50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Congrats to KP and his boys on their July 4th race in Shawsville. I won’t spoil it since he has not reported yet.

SCGirl: wow to hang out with Lagat and Jorgensen!

Allen, wouldn’t be a bad idea to wear a HRM on some hard one’s for a bit just to make sure the rhythm is OK

Great news Igy!

Tue = 45 min trail

Thr = 45 min rocky trail, 500 feet climbing

Sat = 20 min warmup, 1600 in 6:54, then 2 400’s in 1:36, 1:34

Sun = 50 min rocky trail

Pretty good week where I shaved 5 seconds off my benchmark 1600. I skipped running with my trail group this week. It was nice to enjoy being in the woods rather than busting it full tilt. I’ll be adding some hill sprints on my next few Tuesday runs and maybe another 400 on Sat. My goal is to not embarrass myself too much for my Aug 11 race. I already know it will be a personal worst, but I don’t want it to be so slow it affects my motivation.

Have a good week folks!

Igy - great news about the PET scan results! Glad to see you're gaining strength and able to exercise. Keep up the good work!

*Week 369*

Sweltering Salutations, 50+ers! Another hot and humid week, with a 1-day reprieve that I, unfortunately, didn't get to fully enjoy, since I couldn't get out in the AM. I did get out this morning, but the weather respite wasn't nearly as satisfying as yesterday. Bit of a broken record from me: 23+ miles running with very little at effort; another 8-ish miles of deliberate walking. The run-log reads as such:

Sun: 6.2 Easy (9:02/mi) Sweltering already at 7am

Mon: Off

Tue: 4.2 done in 4 steamy chunks w/3.2@8:30+/mi & 1@7:11

Wed: 4.1 Moderate (8:15/mi) Another sweatfest

Thu: Off

Fri: 4.1 Easy-moderate (8:13/mi) a little cooler

Sat: 4.6 Easy (8:30/mi) much less humid & 82 degrees

The knee is behaving reasonably well. Five days of running is working out pretty well, other than I'm not making any fitness progress. The heat and humidity is dragging me down. On tuesday, we wheeled out a 1-mile Strava segment that we're going to push as an informal downhill mile challenge for the locals. It's not a huge drop at 62-feet, but enough to notice. It'll be fun to see if people are up for setting fast times (we'll probably do a group thing, too....followed by social imbibement, of course.) Didn't race on the fourth and glad I didn't; it was hot and miserable. There were quite a few very queasy runners at the finish line.

Thanks for keeping things going while I'm taking a backseat this month. I have some extra Sunday morning duties for July, which is why I've been posting later than usual. Keep up the great work, and props to all you racers!

All the Best!

Was really good to bump into one of our "Masters Friends For Life" 2000 miles from my home. RType... damn man that humidity (98%), heat (80F), and steep hill at 2.5miles at the Shawsville 5k was brutal! Especially for us 'no humidity in the summer great northwest folks'. Folks... I ran dumb in this. How can you explain a few weeks from age 58 to go out too fast? 6:00-6:20-6:33. I won M55 but the big prize was Fastest Family. Something my two sons and I have chased for 15 years. Dylan 2nd, Aidan 4th, Dad 21st. We each won our AG scoring total of 3 points but tied a local family. Tie-Breaker? Appropriately the fastest cummulative time.

Good news is I have already recovered from the HHH 5k. 4 sets 400-200 with 90sec rest yesterday at 1500/800pace was a little rouhg but a great feeling 10 miler this am gives me growing confidence in having a fun few races at Masters Track Nats in late July.

Great to hear so many folks are enjoying summer miles.

KP

Congrats on the family win KP and return to racing amkelley. Quite a week for 63.

I got in just under 60 in 6 days (rested Monday). Still in a hill/altitude phase, which I'll continue for another 10 days or so. Mostly easy running on soft surfaces this week, but did 4X 3 min hill reps at 8200 feet the other day, followed by some hill sprints. And on the weekend did the 7.7 mile mountain race at just under 8:30 pace. So pretty much can beat me, but I'm okay with that. Felt awful throughout.

Going to be shifting gears some in a couple weeks, with a 6 or so week speed phase (or at least that's the plan). The overall plan is to keep things rotating a bit so as not to get stale. Have a good week everyone.

Very nice, a few of us have been lucky to stall Father Time using similar methods, but in my case after a decade of success I finally joined the decline experienced by all but a very few. In ten years I put a minute per mile onto my times, which actually is a little better than most, considering I am at least injury-free.

What is your running history? This is critical in evaluating the overall picture.

To answer you question Down the Road, I ran a 16:14 at age 55. I have not run many 5k's. I would like to think, based on my current training, that I could come within a minute of that now.

63 wrote:

To answer you question Down the Road, I ran a 16:14 at age 55. I have not run many 5k's. I would like to think, based on my current training, that I could come within a minute of that now.

Lack the experience but are 5k times are close. Your summary of what you have learned over the years is almost identical to what I have learned. Take the same approach to stretching and find massage much more productive. Your mileage is more than I can handle but including my cross training the total training hours are similar.

63 wrote:

To answer you question Down the Road, I ran a 16:14 at age 55. I have not run many 5k's. I would like to think, based on my current training, that I could come within a minute of that now.

Outstanding times....but were you competing in your 40s? My observation is that as masters we get about a decade of our best age-graded times before a decline (which is often dramatic)

So important that the treadmill is working properly for an effective training...I found a blog where you can find all kinds of advice for troubleshooting and repairing your treadmill yourself, chek it out and if you have questions you can always ask them, they also sell replacement parts and accessories for treadmills, here's the address: http://www.treadmillsrepair.co.uk/

15:32 at age 41

16:14 at age 55

I'll be conservative and say 17:25 at age 63.

All on the track for 5,000. So are my decline in times typical?

Since there is a recent posting regarding treadmills:

I have a nice one I keep in the garage that I use in the winter for hard workouts because of snow,ice, and cold weather where I live. I always run everything at 1% grade to closer mimic running outside. Also it took me a few trials to get the calibration on the treadmill set to where the times on the treadmill were comparable to running outside or on the track. If it's not calibrated correctly or running at 0% grade you can really fly and give you a false reading on your actual fitness.

63 wrote:

15:32 at age 41

16:14 at age 55

I'll be conservative and say 17:25 at age 63.

All on the track for 5,000. So are my decline in times typical?

Your performances rank as 86%, 93% and 93% respectively. Anything above 90% is World Class. You did exceptionally well in your mid-50s and are holding up perfectly since. So not typical. Coyote Montane has had a very similar improvement in AG ranking, and is in similar territory now (can't recall any recent 5Ks, but I think he is 35:xx for 10K). Perhaps you two have/will race each other?

63- A light bulb went off and I just realized who you are :) I remember you going way back to Green River CC (I was in HS running with-i.e. way behind- the guys from Bellevue CC around '73). I'll be sure to say hi when in Spokane in a few weeks.

We raced the half a few weeks ago with him beating me by a little over a minute. We will probably meet again over 15k in Tulsa.

63 wrote:

We raced the half a few weeks ago with him beating me by a little over a minute. We will probably meet again over 15k in Tulsa.

If he was in the 5000 in Spokane it would have been one of the all-time great masters races between you three (including Joe). Still going to be great, of course.

Yea. Joe wants to run fast for that 5,000. So I told him today (we live close and on the same team) that I would try to run with him as long as I can to help him run fast. He wants to run the first mile in 5:25! It's gonna hurt.

63 wrote:

Yea. Joe wants to run fast for that 5,000. So I told him today (we live close and on the same team) that I would try to run with him as long as I can to help him run fast. He wants to run the first mile in 5:25! It's gonna hurt.

It'll be blazing orange singlets up front!

Down the Road wrote:

63- A light bulb went off and I just realized who you are :) I remember you going way back to Green River CC (I was in HS running with-i.e. way behind- the guys from Bellevue CC around '73). I'll be sure to say hi when in Spokane in a few weeks.

Yep that would be me. Still at it. Some of those CC teams could beat Pac 8 (at the time) xc teams. So I also had competition.