50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Really bombed a race on Sunday..

Of course I always volunteer at the races by showing up at 4:15am, unloading the tables and chairs, signs, finish line arch and sandbags and help set up the start/ finish and registration area.

I work up a good sweat even before all the races.

But, I just can't seem to race anymore.

Im 61, used to run well. Then things just went to heck at about 52 years old.

I still do 30-40 miles a week, but they are slow and its hot as heck in Arizona.

For the second time, I bogged down going up this mountain and had to walk for 20 seconds before I could start out again...

I was just plain through.

I never thought this would happen and can see why runners quit who experience the same thing after years of finishing near the top of all the road races.

After the race, I was fine lifting the tables and chairs and arch and sandbags back in the clubs truck...

Im not going to quit though.

I sure can see why old runners do though ha

Ipm,

I had to change much once I hit my 60s. As another poster here said, so much of this is an experiment of one. Still you can probably surprise yourself. Certainly you have to be more cognizant of what you can do, rather than comparing yourself to the past, which was my mistake.

Best.

Igy

M: off.

T: 4 miles / 7 miles.

W: 9 miles (5th-8th miles @ 7:48-7:38-7:30-7:30)

R: 4 miles / 7 miles.

F: 7 miles.

SA: 7 miles.

SU: 15.6 miles.

Finally, some decent volume. I added one mile to my Wed's workout, and backed off a little on intensity. I am planning to do two more of this, and then move to a 10 mile workout.

Thought I would be first this week. ;)

With an expected 4-5 mile easy run with my two daughters tomorrow will close the week with 47-48. Biggest week this year and decade.

Hard week.

Monday - 7 miles @ 8:25

Tuesday - 2x2 miles @ 8:05. 1 mile jog rest. 6 miles.

Wednesday - 7 miles @ 8:34 and felt harder than prior two days.

Thursday. 3 mile jog am. 3x800 in 3:35, 3:23, 3:17 with 12yo daughter in pm. 6 miles.

Friday - 6 miles @ 8:45. Was supposed to be easy and the time is slower, but Very hard to ever run easy when running with the wife. We ran up every hill hard and jog recovered over the top, so the average time was misleading.

Saturday - 11 miles @ 9:15. Longest run of the year. Very tough. Kind of disappointing this wasn't easier. Started at a pleasant 70'.

Overall, feeling wiped out. Ran with my wife 5 of 7 days this week and she has just destroyed me. As I said above, very hard to ever run easy with the wife. She never runs easy; almost every day she runs approximately 10K+30 seconds.

On the bright side, I'm just tired. Not feeling like I've broken anything.

Cheers

Ken

Greetings from Eagle, Idaho. The week started very tired from last Saturday's state Senior Games. Today I started with little hope for a good training session but ended with one of the best of the season. Good thing since our state Senior Games 5K road race is next weekend.

Monday: 3 miles; 3 way lunge; 16 x 100m Shake-ups @ 2 easy, 2 good

Tuesday: 1.5 mile walk

Wednesday: 2 miles easy; sprint drills; leg swings; 1,500m tempo @ 7:15 / 2:00 rest; 2,000m tempo @ 9:51 / 2:00 rest; 1,500m tempo @ 7:19; 800m easy; 4 x 200m repetition @ 50, 50, 50, 50 / 200m easy; mile easy

Thursday: 3.25 mile walk

Friday: 2 miles easy

Saturday: 2 miles easy; sprint drills; leg swings; 100m @ interval pace; 4 x 1,000m interval pace @ 4:25, 4:22, 4:20, 4:22 / 400m walk; 5 x 200m repetition @ 44, 42, 41, 41, 40 / 200m walk

Sunday: Off

Best to all.

Igy

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Week 271

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Greetings, 50+ers! Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Reboot. Solid week for you! You planning on cutting back a bit this week? Solid week for you, too, Igy! lpm, your story sounds very familiar to me. I'd be depressed if I wallowed too much in where I was 5-6 years ago. Today, I'm glad to be running reasonably (though the training has been a bit sub-par) and staving off injury (in the past year-and-a-half I've had just that freak pulled hammie back in December....thankfully, the knees have been great.)

Here in the Bluegrass, we wonder if this high humidity will ever end! We had that ever-so-brief reprieve for a day last Sunday, but then launched right back into it with dew-points in the low to mid 70s every day. How I got through 36.6 miles this week, I don't know....6 runs and a lot of sweat, I guess. Plus, I was able to switch to the morning for the "longer" runs Friday and Saturday. Log reads as such:

Sun: 7.3 w/Form Drills

Mon: 4.1 Super-easy grass/trails (9:11 pace)

Tues: 5.2 w/short ladder (4,8,12,8,4)

Wed: 5.0 More easy grass/trails (8:55 pace)

Thur: Off (had enough of this $#!+)

Fri: 8.0 easy-to-moderate (7:39 avg. pace)

Sat: 7.0 Steady, easy (7:57 pace)

As you can see, a lot of "easy/super-easy" runs this week. Hard to push it when the humidity has been like this---totally drenched after every run....and I'm not much of a sweater. As has been typical this summer, the Tuesday workout was abbreviated. There was meant to be another 1200 in there, but I opted to just come back down the ladder. Times for Tuesday: 92,314,449,309,82. There was a 1/2 lap recovery after the first 400, then 400 jog recoveries (in the 2:00-2:10 range) the rest of the way. I pushed the last 400 for multiple reasons.

OK, that's all I have this week. Glad to get the mileage up during this lull between semesters. God-willing, I'll be able to keep the trend going. Unfortunately, I have to teach an extra class at my regular job this fall, and I've agreed to help out UK by teaching a data analysis class for them, as well. We'll see how it goes. Classes start Monday.

Hope things are going well in your corner of the world. Women's Olympic Marathon just started....go Shalane, Desi & Amy!

All the Best!

good luck with the new semester. I'm a teacher also but still have 2 more weeks of Summer.

Mon 10 with hill repeats on treadmill

Tues 7

Weds 8

Thurs 18 with a few brief forays down to marathon pace but nothing sustained

Fri 7

Sat 8

Sun 9 with 20:00 at half-marathon pace on track (about 5130m, came thru 5k in 19:29)

had intended a fuller MP segment thurs but just too hot to get going.

Have enjoyed combining training and spectating a bit [e.g., cooldown this morning while watching women's marathon; easy run on treadmill Friday watching women's 10,000, etc.].

have a great week,

Dave

Bad...just bad.

61 years old.

Nerve impingement has come back in my right foot.

Very hot here too.

Only got 22 miles in last week.

Cortisone shot was GLORIOUS for 2 months.

A lot of other medical problems..cancer.

But, Im worried more about that sharp nerve impingement coming back on top of my right foot with each step.

Im going to see if I can get another shot tomorrow.

Its still fun though trying to be a runner.

Been hammering since 1977.

Hang tough loj!

Vacationing in California this week.

Mon: 6.5 in Boulder

Tues: 9.5 hard-ish in Encinidas

Weds: Off

Thurs: 8.5 hard (7:30s down to 6:50s) in Santa Barbara

Fri: Off

Sat: 6 easy in Encinidas

Sun: 15 in Encinidas-Carlsbad-Encinidas with final 30 minutes below marathon pace

A 45-mile week while on a family trip is not too shabby I think. Had to get up early so everyone could get their beach time. Home in a few more days.

Week 271: 5 hours 34 minutes in 8 runs with one race.

Mon - 30 min easy

Tue - 1 hr hilly

Wed - 30 min easy

Thu - AM 31 min easy, PM 16 min a little faster

Fri - 20 min jog, 5K race, 20 min jog

Sat - 1 hr 15 min with 9:30/mile pace group

Sun - 31 min easy

The 5K went very well I think. It was superbly organized, professional timing, volunteers everywhere, easy flat course with reasonable turns. The roads were not closed to traffic but it turned out to be no problem. My only gripe is they started seven minutes early! The announcer even apologized for the late (!!!) start. I was in the bathroom washing the warmup sweat from my eyes and almost missed the start, was still tucking in my shoelaces when the horn went off. (Just for my own sanity, later I checked the website and the start-time that was in my mind is the same one published there.) I did not wear a GPS. Course markers gave my one- and two-mile times as 6:19 and 12:53, finish was 20:26 for 30th overall, 1st M50-59. I was only passed three times: in the third mile I started to wilt a little from the heat, three youngsters passed me there. In the last 200m I gave it everything I had and managed to steal a spot from a healthy 27 year old male, which always feels good.

This was a benefit for boys and girls HS XC, so it skewed young and fast. A nice touch on the results page is the age grade percentage for each finisher. Mine was 75.0%, not faster but definitely older. Winning time was 14:31 for 89.4%. Out of 184 finishers, the top five males were over 80%, as were the top three females. Also notable was the 13 year old girl who passed me in the third mile (with her coach on the sidelines at 2.5 miles telling her to pump her arms); she finished in 20:23 for 29th place and 79.1% age graded.

I wanted to be under 21:00 in the spring, but it wasn't happening and then I had the setback with the ribs. So this feels like my training is finally on the right track, albeit a little later. I will just do more of the same training and see where it takes me. I keep going back and forth on racing with/without the GPS. On the one hand, without it I *always* go out too fast, even when I tell myself to slow down. On the other hand, using the GPS I get out of touch with my limits in the middle of the race. I suppose more experience without the GPS might get me over the first problem, and more experience with it might get me over the second problem. So I just don't know.

Not really into the Olympics this time around. Good running to all the track and distance athletes representing.

Alan,

Good running. Next Saturday I am racing 5K road. I am skeptical of the distance accuracy as well as split markers. I would like to have some gauge of my fitness so I am going to set my GPS for kilometers. I feel at least I will have an indicator of pacing while racing and fitness when I am finished.

Igy

lucKY2b wrote:

As you can see, a lot of "easy/super-easy" runs this week. Hard to push it when the humidity has been like this---totally drenched after every run....and I'm not much of a sweater.

Yes, totally drenched. I believe as a very light sweater, I have a big advantage in the heat. The profuse sweat is my body's adjustment to the conditions. If someone is a heavy sweater under normal running conditions, what adjustment can the body make? Just stop, I guess. (Which I also do, if it's bad enough.) Stay safe everybody.

Hello All:

Busy week prepping for vacation and the trip itself means I've been absent a couple of weeks.

Week of 8/1 I got in 17 miles, including a 21:43 5k, 3rd in the 50-54 group. I'm pleased to have run it at 6:59/mile, although I was fading at the end. Went out in 6:51, slowed to about 7 pace for mile 2 then slowed more on a final uphill. Good effort for me, though, on a hot and humid night. Last year at the same race I was about a minute slower and the turnaround was in the wrong place, making the race a little short. So it's nice to have shaved off a minute not even counting the lengthening by about 150m.

I also did a lap of the Al Buehler trail around the Duke golf course Saturday morning and five miles at sea level at Ocean Isle Beach on Sunday.

Week of 8/8 - Ocean Isle Beach

M Rest

T 5 miles easy

W 3.5 miles

R Rest

F 4 miles easy

S travel home to Ohio

S 5.5 miles easy

Going to try a 5k in late October I hope, to see if I can lower than 21:43 before winter sets in. The goal for the year--before I started training more seriously--was sub-20:00 but I'm clearly nowhere near there yet. If I lost ~15 pounds it would help.

Speaking of which, I'm toying with the idea of trying to do just that, drop ~15-20 pounds and aim for a sub-90:00 half in fall 2017, at 54 years old. So about 10s/mile fast than the 5k pace I just ran. I guess that's not realistic, huh?

Hope everyone has a great week!

Andy

Week of

Congrats on the race, Alan. You're right where I was hoping to be but I'm more than a minute behind you still.I'm dealing with the same internal debate about running with the GPS watch. When I raced ten days ago they had pace setters, so I decided I'd stick with the 7:00 guy. But as we headed out on the downhill I was reading ~6:30, ~6:40 through the first 1/4 and 1/2. I couldn't decide what to do--try to stick with this guy who was running too fast? Try to slow down to 7 pace on my own? I ended up staying with the pacer who settled down to where he should be, but it's distracting to be checking the watch all the time. At the same time, it helped me to have someone/a pace watch to push myself at the pace I thought I should be handling. Hard to know what's best. Without the pacer and watch I might have run 6:30, 7, 7:50? or 7:30, 7, 6:45? I have no ability anymore to judge pace accurately--I need to work on that again.

Alan Bennet wrote:

Week 271: 5 hours 34 minutes in 8 runs with one race.

Mon - 30 min easy

Tue - 1 hr hilly

Wed - 30 min easy

Thu - AM 31 min easy, PM 16 min a little faster

Fri - 20 min jog, 5K race, 20 min jog

Sat - 1 hr 15 min with 9:30/mile pace group

Sun - 31 min easy

The 5K went very well I think. It was superbly organized, professional timing, volunteers everywhere, easy flat course with reasonable turns. The roads were not closed to traffic but it turned out to be no problem.

Alan: Which 5k was this? Sorry if you posted earlier about it...I couldn't find it.

Thanks.

loj wrote:

Bad...just bad.

61 years old.

Nerve impingement has come back in my right foot.

Very hot here too.

Only got 22 miles in last week.

Cortisone shot was GLORIOUS for 2 months.

A lot of other medical problems..cancer.

But, Im worried more about that sharp nerve impingement coming back on top of my right foot with each step.

Im going to see if I can get another shot tomorrow.

Its still fun though trying to be a runner.

Been hammering since 1977.

Regarding the nerve impingement. I have same from big toe and next toe. I've put a pad in my shoe to separate the toes and it come back to the ball of the foot. Feels funky but has made a dramatic difference. Was a suggestion from a physical therapist.

Usually I don't mention local race names.

https://runsignup.com/Race/OH/Westerville/GameDay5K

Alan Bennet wrote:

Usually I don't mention local race names.

https://runsignup.com/Race/OH/Westerville/GameDay5K

Thanks. Was curious since you mentioned it was well organized...

We should meet up at a race some time, Alan. My 5k was the IGS Energy race in Old Dublin.

Alan Bennet wrote:

Usually I don't mention local race names.

https://runsignup.com/Race/OH/Westerville/GameDay5K