50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

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Week 49

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Hello 50+ masters. It’ll be a brief bump for the week. I’ve got too much grading to get done + ancillary duties. So let’s get to it.

It was supposed to be a down week, but I still somehow logged 45 miles on 7 days of running.

My week's log looks as such:

Sun: 7.6 easy

Mon: 6.5 easy

Tue: 6.3 easy (3+ on grass)

Wed: 4 easy-to-moderate (2+ on grass)

Thu: 8 w/6.4@6:55 pace (within that, 1.2@5:55 pace)

Fri: 5.3 easy (2+ on grass)

Sat: 7.3: it was a 6 mile out (7:08 pace) and back (6:31 pace) + 1.3 easy

Notes:

Not much to say this week. No intervals to speak of. There were two harder efforts, but even those were pretty unremarkable.

OMG, I noticed in this month’s Running Times magazine, they have a piece devoted specifically to taking marathon training and transitioning to 5k speed. Should be a good read for you.

In the same issue, there is also an updated profile of Nolan Shaheed, among some other useful articles.

Anyone have any burning issues they’d like to talk about? Any race results to report?

Hope everyone is doing well.

Cheers!

Week 49: No running.

I bought 7 pairs of my model running shoes at 50% off yesterday. Hoping that falls under the wise investment heading, and not the foolish over-optimism category. The May 19 return to running is looking good, the hardest part now is staying sane and not short-circuiting the process.

With the time off I am looking carefully at everybody's training here, maybe some good ideas will permeate my hard skull.

Yesterday I ran a personal worst for 5 km in 24:51, and really don't mind it, since I was able to run it non-stop, two days after hurting my hamstring. I jammed the hammy into a handle on a quad machine at the gym when I stepped off it incorrectly! Talk about a dumb injury! Apparently, I mostly got a major cramp in it, but it was enough to make me walk the last 1/2 mile home the night before the race.

The race itself was hot and humid and hilly, but with it being the Kansas City Corporate Challenge, you run for the team. Would you believe that placed me 425th among men! TALK about competitive, 9th among 60-64.

Getting through it without further injury, or as we say here at home "Just to Run", is a good thing.

Oh, yes, and my birthday present was a pair of NIKE LunarSpeed Lites. My wife knows how to make me happy :)

Mon = 5K @ 7:16 pace

Tue = 4, "posts run", 8 X 2 posts, w/1 post jog

Wed = 4 hilly run @ 8:08 pace

Thr = rest

Fri = rest

Sat = 7, 2 X mile and 8 quarters on a soggy cinder track

Sun = 3.9 Mountain

Total = 22

I am finally able to turn the crank a bit following my long convalescence. For the first time in over a 1 year I can run downhill aggressively and press the pace almost every day.

Monday was a course pr by 30+ seconds. Tue was a nasty, hot, and near vomit-inducing sprint on our green-way. Basically I sprinted two posts (1/10th mile each) then jogged one: repeat 8X. Wed was a hard, hot press on a hilly course.

Saturday was, in truth, the first complete workout I have been able to do in 14 months. A mile warmup, a pretty quick 7:09 mile pacing my training partner, then a hard 6:13. Then 8 quarters with a 220 yard walk rest (86, 88, 91, 89, 89, 90, 91, 91, Ave = 89.375). The cinder track was wet, soft and, although forgiving, certainly not fast. I don't use spikes there.

Being able to train at 100%, even for just one day, was sweet. I have all these great workouts in my head and in my old log-books that I would love to do. Problem is, my body does not cooperate.

49 for the week, including a longish tempo on Tuesday (34 min), a light pace/speed session on Thursday (just a mile of reps with the first two at 5K pace and last ones at est. mile pace), and a 5K race.

Felt flat all week and was concerned about the 5K, but I guess it went okay (felt much better on race day than mid week). 17:35 with splits of 5:39, 5:39, 5:43. 1st in AG, but barely out kicked a 49 yr old.

It's not getting any easier! Early in the week I was thinking 5:36s and a nice kick would be good, but the reality was a little off that. It's a start to the season.

This week was 60 miles in 5 runs with no workouts. It was pretty much of a survival week because I was feeling really dead-legged all week from pushing up over 70mpw last week for the first time in about 5 years. I noticed looking at the Oxy results that Pete Magill was in the middle of the 5k results at 15:11.

old guy II wrote:I noticed looking at the Oxy results that Pete Magill was in the middle of the 5k results at 15:11.

Keen eye; that was easy to miss. I hadn't noticed his name in there when I looked at the heat sheets. Kinda hard when they don't list ages to pick names out on a quick scan.

OK, so Mike Blackmore will have had his record for a week and a couple days, assuming Pete goes through with ratifying this one....hope he does. I know that he said last summer that he's done with jumping through the hoops. Glad to see Pete back to running more like himself again.

Hello,

quite recently came upon LetsRun and this serious 50+ thread. Fine intention and excellent runners are creating a great one. Congratulations.

Seven month ago I started the "Running Diaries 50+" in Australia's CoolRunning Forum: brief statements, backgrounds and stories of 50+ colleagues. Just want to share this link with all of you:

http://www.coolrunning.com.au/forums/index.php?showtopic=33148

Kind regards, good luck and keep on running!

What can you say about Pete's 5K other than 'Holy Crap!?!?!?

Didn't feel like a good week but I guess it was ok. 60 miles with a day off. Two workouts: Wed 4 mi Tempo in 23:16 and a Saturday progressive 13 in 1:23:30 (6:25/mi). Neither one felt very good. I'm just not feeling race ready...

But in my defense my body did take a serious butt kicking the past two weeks. I had a 2nd story roof tear-off & re-shingle job. By the end of the day I am completely wup'd and really don't feel like running. Nothing like cross training for 7 hours and then working out!

25K next weekend. Thank God I'm off the roof and have a nice easy indoor remodel project so my body should be able to fully recover this week...

All the Best,

Dave

racerdb (last week) wrote:

I'm finally starting to come around.

I neglected to ask last week: Did you make any adjustments, or was it just something that needed time to work itself out?

I cannot make this as entertaining as Alan Bennet's race report last week (I am sorry you are hurt, Alan, but that was a GREAT report!!)

I did the 3k at the Oregon Twilight meet yesterday. You all know I've been logging miles, doing one "workout" of sorts a week and trying to lose some weight since my injury. I'm down 10 lbs I guess. I feel it, but sadly, I don't think you can see it. Anyway the last few weeks have been hectic and several times, I've skipped a more intense workout in favor of drills, hills or a tempo run. I can't remember the last time I did repeats of 3-6 minutes. I did go to the track last Friday to do some 200s, but I knew that physically those would not help me in the 3k.

I estimated that I could run 12 flat for 3k, using my best 5k xc time from this fall. Yes, I know, for most people the track is faster than xc, but it was a flat course and I figured it didn't matter. Privately, I was hoping for a bit better, though.

I did drills on Wednesday and managed to make my hips really sore and on Friday night I somehow cramped my foot and was really afraid I broke something, so my mind was somewhat stressed at racing. Day of race my hips were still sore.

Since it's a big deal meet (even if the race is rather low-key - 18 competitors, including 2 women, both of us 52), we had to go through the formalities of strict check ins, hip numbers, etc. I checked in 20 minutes before, but was told to come back and get my hip numbers at 5 and I did, but was then "late" and had to rush to get them on. I was nervous and felt like I had to pee and they barely let me do that with a woman grabbing my arm and pushing everyone in the ladies room aside so I could go! We still had 15 minutes before the race, even.

As they paraded us from the check in area to the start, I noticed I'd forgotten to put on the compression sleeves I've been wearing to protect my calves. Uh oh. I had spent quite a bit of time contemplating what to wear (clothes and shoes) as I didn't have track spikes. (8 pairs of xc spikes of various ages, but no track spikes). My road shoes were "dead" and too flat to wear. My options were a pair of xc "flats" or a pair of my daughter's xc spikes (which weren't quite as dirty as mine). One of my toes hits the top of the shoe funny (where there is a layover) in the flats, but in the end, I thought that was my best choice. But I really should be wearing those sleeves.

I fretted about it the whole walk and after a few strides, I asked an official if I could scale the fence and go up into the stands (15 rows up) and put them on - he kindly said "sure" as I had 10 minutes and I scrambled up and got them and quickly put them on as the clerk was reading off our lane assignments. (Apparently two of us had picked up hip 15, so they made the other guy change his -- he got me back by passing me with 800m to go).

The officials were really nice to us and joking a bit, so that was really reassuring. (The guy reading the splits said "I'll read your splits, but if you don't like them, it's not my fault!" ;-) )

There were a couple of 65+ year old guys, so I figured if I hit 12 flat or better, I'd beat them. There was another 52 year old woman, but she'd run a sub 6 mile a few weeks ago, so I knew she'd be out faster and I'd probably not catch her. (She told me she went out in 80 in the mile and I told her it would take a rocket attached to my butt to run ONE 400 in 86. She thought I was exaggerating. I was not.)

While I didn't immediately realize it, I was in dead last by 100m and stayed there for at least 600m, despite running a 94 first lap (sub 12 pace). I passed a few of the guys, but still slowed on the 2nd lap (3:11). By the 3rd lap, I think I was mostly running alone and didn't really pay attention. I kept telling myself not to push too hard and to stay relaxed. (not the best mental thought process, eh?) I could see the other woman, but she was out a lot faster than me and had hooked into running with another guy. I'm pretty sure I was lapped by the leaders in the 3rd lap as I crossed the 1600m in 6:23 - still a few seconds under 12 flat pace (96s), but obviously slowing.

After that, I completely lost my ability to do math in my head and just worked on maintaining effort - which of course, meant I was slowing. The track felt nice and bouncing and my legs felt good, but I was definitely not wanting to push into any kind of "discomfort" beyond what I'd feel in a tempo run.

I did pass another guy during the next couple of laps as he faded badly and then, with 800 to go, some old guy goes by me and for a minute, I thought he must be lapping me -- but he didn't look that fast. I see in the video that he must have been lurking behind me (that guy with bib #16) and unleashed a really strong final 800 as he gapped me by more than 15 seconds and passed the other woman, too.

I managed to avoid getting lapped twice (one of my other big goals - not being last and breaking 12 were the others), but I just couldn't will myself to really start pushing at the 600m to go mark - which is generally where I'll make my push to the finish. The other woman was still just a bit too far ahead to catch and no one was near me and I was getting a little tired. I had thought I'd kept up my pacing well and had that little cushion at half way.

But I was jolted when I heard the split at 2800m - 11:14!!! Gahhh! I only had 45 seconds to run that last 200!!! Crapcrapcrap!! Fortunately, after doing all those 200s the week before, I knew I *could* do a 45 if necessary and so I tried. I probably wouldn't have bothered as even though I was catching the other woman, I wasn't going to pass her (she finished 10 seconds ahead), but I really, really didn't want to run just over 12.

Coming down the final stretch, I really tried to turn my legs over and after I crossed the line, I looked at my watch and saw 11:59 and then saw that I hadn't stopped it. So while i was pretty sure, I had to wait until the final results to see if I made it - and I did. 11:57.9. So that last 200 was about 43 seconds - or as I had told the other woman, pretty much as fast as I could go.

It wasn't quite as embarrassing as I thought it would be (last place ended up 50 seconds behind me) as I pretty much forgot the crowd (although I heard one or two shouts for me). But later, three separate strangers came up and complimented me on my race and I was utterly amazed that they'd bothered to watch. One person said I had really moved up, which is funny because I had been slowing down, but compared to everyone else it looked like I was moving ahead.

It's on video actually, but I'm hardly in it at all other than the beginning because they obviously focused on the leaders. Sadly, I can't see how I ran the last part, which is really the only bit I did well.

I have been offered a free entry to a half marathon in two weeks. I'm as equally unprepared to race a road half as I was to run a track 3k, so I'm really still deciding. I had a lovely long trail run today, followed by lawn-mowing. Will continue the dieting for a few more weeks - I was disappointed that my time wasn't better partly because of the weight loss. It was about the same as my xc times, but I guess I'd been doing harder workouts and racing back then.

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks! You are all very encouraging! ;-)

Goal Race: Three Sisters Marathon, June 9th

Week of 04/29-05/05

Spent most of this week back in my hometown of Chicago and my wife's hometown of Rhinelander, WI for family obligations.

Sun, 04/29: Glen Ellyn, IL.

18 miler on the Prarie Path, with first 12 at comfortable pace and last 6 miles at MP (whatever that may be). Averaged 7:35 for the first 12 miles and then hit 6:47, 6:54, 6:51, 6:53, 6:49, 6:37 for the last six miles. Total running time was 2:12:02 (7:20/mile avg.) Happy with how this went. :)

Mon, 04/30: Rhinelander, WI.

Normally I take Mondays off running, but my brother-in-law Mark, who is a top xc skiier in his age group wanted to take me out for a run on is favorite trail. Anyone who knows me, knows I abhor trail running and I feared injuring something and screwing up my marathon, but I felt bad if I said no.

This one was a doozy. 5.5 miles of roots, rocks, switchbacks and hills. I prayed to get off this trail in one piece! Managed to not break or twist anything. Averaged a blistering 11:36/mile. Didn't know I could "run" that slow!

Tue, 05/01: Rhinelander, WI.

Mark took me to an area just outside town where he does his roller skiing workouts. He mapped out a really nice 10 mile route of me on back country roads, including a great stretch of SMOOTH dirt road. Covered 10.3 miles in 76:06 (7:23/mile avg.)

Wed, 05/02: Rhinelander, WI.

Decided not to tempt fate and took this day off running since I "ran" on Monday.

Thu, 05/03: Lake Mills, WI.

Love this idyllic town! Covered 8.1 miles around Rock Lake in 63:05 (7:43/mile avg.). It was SO humid that my shoes were squishing the last mile!

Fri, 05/04: Back in Portland, OR.

15:00 warmup, 15 x 1:00 on/1:00 off, 15:00 cooldown. Covered ~8 miles.

Sat, 05/05: Lacamas Heritage Trail

6.5 miles easy (untimed)

Weekly total = 56.5 miles

Feeble attempt at weights on Monday & Tuesday.

This morning (05/06), I ran my longest training run for my upcoming marathon. Covered 24 miles in 3:00:35 (7:28/mile avg.)

FOUR WEEKS TO GO...

Cheers,

Tim

imarunr wrote:

Goal Race: Three Sisters Marathon, June 9th

Week of 04/29-05/05

Sun, 04/29: Glen Ellyn, IL.

18 miler on the Prarie Path, with first 12 at comfortable pace and last 6 miles at MP (whatever that may be). Averaged 7:35 for the first 12 miles and then hit 6:47, 6:54, 6:51, 6:53, 6:49, 6:37 for the last six miles. Total running time was 2:12:02 (7:20/mile avg.) Happy with how this went. :)

Okay, so I'm now soliciting feedback. As mentioned in my latest training post above, I really don't know what my marathon race pace should be for my June 9th race. For those of you that actually took time to read my weekly training posts all these weeks, feel free to chime in with your thoughts.

Here's more data for your consideration. I'm 53 years old. My last marathon was 2010 NYC. My last four marathons since turning 50 have been between 3:00:30 and 3:04. I have not done much racing this year, except for a half marathon in Houston in January (1:26) and an 8k in Portland in March (31:00).

The race on June 9th is at pseudo altitude (2800'-3300') and has lots of gradual inclines/declines, with two significant climbs between miles 11-12 and 15-16. Google Three Sisters Marathon to view the elevation profile of the course.

My main reason for running this marathon at all is to get my 2013 Boston Q time. That means 3:30 (-10 to 20 minutes to register first). I would love to break 3:00 just one more time, but don't see this as the course to do that. Realistically, I think anything from 3:05-3:15 should be doable.

So what are you thoughts, based on this long winded diatribe and my last few months of training? Would love to see your opinions. Thanks!

Alan Bennet wrote:

racerdb (last week) wrote:

I'm finally starting to come around.

I neglected to ask last week: Did you make any adjustments, or was it just something that needed time to work itself out?

Nope, I was just was able to get back to normal training after being down with the flu for a week. I usually don't make any adjustments. I keep it pretty simple: One fast once a week, run long once a week, keep the miles up and run easily a lot!

Dave

Monday - 45mins kyak, a steep hour on the mountain bike and 7km of easy running.

Tuesday - 7km kyak on the lake then ran home via the forest (18k)then biked back to the car (25k).

Wednesday - 15km run, 3 hilly loops all done slowly, 27,26,25m. Coming down with a cold.

Thursday - Zilch. Wife's graduation day. Needed the rest anyway to help shake off the cold.

Friday - An easy 3km uphill run, walked back down.

Saturday - A cruisy 40min kyak in the morning. Afternoon club races. Still feeling below par. Jogged the hilly 6.6k loopin 32 as warmup then ran easy tempo in the race 27.50. Jogged a couple of kms then stood the turnaround for the kids race. Jogged back and jumped in the 1500m "fun run" and ran about 6.10/15.

Sunday. Club race. One of my favourite short courses. 6.5kms but all steep hilly trail/forest roads.

Warmed up with about 4kms of jogging and strides. Felt about 90%, bit of a snotty nose still and a ticklish throat but nothing too bad.

Had a really enjoyable (= brutal) race. 3 of us old fart O/50s hammering each other in a race within the race.

First climb starts at the 500m mark and tops out at around the 2.5k. There are a few short dips along this section and I used these to try and sneak away from my 2 buddies, Terry and John. Soon enough they would grind their way back past and I'd cling on to their "wheels".

From 2.5 to 4.5 is a roller coaster of steep ups and downs. The process was simple. I hang on going up and I "kamikaze" the downs. I'd get a bit of a gap but they'd work back past me on the next climb.

With 2km to go I hammered a suicidally steep downhill and got maybe 10-15m on them. The next km is a grinding uphill gravel road and it wasn't long before the gap was closed. A move was made and I couldn't match it. I drifted 10 metres behind the other two. I held on desperately but John surged near the top and gained another 10 metres.

The final downhill is only short but I was able to catch Terry but was still 15 metres behind John. John managed to hold that gap to the finish, Terry hung in behind me over the last 1/2 lap of the cricket ground. I was able to kick strongly enough over the last 50 to hold him out by a second.

One of those races where I had to commit 100% from start to finish, take some risks and push that bit extra out when I thought I'd reached the limit.

Our times weren't super quick and we were around 2 minutes slower than top O/50 Rick and nearly 4 minutes behind 20 something Josh. Slower we might be but the racing was hard and pure just as it used to be 25 years ago.

Post race Rick, myself and my son jogged the course in reverse.

MG- glad you were able to exceed your goal time. Two of the guys in your race now live in Eugene, are running buddies of mine from down here in Santa Clarita.

Rtype- congrats on being able to step up the running.

23 miles in 4 runs. Will try to start doing 5 day weeks now.

Sunday- 4 1/2 miles including 4x50 yard uphill sprints.

Tues- 600,800,1000, 1000,800,600. Went very poorly, but did go through the motions anyway.

Thurs-6 mile ez run with an over 2 mile up hill. Great view at the top! Quads were pretty sore the next 3 days.

Sat- 3.66 mile XC race in 24:10. Nice to finally do a "race' though it ended up being just a harder run with a 50 yr old friend that had just finished 10 miles, about a half hour before. Yes I know some crazy people.

An interesting thing about Pete Magill's 5k is that he went through the 3k in 9:03 which was about 6 sec slower than his 3k time the week before.

Have a great week.

Rich

Hmmm, rlb, you and I had similar workouts Tuesday (went very poorly). Boooo. I did 4 x 1-mile, preparing for yesterday's 10K. 10K went better than the mile repeats. I ran a 43:13. The sub-7 pace was satisfying, but I had that annoying feeling again that I wasn't running that hard, but I couldn't go faster. My legs were fine afterwards, and don't hurt today. So it seems to me I should have/could have (?) gone faster. I should have sore legs today!

Muddygirl, congrats on your 3K! And I would gladly take the 10 pounds you lost, if I could have them all as muscle ;-) I followed a girl in the race yesterday that was about my height, but probably carried 15 pounds more. I couldn't catch her -- she was too strong.

lucKY2b, thanks for the info on the Running Times article. I will check it out.

Another 5K tomorrow, 3 more in the series. Gotta cut off 5 secs/mile to sneak under 21 .....

I enjoy reading everybody's training/racing reports. Happy running this week -- K

Ahhh! Grades are in! I can take a few days to breath and indulge the thread a bit.

Tim, I'm not a marathoner (only ever ran two...and never properly trained for either of them), so I don't have good direct suggestions, but I can fashion a reasonable response from my experience talking to and training with my 47 yo buddy who is primarily a marathon guy. Please forgive me if I ramble a bit to get to the point, but I think it'll help to put my comments in proper perspective.

Your training seems pretty solid to me, as you've consistently been getting into the mid-to-upper-50 mpw's. Much more disciplined and controlled than my up and down training prior to my 2nd and most recent attempt at the marathon at Chicago in '09. I naively thought I would have 3-hours in the bag, as I had run a 1:20 half-marathon three weeks prior, and was feeling very fit and fast (for me). In the end, I crashed-and-burned in Chicago (1:25:49+1:36:18=3:02:07...the last 8k was a real death march!) On top of that, my legs were trashed afterward, and I didn't recover probably before the New Year! I was told that I was under-trained at mid-40's average weekly mileage, and I also probably ran too hard on most my runs...especially my long runs, where I'd often run 6:50 average pace for 18-20 miles. So I was the poster-child for too much speed, not enough volume.

My friend on the other hand is much more disciplined about logging 70-80 mpw and doesn't run nearly as hard as I did (I'm better now.) He has run many marathons in the 2:54-3:04 range. Most his training is progression runs. He'll start out easy for the first 3-4 miles, then maybe (but not always) start to crank it up to MP or faster for the middle miles (however many that might be: could be 5, could be 12), and finish off with 2 or so easy miles. His higher volume at lower intensity means that my PR's are substantially better than his all the way up through the HM, but I run out of gas at 20 miles. He, on the other hand, can run a marathon one weekend, and be back to normal before mid-week. So while I was out there beating myself up on most my runs, he was just logging miles and keeping it steady. He's been known to jump in a marathon on a whim, and crank out a 2:58....basically all off base training. A key for him is that all the best races he's done, the second half was faster than the first. He says that in the race, he doesn't even start worrying about his splits until about mile 10. He figures there is plenty of time to catch up and if he's feeling it, he'll start cranking out 6:30-:40 from mile 11-22 and catch back anything that he might have lost in the first 10. The last few is always a challenge.

So what's my point in all this? I think that your training has been somewhere between the two of ours. Which leads me to think that you'll have a pretty decent run in your Three Sisters Marathon if you start cautiously. I notice that it is mostly uphill for the first half and downhill for the second, so if I were a sensible runner (which I'm often not), I would start at say a 7:20 pace for a while, be willing to slow substantially on that first hill climb, and see how I felt after that. Wouldn't surprise me if you came through the half in 1:40-1:45. If that feels good, maybe try to pick it up a bit, but not push the second climb too hard. If you use up all your energy on the second climb, you won't have anything to bring it home. After the second climb, if you feel you got it, you can start cranking it out on the mostly downhill finish and bring it in hard. So I'm thinking that negative-splitting a 3:15-3:20 is probably an attainable goal, but that does depend on how killer those hills are. I noticed that last year's inaugural race didn't produce any sub-3 results....but it was a pretty small field. I would have to check the PR's of the lead runners to gauge how tough the course is; that would certainly give you a better handle on what to expect.

My opinion is probably worth about as much as you paid for it, but I hope it helps. Best of luck!