50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Hey SP nice race enjoyed reading about it

Nightmare Kim Jong-un in a poorly lit shack smoking hand saw explaining in broken english why he was going to cut off my hands. Side effect of Intermittent Fasting? Hope not cause except for a couple of cheats I like it.

Running

Week 7 in Minutes EZ/LT/VO: 0/40/5 weight 144.6 darn it

Nov 27 20 minutes LT up 10 percent grade 2.2 miles

Nov 30 20 minutes LT 3 miles .75 mile loop with steep winding rollers

10 minutes or so then

Nov 30 4.5 minutes same course just because I felt like it first quarter in 83 then backed off.

Finally got a decent long run: 12 miles @9:31 pace. Felt relaxed and strong the whole way, despite lousy sleep the night before. (Full moon incoming.) Longest run since mid-April. DAMN it's been hard to get back there.

But I did 9 miles over steep hills on Friday, an epic run over Pea Ridge Road here in Oxford, MS, which is a run I haven't done in 10 years. The kind of run where you know you are going to develop a lot of strength down the line--if you don't break yourself down first. So the question was: what would today be like, only two days after that? But it was fine. And that's great news: still capable of absorbing serious training. I'm back. I'm starting to get back there.

Good runs, all.

51andcounting wrote:

9 mile Progressive run 7:00 down to 4:58

8 x 800 @ 2:28 30sec rest....

might be time to race soon

Both nice workouts. Man to be 51 again! Yep, you need a race.

SpikePlate wrote:

5k race

Race Stats: 17:07, Position 79th, M50 2nd

Nice race. How old are you?

MikeF wrote:

"celebrated" day 365 of my current streak with the first track workout in 7 months...

Congrats! Wondering, whats your minimum daily mileage?

KP wrote:

If we're LucKY we'll meet LucKY2b, SCGal, Dave, and many other Masters Of Running For Life post-race. Speaking of which... where is the best place to gather to raise a few pints? My teammates (BTC 50) are all staying in North Lex.

See y'all soon.

KP

I'll defer to L2b on other places but the two brewpubs I've been to have been really, really nice. (Great beers, great food, great atmosphere) In September, my wife and I met L2b at West 6th Brewing for a few then we headed over to Ethereal Brewing for a few more. Then there is the post race party at Sawyer’s Downtown. It looked like they have local craft beers on tap. Our team is staying at La Quinta

My week went pretty good. 42 miles on 7 runs, most in the dark. Really got after my blowout 3 miler Thursday. Guess I better go down and dust off my spikes. They probably still have the mud from San Francisco on them!

M: 6.17 Miles in 49:27 [8:00 per mile]

T: 6.96 Miles in 53:20 [7:39 per mile]

W: 5.16 Miles in 41:12 [7:59 per mile]

T: 6 Miles in 41:04 [6:50 per mile] with 3 miles in 17:58.3 (604.1,602.0,552.2)

F: 4.89 Miles in 40:50 [8:21 per mile]

S: 9.07 Miles in 1:08:13 [7:31 per mile]

S: 4 Miles easy

Have a good week, see you in Lexington. Almost forgot...you warm weather guys better remember your long johns. I think its going to be nasty cold...

Dave

Final tune ups this week. Nothing special to report. But did do 4X 1 mile threshold over rolling hills on Tuesday and 1 mile time trial Friday. Charlie, sub 5 would be a stretch. Did solo 5:18 on a bike path. With some more specific training and at sea level in a real race. Who knows, but being as cynical as this site is, how about a 5:25 in a championship caliber event?

54 miles

racerdb, is this your team on on our USATF association website homepage?:

http://colorado.usatf.org/Home.aspx

Coyote Montane wrote:

racerdb, is this your team on on our USATF association website homepage?:

http://colorado.usatf.org/Home.aspx

Ha, yea! That was taken after the Flint Mile in 2016. Only four of the six are running next week + three new guys.

Dave

busy last couple of weeks, but training has gone well. i guess the "hay's in the barn" idiom is more appropriate now than ever while preparing for the the bluegrass state environs...

looking forward to seeing some of you face to face--wondering if "51andcounting" is sean wade--not many others i know can do those workouts. glad to see SCgal is back at--you probably don't want to hear that 6 months of training after my injury that i feel like i'm still on the comeback trail. the hard part is i'm not sure how "back" is supposed to look anymore, but i guess part of the adventure is finding out... KP, our old buddy hans must be happy with his clemson tigers. as for brews and such, we're staying at the downtown hyatt regency--only 1/2 mile stumble from the "town branch distillery," and across the street from a place called "pies and pints," both good for post-race recovery. we're also less than a mile from lexington beer works. calcoast has discussed a required shot of kentucky bourbon on every prime numbered hour after the race--should that be attempted, we may all find ourselves passed out at a kentucky fried chicken shortly before sunset...

stay healthy my friends,

cush

Thanks for the shout outs everyone.

@ amkelly There's a handful of really deep and competitive 5k's and 10k's that the decent club runners and up and coming juniors target, my 17:19 was a similar race, 76th or thereabouts. Next 5k will have about 4-500 in it and sub 17:30 should place in the top 25 or so. Best of luck with your race.

@Racerdb Only an infant in the M50 AG :), turned 50 earlier in the year.

Rgds

SP

M: off.

T: 6 miles.

W: 4 miles.

R: 3 miles.

F: off.

SA: St Jude Memphis marathon.

SU: off.

This was the 6th time that I ran this marathon in Memphis, and I thought I had figured out all the logistics of this race. But the organizers change something year after year, so it is a constant challenge. When I tried to get to the gear check at the baseball stadium, I was stopped by waves of 10k start that was blocking the street in front of the stadium. Then after the gear check, I tried to get to my corral (#3 which was supposed to have 3:25, 3:30 and 3:35 pacers), but non-runners were creating human roadblocks in front of the corrals. I finally squeezed myself to corral #5, and then waded through a sea of people to reach the very end of corral #3 just before the start.

As the gun went off, I tried to find the pacers, but couldn't see any. So I tried to "run by feel." I passed the 3:35 pacers about 6 min into the race, and tried to find the 3:30 pacers ahead, but couldn't see any sign. So I kept running by feel and passing people in front of me. I finally saw the back of 3:30 pacers about 11 miles into the race, and caught up with them shortly before I hit the halfway point at 1:42:44. Then I heard one of the pacers saying "we just passed the halfway at 1:44:xx." So they actually took off with Corral#2, two minutes before I did. No wonder I could not see them.

Then I tried to settle down and follow their pace, thinking that covering the rest at 8min/mile could get me under 3:28. Well, that lasted for only 5 miles. At mile 18, my left quad started cramping. I had to slow down a bit, and the gap opened between the pack following the pacers and myself. Three miles later, my right shin started cramping. I had to slow down even more. The rest was a death march to finish and I had to even walk for a while (probably about 15-20 seconds) just to gather myself.

A strange thing was that I was actually gaining ground against the field while going through this spectacular blowup. I was passing more people than being passed, while slowing down from 7:50/mile to 8:50 /mile. I finished in 3:33:39 with a 9 min positive split. When I checked the result, I was surprised to find that I finished 11th in my age group (8th excluding the three Grand Master award winners). That's the highest AG finish I had in this race. (The previous high was 13th in 2015, when I ran 3:24.) And I moved up from 15th at half to 13th at 30k to 11th at finish. Later I found many people had even bigger blowups than I did.

I was very disappointed at my time (3 min slower than last year and 9 min slower than two years ago). And 9min positive split was pretty bad. In hindsight, I should have gone out more conservatively. But I didn't feel like I was pushing the pace in the first half. However, maybe my result was not as bad as I originally thought, given my AG place. I don't think the conditions were bad. Close to 60F at the finish, but humidity was low and the wind was very mild.

I have already signed up for my next marathon (Champaign in April), and I am determined to run better. But after that, I am thinking about taking a break from marathon and focusing on shorter distances for a while. I have never done a half in Memphis, and doing that next year might be nice. At least I wouldn't have to spend my Saturday afternoon taking a nap in my hotel room. (Speaking of which, I had only a 20-30 min nap this time. I usually sleep for 75-90 min after a marathon. After my first marathon in 2008, I had a 3 hour nap, followed by 9 hour sleep at night. I guess I don't get as exhausted when I ran a crappy race like this.)

I hope every one else's race goes better than mine did.

RF Reader, thanks for the race report. I enjoy reading these things, still thinking that I might possibly be able to run another marathon some day. Certainly a 9 minute positive split is no one's idea of a good race, but perhaps the conditions were more challenging than you thought given your AG place and your improvement over the second half of the race.

Your report does remind me that if I ever attempt another marathon, it will be one of my two semi-local marathons that are no more than an hour's drive away and feature small fields and easy logistics. Your description of the hassles before the race sounds similar to my frequent anxiety dreams about racing, which often involve not being able to get to the starting line.

amkelley wrote:

RF Reader, thanks for the race report. I enjoy reading these things, still thinking that I might possibly be able to run another marathon some day. Certainly a 9 minute positive split is no one's idea of a good race, but perhaps the conditions were more challenging than you thought given your AG place and your improvement over the second half of the race.

Your report does remind me that if I ever attempt another marathon, it will be one of my two semi-local marathons that are no more than an hour's drive away and feature small fields and easy logistics. Your description of the hassles before the race sounds similar to my frequent anxiety dreams about racing, which often involve not being able to get to the starting line.

funny, my anxiety dreams--more accurately, nightmares--involve me GETTING to the line of a marathon ;)

cush

I have had in the past a recurring nightmare. I am running a marathon, going for a good time, but I get distracted. I stop to talk, drink, eat, etc. Only then to find I am falling behind.

YUP

Cush... yes Koeleman is a happy Tiger. His Tigers beat mine (lifetime fan of Auburn). Now we need them to stomp 'Bama.

KP

Does anyone know if someone will be tweeting the races this weekend from Lexington?

A lot of great posts this week! Thanks for that really nice marathon report, RF Reader. Nothing to feel down about in how it all played out. Seems you did quite well relatively speaking.

Racerdb wrote:

I'll defer to L2b on other places but the two brewpubs I've been to have been really, really nice. (Great beers, great food, great atmosphere) In September, my wife and I met L2b at West 6th Brewing for a few then we headed over to Ethereal Brewing for a few more. Then there is the post race party at Sawyer’s Downtown. It looked like they have local craft beers on tap. Our team is staying at La Quinta

Well, the brewpub scene in Lexington has gone bonkers in the last five years, but it's supposed to be pretty cold, and I'm not sure what the transportation capabilities are of those flying in. Reality is that most the good ones are within walking distance of downtown when the weather is good, but could be a miserable hike if it's cold and windy. Pies and Pints is good, but it might be busy. On the other side of that same Victoria Square is Hopcat, which has a very large local selection (even though they are a chain,) but could also be very busy. Thankfully, UK basketball is playing at Madison Square Garden this Saturday, so there won't be the typical UK crowd mulling about. I don't think that the regional NCAA Women's Volleyball Championships will pose too much of a problem. I've also heard that the Village Idiot is pretty good, but I haven't been there.

Other options:

i) If you can venture over towards Jefferson St. There are few good options : Namely West 6th, Blue Stallion, and Chase Taproom. West 6th brews more IPA and Stout, while Blue Stallion brews more Germanic-style beers. Chase doesn't brew their own, but has a nice selection. West sixth would be a bit of a hike by foot.

ii) Country Boy is the other direction from downtown closer to the Town Branch Distillery that y'all talked about. It has a hole in the wall feel, but they brew a lot of good beers, tend to have more on the IPA side...especially their experimental batches.

iii) If industrial chic is your preferred atmosphere, I'd highly recommend heading over to Ethereal and/or Godfathers Pizza next door to it. But you're not going to walk there from downtown.

iv) A friend of mine owns Pivot Brewing over on Delaware, and he caters more to ciders, if that appeals to you. They also brew some good beers. In particular, I like their ESB, one that you don't often see in local offerings. But you're not going to walk there. Over in that area is also Mirror Twin Brewing, that has a broad spectrum of tasty microbrews and shares the space with a really nice pizza joint.

If push came to shove, my top 5 would be Ethereal, Blue Stallion, West 6th, Pivot, Country Boy...that might also be my order of preference, but I like them all. Hasn't helped my waistline, though, especially since I've been running so little of late.

OK. That's the lowdown.

lucKY2b, thanks for the heads up on the local scene--my wife will appreciate the pivot recommendation since she's not a beer drinker but likes ciders,

cush

Well, a small scale marathon would be nice in terms of logistics. But I am afraid that I could be completely "isolated" late in the race if there are only a few hundred runners. I like our local half marathon with 200-300 finishers, partly because I don't have to travel, and partly because I usually get an AG award. And there is usually good enough competition until the finish. But a marathon could be very different. Aside from Boston, all of my marathons had 2000-3000 finishers, and I think that's an adequate size.

Thanks. In a typical hobby jogger manner, I tend to measure my performance by the clock. I pay more attention to the place in local races, since I know other runners. But it's hard to compare my results with results of other runners that I don't know.

So my wife and I will be going to our year's end awards chili run this Saturday, as we both won the KCTC Race Series for our age group. That will be fun. We both ran a certified 5 km last Saturday and she went 24:00 (of course she wanted to be one second under :) :) and I ran 25:25 on a slow opening mile. We both won our age groups in it, so got some nice prizes and a fun Santa Dash long-sleeve.

Best part is that she now has the 7th best time EVER run for a certified 5 km in MO for 60-64. And I believe she can go faster with a fast course and a little speed work, but for now, we'll take it. On to Christmas and good running to all this weekend!

SpikePlate wrote:

Bit of advise please.

I'm a 50 yo runner and plan to run my 1st indoor race ever next week.

It's a mile, I'm running it as a baseline to get a marker with intentions to hopefully run sub 5 and sub 10 for 3000 early next year.

Any tips for tackling an indoor mile, I'm assuming don't get stuck to far off the inside, pass on the straights if that's an option, anything else?

Ahead of schedule, 9:55 - 3,000m indoors - that is all