50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Nice session KP.

One of my running buddies gifted me a copy of Matt Fitzgerald’s “How Bad Do You Want It.” I like his stuff, and no disappointments so far.

Igy

*Week 418*

Greetings, 50+ers! Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Our daughter is back in Reno, so I won't get to see her this day (I guess I never mentioned that they left Boise back many months now and headed back to Reno for another stint, and spring skiing.)

I was off the thread this week since last Sunday, so I'm just catching up now. It's been that kind of week. I don't start my job as Asst. Dean until August and I'm not on contract with the Community College over the summer (summer teaching is over at UK,) but we had a couple of Staff Lab Specialists retire/resign who've worked with us for 10+ years and we critically need to hire two new ones ASAP (one in Biology and one in Chemistry/Environmental Sciences.) Needless to say, guess who heads up those search committees? So I've been teaching two classes every morning and working on developing the job description/search committee/HR documents in the afternoons. Been doing much more AD stuff than I was anticipating given that it's not even officially my job yet. OK, enough kvetching.

Thanks for the support and the advice. I take it to heart, and will look into those suggestions. I did buy a compression sleeve for my left knee and that seems to be helping. After the first day of wearing the sleeve for my hour+ walk, the swelling went way down (though there's still a lot of crepitus,) so this week was back to where I was two weeks ago. I got 4 good long (hour+) walks in and two 50-50 run/walk sessions (run portions in the 200-600m range at 6:30-7:30 pace range.) I don't want to suggest that the knee isn't still a problem, but this is encouraging; I'll Rtype's suggestion a go this week, that could also be part of the problem.

Kudos to some good racing and training from last week; even if you didn't hit your personal goal, it all looked pretty darn good to me. Glad to see Igy continue to improve since his cancer scare. Always encouraging to read what y'all are doing and keeps me motivated to keep on truckin'.

Good luck at the National Senior Games!

https://nsga.com/

All the Best!

PS-that thread on Barton's sub-4:20 mile the other week is pretty toxic.

An opportunity presented itself this week, so I’m on a long weekend of traveling, fishing, eating, and visiting a pair of world class breweries. But no jogging for a few days. I’m sure the rest is good for me, so there’s that. But the week wasn’t a complete washout as I followed my usual jogging schedule for the first half of the week before beginning my intrepid journey. No complaints associated with that. Hoping to restart the med ball routine now that the back woes seem to have abated. Maybe some golf too?

Sun: off

Mon: 61’ jog; body wt ex

Tues: off

Wed: 51’ jog; body wt ex

Thu-Sat: off

Happy Father’s Day to most and all the best to the non-fathers.

lucKY: Hope your duties cut you some slack but I still think, maybe, the forced time off aint all that bad.

Tue: 4 miles with 7 hills

Thr: 3 miles easy

Sat: 5K race. 22:46, 10th OA out of 80. 1st M60. The race may have been a little short but my Garmin was also off a bit due to some loopy bridge climbs. Other people’s Strava distances went anywhere from 3.07 to 3.14.

Sun: 4 miles easy with son at 4000 feet

Race Report: It was an unusually cool morning, which was a nice break from the heat we’ve had. We started and ran most of the race on a 10-foot-wide paved greenway. I took off too fast just to keep clear of others as it was a tight fit. I settled in behind this guy that looked my age and we ran fairly compatible paces. He helped me as it was nice to have someone to latch onto. I was back about 10 feet from him and started catching him in the last 800, featuring a nasty little hill at 400 to go. He zipped over to top and I was sure I could outsprint him, but I ran out of distance and just missed catching him. I pretty much felt good the whole way with no real issues. Turns out that guy was 54. We had a laugh later as I am one of those loud breathing types…Well, he heard me the whole way and he was doing his best to stay ahead of that creepy sound! All in all, I was about 15 seconds faster than my last race, so that felt good.

I’m still improving, albeit very slowly. Of course, if I could run more miles, I would run more miles. At this time, it’s not worth the risk to add miles. I just feel too good and am enjoying running too much to F it up.

Next race is July 4th, hope to see KPdx there. I’m switching up my workouts for variety. I don’t think the hill workouts and 400’s actually did that much. I seemed to make more progress with tempo’s and near race-paced 3 milers. It’s so hard to get the effort just right, though. Somebody needs to invent a live lactate meter so you know exactly how hard to push it to get the most benefit from a tempo. My son has a continuous glucose monitor, why not a lactate monitor? Prob already being done in the Nike skunkworks……

Happy Father’s Day!

Thanks lucKY2b, congratulations on the position, and best with the knee.

I ran my first race in 5 1/2 months Friday evening. The track conditions were less than ideal with temperatures upper 80s. Ran 3,000 meters in 16:26.55 (5:20, 5:35, 5:31), a time 3 seconds faster than a tempo run four weeks before. I ran 2,000 meters the week before in around 9:50. I had one noteworthy workout on Tuesday, 2 x 1,200m in 5:59, 5:45 with 400m walk. Thursday I volunteered at the Idaho Food Bank for two hours. I was breaking down 40 lbs boxes of frozen zucchini into 8 x 5 pound bags. Right hip was a little stiff race day. Cause and effect?

This next week I plan a couple tempo miles Monday and interval 1,000s Wednesday. Friday I take off work and drive the 400 miles to join Charlie the following day at the Portland Masters Track Classic. Signed up for 5,000m, 1500m and 800m; in that order. Main focus is on the 5,000m and see about the other two later. Anyhow looking forward to seeing if I can improve on my 59% age grading from Friday.

Happy Father’s Day.

Igy

I like round numbers...today am at 110,600 lifetime...aiming for 111,111 right around Thanksgiving...but first, yet another cortisone shot this coming Tuesday...aging: it ain’t for sissies.

KP, crush it in ABQ...Igy, solid 3,000

As always, “train don’t strain”

Your pal,

MF

Rtype enjoyed the race report nice race and agree with your goldilocks approach . Used to be a gadget guy had a polar hrm way back in 1995. Now I just use a stop watch;) but a real time Lactate Meter OH Boy would that be cool. IMO LT is the key to healthy running. Also would like a real time cortisol meter.

Igy see you in PDx.

KP good luck in ABQ nice 600 btw

L2B looks like you are making progress glad the knee is not so bad.

Ol Farte been using a concept II for a few months and it has done wonders for my shoulders and back just 15 minutes a day

Easy week with one hard run 20 minutes at about 10k effort on Tuesday

On the taper I decided to see how many easy days after the Tuesday hard one until I was bouncing off the walls well that would to FIVE ie Today. So counting backwards Monday tomorrow will be my last hard effort see if that works .

June 22 5000 hitting 15/45 that is at 1:30 per lap the seconds on the clock should read either 15 or 45;)

Onward!

After a 20+ mile run last weekend I had planned not to do anything really long this week, but I’ve always felt training plans should adapt to the conditions (weather and other life events). After some nasty heat in mid-week, with highs of 105 on Tues and Weds, cooler air moved in for the weekend and Friday night’s low was forecast at 60 degrees, and I figured I might not see such a cool night again until the marathon. So I rousted myself out of the house at 4:55 am for a 21.4 mile run in 3:12, just a hair under 9:00/mile pace, by far the best long run I’ve had since my end of March marathon. I was plenty tired by the end but still running well and nothing went wrong. I also tried gulping a gel at 16 miles and that didn’t bother me at all. Mission accomplished!

The rest of my week:

M 11.1 mile run, resistance work at gym

T 11.5 mile run, gym

W 11.3 mile run, gym

R 10.8 mile run

F 6.6 mile run, gym

S 21.4 miles in 3:12

U 24 mile easy bike ride, plan to go to gym later

Nice race, Rtype, and best of luck on the 4th of July.

Igy, it’s great to see you back on the track. Good luck in Portland.

Happy Father’s Day to all of you who are.

Thanks amkelley, good running.....

no running for me as my achilles heals...

barton's amazing run was bound to generate a thread like the one he got--sort of a rite of passage. i chime in on threads like that, futile as it may be, just on the chance that some of the readers may actually be swayed by logic and perspective, even though i know full well with some of the posters you shouldn't look crazy in the eyes...

glad to see KP, MF, and igy toeing the line again--i'd be happy to start a race right now, let alone finish it...

on tapering: as a coach, i've had some success with something called the "carolina taper," which involves doing lots of 400s at 5k pace leading up to a race. i only use before a championship level race, so if my athletes have league finals on a saturday, monday i may do 8-10x400 with around a minute rest, or 1:1 recovery depending on group size and disparity of talent (ultimately recovery time is not that important as far as precision goes); tuesday we may do 6-8x400; wednesday 4x400; thursday short run + strides; friday 1-2x400. the range of quantity is based on whether the athletes are going too fast or too slow; in either case, i decrease the number.

personally i've used the carolina taper maybe once or twice with some success, but i hate getting on the track by myself; my best tapers have generally been when i focus on training routine and frequency, but cut down volume and some quality. since i normally go long on sunday, track on tuesday, and sometimes tempo on thursday, i try to keep that schedule leading up to a big race, but instead of 10-14 on sunday with the middle 8 tempo-ish, i may go 8 with the middle 6 at about the same pace as what my middle 8 would be; tuesday's track session would be more like 3-5k's worth of reps at 5k pace; thursday's tempo would be 2 miles instead of 4 (i've done variations on this leading up to the carlsbad 5k, a sunday race, almost all of the last 12 years i've run it--the exceptions were mainly the years where i've gone in less fit or coming off an injury). as we all know at the point where you're trying to rest up for a big culminating race, physiological benefits are minimal to non-existent; i try to remind myself that maintaining fitness is easy while advancing fitness is hard, so be ok with easy...

carpe crepusculum,

cush

p.s. forgot to mention, nice 5k rtype...

amkelley wrote:

He is the worst overpronator you've ever seen and has to wear hard orthotics even for walking, ... My main problem with cycling is the fear of crashes, which happen to nearly all cyclists once in a while.

That is the No. 1 reason I don’t cycle.

Speaking of orthotics, the big news since Edinburgh is I set aside the inserts I’ve had in my shoes the past 2,000 miles. Charlie, was it you who shared research on orthotics? That paper got me thinking. So my arch collapses when I run — so what? Is there science that says I’m more injury prone without orthotics? Because there IS science saying orthotics use correlates to higher injury rates in masters runners. Anyway, they’re out and I’m fine.

Today I ran the 10K at the Ricky Byrdsong Memorial Race Against Hate. It’s been 20 years since the Northwestern basketball coach was shot by a white supremacist while walking his kids, and every year the city of Evanston really turns out for this race. Mostly for the 5K, which is part of the CARA circuit. Finished at 40:37, good enough for 18th of 255 men and 1st AG (the nicest plaque I’ve ever won).

This is my first 10K since the Beartooth Run in 1987, and as with all my races (it seems) was quite the learning experience. Started to feel terrible at the end of mile 2 and just decided to slow down. What I then noticed: The pack that passed me up didn’t pass me up by that much! Sometimes I think I’m really going slow or really going fast, when the truth is that at these distances, everything is incremental. Sure enough, I felt better after a while, caught and passed back everyone who’d passed me.

I’m going to spend July and August getting back up to 50mpw then slowly pushing toward 55-60, and I plan to do it almost all with easy runs, one hard workout a week max. I don’t know about the tortoise/hare thing, but when I saw that Gene Dykes does almost all his hard work in races, I took heart. For me today’s big takeaway is that I need to run fewer simulated 10Ks and more actual 10Ks.

Cycling scares me too because of the crashing bit. I ride quite a lot when I'm injured and can't run, but every time I go out the door it's with trepidation. Interestingly, though, my most serious crashes have occurred when running, not cycling. I have twice broken bones in running crashes, a cracked small bone in my hand when tripping on a trail run (not a big deal) and a complete fracture of the humerus in a crash on an icy road (a big deal). I have yet to break a bone or go to the ER from a cycling crash although several times I've had significant soft tissue injuries (shoulder, wrist).

Your experience with orthotics is interesting. My husband has tried ditching the orthotics a couple of times and has ended up nearly crippled briefly as a result. He's convinced he can do without them only on the bike.

Good job on the 10K race!

Cush, what would you think if you saw a 50pplus year old do this workout.

1 mile (not sure of time - sub 5 I'm sure)

2 x 200 in 28, 29, short rest

800m in 2:02

then 10 x 400 in 66 with i min rest (controlled)

LMAO

Nope! but share I must.

This guy is SMART. The video is on pf and achilles but he has tons of good ones. His was the first explanation that makes sense as in all the pieces fit together. He also has low arches and talks about it. My personal experience with orthotics is extensve/expensive bottom line I never use em. The best orthotic which was good wore out. A dude in Round Rock TX made em. He was retired from making orthotics for the Boston Celtics. He had me stand in this bottomless foam filled box with all my weight on the one foot while he held/pressed this moldable foam into my foot. then he microwaved the stuff repeated the process with a softer layer then used a sander to shape em then had me run around several times until HE was satisfied. These things were wonderful a true craftsman. He only charged me 40 bucks back in 95. The most expensive pair was 300 and I used me once or twice they were crap and all in between. Bottom line strong feet , ankles shins ect are the way to go. The sand dunes do a good job of strengthening my kinetic chain so go get a dump truck full of sand and make a sand dune in your back yard I swear some day everyone will run on sand barefoot. I digressed no hard workout means too much energy.

Anyhow here is the Smart Guy:

https://youtu.be/72p58Iy6u7M

gfh wrote:

Cush, what would you think if you saw a 50pplus year old do this workout.

1 mile (not sure of time - sub 5 I'm sure)

2 x 200 in 28, 29, short rest

800m in 2:02

then 10 x 400 in 66 with i min rest (controlled)

LMAO

i would think, "damn it's hot and humid here in houston, sean wade. now pick it up on the last few 400s..."

condolences on busy Summer. this line jumped out at me......

[quote]lucKY2b wrote:

Been doing much more AD stuff than I was anticipating given that it's not even officially my job yet.

.....i'm cycling off being department chair in August after a six-year sentence, I mean term, and I've been involving my successor too much already under the guise of showing him the ropes. Your note reminds me I should really let him enjoy the last relatively carefree months of his work life for a while.

fun week of running for me with:

M 1:30 double with fartlek on second run

Tu 50:00 + 30:00 x-t while watching a bit of 13-0 USWNT world cup win

W 2:00 double incl. track "5k" in 19:45 (1st OA)

Th 50:00 + 30:00 x-t

F 40:00 + 1:00 cycle class x-t

Sa 2:00 with brief pickups to half-marathon pace

Su 45:00 + 30:00 elliptical + 60:00 canoeing with my wife for Father's Day

Weds. race was extremely low-key event our univ. staff council sponsors. It's 12 laps, so we skip 200m, but the partial offset is that lanes 1 and 2 are reserved for walkers, and in general lane usage is chaotic, so I ran at best in lane 3, but sometimes weaving out as far as 6. Slow first lap in traffic, then steady at half-marathon pace (1:40/lap or just under), then quicker final 800 (3:03).

happy Fathers' Day,

Dave

Re: Orthotics

I will throw in my two cents worth on this topic. It is purely anecdotal and clearly not scientific.

I am a pretty severe over- pronator with high arches. When I first got back into 'serious' training in 1993 I experienced some "OMG, does that hurt!" plantar fasciitis issues. In early 1994 I finally broke down and had a highly recommended podiatrist craft a pair of rigid orthotics for me. I worn them for both running and in my work shoes. (I was on my feet on hard surfaces at the border where I worked 80-90% of the day) It was a healthy financial investment, but one that has certainly paid off, in spades

Except for races I have used this same pair for 25 years (including today). I must have somewhere close to 45-50,000 miles on them. They are in my opinion like body armor for my feet. (I wore Kevlar body armor for decades before I retired -heavy, but sure would wanted to have it on if I ever needed it)

For races I use specially socks called "Features". - sort of a specialized compression sock. They seem to do the job just fine!

Speaking of racing..

I entered the mile event at local mini-meet at the University of Michigan on Tuesday. At 62 it looks like I will be the oldest one in the mile and second oldest one there period.

Just going to see how long I can keep up 1:30 laps - I did a little time trial on our circa 1932 packed dirt track on Wednesday in trainers and having run pretty hard the preceding three days. Went 1:33, 1:35 then fell off a cliff 1:43 and clawed back to a 1:39. (then 2x440 shake out at 1:38 200 recoveries) Gotta work on that THIRD lap!

I am hoping a couple easy days, spikes, people to 'chase', and a good all weather track will make a significant difference.

Just finished week #16 of 50 mpw - hope this pays off sometime!

Hope everyone has a healthy and productive upcoming week...

"you shouldn't look crazy in the eyes..." QOTD

I tried to talk some sense too but that was a waste of time.

psst we won't tell old crazy eyes that my half marathon PR (age 24 at a mile high) was only 20 sec/mile faster than earlier this spring. At 60+. Good thing that my ability level remains below the radar. #agedhobbyjogger

59.5 for the week, with a good workout on Wednesday (reps of 3,4,5,4,3,2 minutes with a fairly short recovery), and a 3.2 mile race this morning (@5,680 ft elevation, but we know that 5,600 = sea level) I was right about 19 at 5K. I think they misplaced the cone at the turn around.