Nearing 50 and my legs are trashed

Make sure when you're lifting that you are going high weight, low reps. That should increase the pop or the bounce you feel in your legs without creating more fatigue. Distance runners already do endurance work with their running. If you do low weights, high reps you're just doing another endurance workout that's going to create fatigue. Runners, especially old runners, need a strength workout that's a completely different type of stimulus than what they have already been doing. Lift heavy enough that you can't do more than 5 reps, but start gradually and build!

This a good thread.

The key for my longevity is making recovery king.

If that means slower paces and days off, then that becomes the primary element in my training. What I used to be able to do in seven days now takes 14 days. So I can still run seven days. It just takes two weeks to do it.

After forty five years of running I realize that when I do nothing on a specific day my body reads it as if I had run 8 miles because I am recovering from last run. If I run even a little bit on a recovery day, which for me is a day off, then it's 8 miles plus what I actually run. So I don't run on recovery days.

I can still run tempo, interval and a long run in my virtual week but that is over 14 days. I can also do four other medium runs. Seven runs altogether.

If I add distance it's on the days I run.

As for being mental. For experience runners and competitors it ain't mental. There comes a day where you just cannot do what you did in your 20's and 30's. You break down. You get injured.

So eventually you figure out what you can do and that changes as you get older.

I hurt my knee pretty bad within months of turning 40. Now recovered and a few years older, this is what has worked for me. I'm not setting any speed records (20-21 5Ks this year) but have been 98% injury free (have missed a couple weeks) for 18 months and run about 30 mpw over 4-5 runs.

-90%+ on dirt/trails

-leaving watch at home most of the time; it doesn't matter anyway, I'm not fast

-running easy when I don't feel 100%

-running hard/very hard when I feel 100%

-mixing in swimming, hiking, and weights

-less caloric intake, but eating a lot the day before long runs

-taking 2-3 days off at the onset of new pains to evaluate and begin healing

-Hard foam roller to quads, IT bands, and calves on any tightness

-hip/glute activation before all runs

-starting SLOW (first mile in 10 range)

good luck to all of you