  Perth, Australia next Oct 27, 28, 29 (the competition schedules were just released)how's an average daily high of 76 degrees sound? 

Yeah, I thought so too.

Scratched out just 31 miles total volume this week but as my arm cast was removed on Monday, my first track workout in more than six weeks followed almost immediately...8 x 200 meters...felt uncoordinated at first but got back into the groove by number 7...also handled a short anaerobic threshold session and a 1:20 "long run", so while the mileage was light the percentage of "un-junk " work was fair...the road to age 60 continues.

Wishing everyone a fruitful week of training and racing, oh, and KP, race like a lion in Lyon!

your pal,

MF

KP, thanks for a thrilling race report. I could hear the thunder of the spikes on the track. Best of luck and report back on the final!

As for the rest of our posters, many of us have had the MKoP rear its ugly head (That's "The Moving Knot of Pain" for those of you who may not know. The MKofP never really leaves your body, it just goes into hibernation and then unfortunately reappears in different locations). I feel almost guilty for posting my training week but here goes:

I'm training like a beast. Somehow after running a huge hurdle PR a couple weeks ago, the momentum has not left me. I lifted on Tuesday, hurdled Wednesday, did speed endurance intervals Thursday (4x150, 4x100, 4x50 at approx. 70% effort), rested Friday, and then had a monster hurdle workout yesterday. I had watched an old video of one of my hurdle races from approx. 7 years ago and I noticed how quick and nimble my steps were in between the hurdles. I kept that in mind on Saturday and said "quick, quick" to myself as I did my practice runs. My workout partner kept saying, "Wow" after each pass as she said each one looked very powerful and smooth. I could feel the difference! My legs were so tired after I finished! I will have an easy interval practice today and then my schedule won't allow another workout until Wednesday. My AR attempt will be on August 30.

Rest and recoup for all of us battling aches and pains and have a great week ahead!

Great race report KP. We all will be thinking positive thoughts for your 1500s. I thought the best thing you said in your report was "I would run that race the same way 1000x." All of us who still race generally are never quite satisfied with our race performances, but we never want to regret that we didn't give the race everything we had on that day.

My training plan right now is sort of the polar opposite of Spikez. My long and slow approach continues to gradually improve. 60 miles in 6 runs this week:

M - 10 hills 9:59 ave.

T - 10 hills 9:38 ave.

W- rest day - tired.

Th - 10 hills 9:22 ave.

F - 10 hills 10:02 ave.

S - 10 hills 10:03 ave.

SU - 10 hills 9:39 ave.

Two more weeks of this and then a 5K XC race.