50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

25 miles for the week. No Biking on purpose.

Recovered from hosting a track meet Friday night followed by two days of track at Bucknell. 21 weeks in a row

Start biking again tomorrow.

Not much to say this week. But the really cool thing last week was the many messages of support from this thread, facebook and offline messages. Lots of friends offering their advice based on their Achilles experiences. Yes, it was tons of information on what to do and a lot of conflicting information! Every word is much appreciated. (wasn't going to take it to facebook but thanks for the message SCgal. It opened up a really good dialog, on and offline, with a lot of friends!!!)

Running is my life. It defines who I am. Everything I am is because of running. Yes, it's hard to walk away voluntarily. But I'll be fine. I told a guy at church this morning I'll be back faster, stronger, better than I was before. I honestly believe that. My answer to everything is 'I'm OK' Styx 1978

Yours in running,

Dave

Improvement

It really was Friday evening that I felt for the 1st time that my running wasn't being hampered by this side pain, it's still noticeable and tender to 'prod' but now much more manageable.

I got through the 1st half of the week with very easy mileage and a few doubles.

Friday after work I hit the grass in a nearby park, it was wet and mucky in places, but I managed an hour for the first time.

This gave me a little confidence and I ran 10 miles on Sat with 45mins @ 6:30 min/ml, got through this ok, but with the HR running a little higher than I would expect.

Sun ran an easy 13.1 at 7:20 pace.

Have the County 5k road race Thurs week and the Master's Regional's the week after, will add some tempo and stride work in an attempt to pull in the form a little.

WTD: 63.5

YTD: 886

Run Streak: 245 / 2,126

Mon. 12 km cruising around on the mountain bike. 32 min. kayak on the river. Did 3 km hilly walk in my tea break. Walking back to the car after work in the dark I stumbled and that was enough to give the tight hamstring a real jolt.

Tue. Yep that is a very sore hamstring.

Wed. Picked up the grandkids. Gardening and a 2 km walk with a 10 year old.

Thu. Managed to lead a 10 and a 12 year year old and my wife around our well known 3.6 km hiking loop. Back to Melbourne for my youngest's 25th. That makes me feel old.

Friday and Saturday. Zero.

Sun. I had talked my wife into doing a mate's 5 km fund raiser. Linda usually does a couple of 3 min run / 3 min walk 3 to 5 km treadmill workouts per week so a 5 km trail race was going to test her.

I jogged along with her and we completed it in 37 mins. We did slow to a walk half a doxen times. Most of her runnimg was around 6.30 per kms.

This week will be a play it by ear week.

I will see what the hamstring is prepared to let me do.

Racerdb: I am sure you can find plenty of strenuous activity just doing your wonderful renovation work. Get out and do some of those things you haven't had time to do. A few months off running might get the body heeled up and freshen up the enthusiasm for the sport.

Igy: Yep keep doing whatever you can.

Now a question.

Commonwealth Games mens marathon.

Scot Callum Hawkins 2 mins in front at 40 km on a pretty warm morning. Staggers then down he goes. Gets up then down he goes again. He is laying on the hot bitumen no one prepared to help him. Not sure where on Earth med support were.

Michael Shelley cruises past into the lead and doesn't even look at him as he lay distressed on the ground. Shelley takes his 2d straight CG title. He is an Aussie hero. Or is he?

For me no he isn't. I am embarrassed by the poor organisation that led to Hawkins laying there on the ground. But I am also unimpressed that another runner would run past rather than stop to check if his fellow competitor is ok.

I have been in the same situation and saw 3 guys jump over a fallen distressed runner. I could not do that so picked him up and helped him through the last km to the finish. That prevented me from a chance of medalling in the masters div. of our biggest National mountain race.

So would you stop and help and risk missing a medal or fly on by without as much as a glance and take the gold?

mo’pac,

Getting after it. Shooting for 40+ Igy miles this week including a hike up our version of Roo Hill (Kesterel).

Igy

I just saw a video clip linked to the front page. And my answer is that I would not help him under the circumstances. By the time Shelley passed by, Hawkins was already attended by at least two race officials. If they needed my help, they would let me know, otherwise I would let the officials handle this.

I was in a somewhat similar circumstance two years ago. I was having a race of my life until mile 24. Then I lost my coordination, and struggled through the last 2.2 miles. I fell down 3-4 times in the last half mile. Two people who had already finished their races passed by and said to each other "we cannot help him because he could get DQ'ed." (I was very thankful that they didn't.) When I fell for the last time with 50m to go, one of the volunteers try to help me get up. I yelled "don't touch me" to scare her off. I might not have been DQ'ed anyway, but it would have ruined my experience. (I ended up with a 2min+ PB in spite of multiple falls.) That's just me. Unless my long term health is seriously threatened, I would rather crawl to the finish line than getting help.

My week.

M: off.

T: 7 miles.

W: 11 miles.

R: 7 miles.

F: 7 miles.

SA: 7 miles.

SU: 16.7 miles. (last 5 miles @ 7:54-7:51-7:51-7:47-7:32)

The last 5 miles of my long run felt much easier than a week before, and I was actually able to get into the next gear in the final mile. Only two weeks to go to my marathon, and I am just a tiny bit more optimistic than a year ago.

Re swimming. I was swimming almost every week in 2016 and 2017. I have swam only once this year. What changed is the fitness tracker than I am wearing for my reward program. We are paid by our insurance company $1 each for (1) at least 500 steps within 7 minutes, six times a day, (2) at least 3000 steps in 30 minute, and (3) at least total 10,000 steps for the day. One problem is that the tracker does not work in water. So I have to take it off while I am swimming. Even if it worked in the water, 100 strokes per minute is not a realistic goal in the water. So instead of swimming for 30 minutes on my "rest" day, I am talking a 25-30 minutes walk to cover those 3,000 steps. Currently I don't have the time to do both, although I am hoping to change this in the fall. (I should have no problem with time constraint during summer.)

RF reader wrote:

Unless my long term health is seriously threatened, I would rather crawl to the finish line than getting help.

Seriously? That's quite an obsession there. Are you training for the Olympics or something?

Here is the video and it is clear he is not being assisted when Shelley passes. I agree, Shelley is no hero. I would have stopped only to draw attention to the emergency. Physically, not much you can do but get try to get real medical help to the guy.

Callum is surrounded by people when he goes down. There was no need for Shelley to stop.

There's nothing to see here, folks. Move on.

Rtype wrote:

mo'pak wrote:

Now a question.

So would you stop and help and risk missing a medal or fly on by without as much as a glance and take the gold?

Here is the video and it is clear he is not being assisted when Shelley passes. I agree, Shelley is no hero. I would have stopped only to draw attention to the emergency. Physically, not much you can do but get try to get real medical help to the guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkY6C78vKU

Ever stop on a long run when you are at your limit? Good chance you won't get going again. Dumas comment, moran. Now go help a little old lady across the street for your Good Deed of the Day.

Shelly deserves the win and a bye on criticism.

Philly Phan wrote:

Rtype wrote:

Here is the video and it is clear he is not being assisted when Shelley passes. I agree, Shelley is no hero. I would have stopped only to draw attention to the emergency. Physically, not much you can do but get try to get real medical help to the guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkY6C78vKU

Callum is surrounded by people when he goes down. There was no need for Shelley to stop.

There's nothing to see here, folks. Move on.

If you watch the footage you will see that there is no one attending to Callum as Shelley approaches. Shelley does not look either at Callum's body on the ground or at the people standing beside Callum's body. This is not a normal human response to such a situation.

Moran detector wrote:

Rtype wrote:

Here is the video and it is clear he is not being assisted when Shelley passes. I agree, Shelley is no hero. I would have stopped only to draw attention to the emergency. Physically, not much you can do but get try to get real medical help to the guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkY6C78vKU

Ever stop on a long run when you are at your limit? Good chance you won't get going again. Dumas comment, moran. Now go help a little old lady across the street for your Good Deed of the Day.

Shelly deserves the win and a bye on criticism.

Well if you read my post you will see that is what I did 4 hr plus into a mountain race. I did this because it is the right thing to help a person in trouble. In my opinion the race and it's outcome is less important than someone's well being.

In Michael Shelley's case the race appears to have been more important to him than Callum Hawkins' well being. That is his choice to make but it is my choice that I was not impressed ny that.

mo'pak wrote:

Moran detector wrote:

Ever stop on a long run when you are at your limit? Good chance you won't get going again. Dumas comment, moran. Now go help a little old lady across the street for your Good Deed of the Day.

Shelly deserves the win and a bye on criticism.

Well if you read my post you will see that is what I did 4 hr plus into a mountain race. I did this because it is the right thing to help a person in trouble. In my opinion the race and it's outcome is less important than someone's well being.

In Michael Shelley's case the race appears to have been more important to him than Callum Hawkins' well being. That is his choice to make but it is my choice that I was not impressed ny that.

Oh look, another Boy Scout jogger of the ultra trail! I hope they gave you a gold star on your finisher's medal! Shelly's medal is just plain gold, through-and-through.

You geriatric shufflers have no clue what a winning a hot-weather championship marathon is like, keep your dumas moronic comments to your wrinkly selves. There was NOTHING Shelly could have done to improve the situation, if even was aware of it. There was PLENTY that could have gone wrong if he stopped at that point in the race.

I'm not sure what Shelley was supposed to do. I assume he wasn't carrying water or a phone and did not have medical training. Hawkins was surrounded by people, although none of them were apparently trying to help him. Probably the most useful thing Shelley could have done was to keep running and yell to the first race official he saw that there's a man down on the course who needs help. I don't know whether he did that.

I am pretty sure that if I were ever in such bad shape in a race that I couldn't stay on my feet, I would have the sense to quit. No race is worth endangering my health in that way. I have often thought that my biggest limitation as a runner, back when I was young and moderately fast, was my unwillingness to really suffer. I was really good at being disciplined, going out there consistently and doing the training day after day, but I could never push myself beyond a certain point. It just wasn't that important to me.

Moran Detector wrote:

You geriatric shufflers have no clue what a winning a hot-weather championship marathon is like, keep your dumas moronic comments to your wrinkly selves.

Man, there goes the only civil thread left on Letsrun. What's with all the name calling? Lighten up, kid!

Dave

Racerdb wrote:

Moran Detector wrote:

You geriatric shufflers have no clue what a winning a hot-weather championship marathon is like, keep your dumas moronic comments to your wrinkly selves.

Man, there goes the only civil thread left on Letsrun. What's with all the name calling? Lighten up, kid!

Dave

When sanctimonious hobby joggers throw stones from their comfortable couch at an international competitor who clearly was himself under duress, I call out the sanctimony for what it is.

"Definition of sanctimony-

plural sanctimonies

affected or hypocritical holiness"

Moran Detector wrote:

Racerdb wrote:

Man, there goes the only civil thread left on Letsrun. What's with all the name calling? Lighten up, kid!

Dave

When sanctimonious hobby joggers throw stones from their comfortable couch at an international competitor who clearly was himself under duress, I call out the sanctimony for what it is.

"Definition of sanctimony-

plural sanctimonies

affected or hypocritical holiness"

You have no idea what some of the folks on this thread have done in their earlier running careers.

mo'pak wrote:

If you watch the footage you will see that there is no one attending to Callum as Shelley approaches. Shelley does not look either at Callum's body on the ground or at the people standing beside Callum's body. This is not a normal human response to such a situation.

The Youtube video is misleading. If you watch the video below (posted by IcKle Misty), you can see that at 1:48 a guy in yellow vest approaches Hawkins, and a woman with red backpack and a guy with a helmet come along at 1:55. Shelly pass them at 2:18.

In the video posted by Martin Hardy, you see the guy in helmet and the woman with backpack more clearly. (Or see the photo by ABC Grandstand.)

And maybe Shelly could not fully comprehend the situation because he was very tired himself.