50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

So this week was pretty much a repeat of last week. The scorched feet improved after a couple of days, but the calf/Achilles issue continues. It was tight when I woke up Wednesday, but loosened up with some heat treatment. Tried a couple of strides in the yard and felt good to go. Wrong. Like last week, I shut it down at 20’ and have done only swimming and some short high-heeled walking since then. The only good thing about this is that the break coincides with the heat wave most of us are experiencing. Continued heat treatment, mild stretching, and massage seems to be working. Hopefully I’ll be ready to test it agin by mid-week.

Thanks again to Allen1959 for the shout and and support. It really helps.

Best to most.

I had a very good week of steady easy running, 55 miles.

M- 8 mi hills 9:46/mi

T- 8 mi hills 9:30/mi

W- 7 mi walk

Th- 8 mi hills 9:25/mi

F- 8 mi hills 9:51/mi

S- 7 mi walk

Su- 9 mi hills 9:37/mi

Good running to all!

recovery week here, with a 5 day heat wave

M - 3.2 at a state park in NY, whopping 10:15 pace, was really tired from 15K!

T - 4.6 easy

W - 6.1 easy

Th - 7.4 with a 20 sec pick up about every mile

F - 7.3 easy, but hilly trail run

Sa - 9.4 with 4x 1000 and 3X 600

Su- 11.5, mostly trail but a few miles on pavement, felt tired

49.5

Next week should be a bigger week and I'll get in some speed work

Mon = 3 miles elliptical, easy, sore from yard work

Tue = 4 miles, 3 @ 8:22, temp 98

Wed = 3 miles elliptical, easy

Thr = 4 miles treadmill 3 @ 7:28 pace

Fri = 3 miles elliptical, easy

Sat = 4 miles road with 3 miles @ 7:58 pace, temp 94

Sun = 4 miles easy road and beach @ North Myrtle Beach

I believe I can count the calf as recovered as I really pushed it on T, Th, and Sa. We had near record-breaking high temps this week. I’ll still take hot over cold any day though. I’ve been using a HR monitor and it helps gage my efforts on hot days. Most use the HR monitor to slow themselves down but it helps me to speed up as I truly am a lazy runner that will take shortcuts and try to “cheat”. By ‘cheat’ I mean that I can turn an interval workout into an easier workout than a hard 3 mile push. Nothing pushes my HR higher than really torquing a 3 miler.

I believe my fitness continues on the upswing. I’d really like to get under 7 min pace for a 5K by the fall. That’ll get me in the low 70’s age grade and I’ll be very happy with that.

I blew the horn as soon as we crossed into SC to say hi to SCGAL :-)

So, it’s 10 degrees cooler at the beach than the hillbillyland from which I come…..

Have a good week folks!

Rtype - thanks for thinking of me. I'm glad to hear it's cooler at the beach.

I've missed most of the heat wave as I've been on "vacation" in the UP of MI for two weeks. Our cabin is right on the shore of Lake Superior. It's been in the 80s most days but this morning it was 56 degrees when I ran at 9:30. It's going to take me a while to adjust back to SC running conditions. I drive 40 miles each way to swim at the Northern Michigan University pool. The Lake is too cold for me to do workouts - the water temp is still in the 40s.

My hip/back injury is about 80% better. I've been keeping up with my PT exercises and have been able to run 4 days on, 1 day off without regressing so I'm making progress. I got up to 38 miles this week but I still need to strengthen the injured side. No racing for me until at least September so I'm just trying to rebuild slowly.

Sun: 6.0 E, 1 hr biking on trainer

Mon: 6.2 E, 3200yd swim

Tue: 6.0 (12 x 1 H/1 E),

Wed: 1:05 biking on trainer, 2700 yd swim

Thu: 6.25 E

Fri: 6.1 E, 3000yd swim

Sat: 8.15 E @ 9:10, 1:00 bike on trainer

I'll try to bring the cool MI air south with me this week on my way home...

Treadmills, indoor running, and fleeing to Minnesota were how I dealt with the heat. If we weren't in the park by 6:30 during this heat wave, forget it!

We have a coach from the local uni running our weekly track workouts. Last week he had us run 4-6 800s or, if we wanted, we could make that sixth one 1K to complete the 5K (1:1 recovery). I set my speed at a 17:30 5K pace, and it was fine. That felt about 95%, which means 17:00 is actually within reach, especially when I lose 6 or 7 pounds from this summer. Woot! But the larger point is this -- I may have speed, but I lack stamina. What I'm doing on the track ain't translating to the road.

So stamina-specific drills are going to be my focus going forward. I know one thing to do is add progression to long runs as I did today (pace miles 3-7, 7:22; miles 7-12, 7:01). Keep doing tempo work and add volume. Anything else?

So, my report: 46 miles two weeks ago (5% hard running), 50 miles this week (10% hard). Tonight a monster rainstorm is in the forecast and then back to the low 80s for a few days. Perfect time to get those fall plants planted!

Looking for opinions on which plan for this week would be optimal with a 5K coming up this Saturday:

Plan 1:

Mon: Easy Run 4 Miles + 3X8 Sec. Hill Sprints

Tues: 2 Miles Easy- 1 Mile @ 5K Race Pace- 800M Easy- 4X400M @ 3K race pace w/200M Active Recoveries

Wed: 3 Miles Easy

Thurs: 3 Miles Easy

Friday: 3 Miles Easy

Saturday: 5K Race

Or;

Plan 2:

Mon: 5 Miles Easy

Tues: 2 Mile Warm-Up- 5X800M @ 5K race pace w/400M jog recovery between reps- 2 mile cool down

Wed: 4 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Thurs: Rest

Friday: 3 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Saturday: 5K race

Open to any feedback or modifications.

Allen53 wrote:

Looking for opinions on which plan for this week would be optimal with a 5K coming up this Saturday:

Plan 1:

Mon: Easy Run 4 Miles + 3X8 Sec. Hill Sprints

Tues: 2 Miles Easy- 1 Mile @ 5K Race Pace- 800M Easy- 4X400M @ 3K race pace w/200M Active Recoveries

Wed: 3 Miles Easy

Thurs: 3 Miles Easy

Friday: 3 Miles Easy

Saturday: 5K Race

Or;

Plan 2:

Mon: 5 Miles Easy

Tues: 2 Mile Warm-Up- 5X800M @ 5K race pace w/400M jog recovery between reps- 2 mile cool down

Wed: 4 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Thurs: Rest

Friday: 3 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Saturday: 5K race

Open to any feedback or modifications.

I'm always happy to give my uninformed opinion. If you are more of a fast-twitch type runner I would go with Plan 1. If you are more of a slow-twitch endurance type I would go with Plan 2. Personally, because I have a lot more confidence in my speed than in my endurance I would do Plan 1, but probably would add the strides on Thurs. Best of luck with your race.

I would prefer 2 mainly because three days of jogging would leave my legs asleep.

Bet on Moist!

Allen53 wrote:

Looking for opinions on which plan for this week would be optimal with a 5K coming up this Saturday:

Plan 1:

Mon: Easy Run 4 Miles + 3X8 Sec. Hill Sprints

Tues: 2 Miles Easy- 1 Mile @ 5K Race Pace- 800M Easy- 4X400M @ 3K race pace w/200M Active Recoveries

Wed: 3 Miles Easy

Thurs: 3 Miles Easy

Friday: 3 Miles Easy

Saturday: 5K Race

Or;

Plan 2:

Mon: 5 Miles Easy

Tues: 2 Mile Warm-Up- 5X800M @ 5K race pace w/400M jog recovery between reps- 2 mile cool down

Wed: 4 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Thurs: Rest

Friday: 3 Miles Easy + 6X20 Sec. Strides

Saturday: 5K race

Open to any feedback or modifications.

Glad you didn't say "intelligent feedback" so here's my input. Agree with OGII except I'd do the strides on Fri only if you don't do them too late in the day and the race is super early. Also except, 20 sec seems too long for pre-race strides. Am I wrong?

Appreciate the feedback- I'm definitely a fast-twitch guy. It's between the 2nd and 3rd mile where I generally have the most difficulty- likely that's not uncommon. Part of that seems to be in figuring out how best to do the first mile and a half.

I think I'll go with Plan 1 and add some strides into Wed-Thurs-Fri and probably shorten Fri run to 2 miles.

It was cool out this AM for the first time in a while and then began to rain which felt really nice- not to mention kept the horseflies away.

Taper hey I had a good taper last race so now I am an expert.

You can spot the patterns in your logs this will tell you what to do.

I kept track of how well I recovered from workouts.

The idea was to treat racing more or less like a KEY workout. Then use a watered down version of that pattern.

You can also look at past races and how the taper went.

But your recent workouts are better indicators because they take into account your current health and fitness.

My last 5000 I did not taper or take extra rest I just treated it like a KEY workout .

Now we get into the psychological taper......

You can think yourself tired so as Tuco says RELAX

Run more.

Happy Monday all... my first training related post

First week back after a 2 week derailment due to injury incurred while washing my car (yup.... it hurts almost as much to type that as the injury itself). Initial injury was lower back/hip with pain shooting down to foot. It's since diminished quite a bit to being a very tight & sore right hamstring and glute. XRays done showed no injury at all to the underlying structures so I feel good about that.

Anyway, after 15 days off I jumped back into it last Monday

M - 4 easy (my easy days are typically right around 8:00 pace)

T - 5 easy

W - 5 on a track with a few pick ups on the straights

Th - 7 with some very mild fartlek - 6 reps around 6:40 pace with 1 minute in between

F - 6 easy

Sa - off (VERY hot and humid here in MA)

Su - 4 easy

Bummed that I feel like I've lost a lot of fitness and rethinking my racing schedule for the summer and fall.

I guess I didn't post anything last week. Well, there was not much to report. Just slowly rebuilding my base.

Wk 422.

M: off.

T-SA: 6 miles.

SU: 9 miles.

Wk423.

M; off.

T: 6 miles.

W: 7 miles.

R: 6 miles.

F-SA: 6 miles.

SU: 10 miles.

All my runs were indoors. It's too hot to run outside, and I am too lazy to get up early in the morning.

Congrats. Nice race

My first Boilermaker and first decent race as a 50s guy. Its been a year and half road back. still not in top form and trying figuring out just what my 50 year self can do.

I was hoping maybe top 3 or 5 but 59:xx was good enough for the 50-54 . two 55+ and 60 were in the 57s !

Is there any any group awards mailed out?Not expecting anything, just wondering.

hope to keep progressing. Next up beach to beacon and falmouth.

Hey Wmass runner, nice run! Maybe we should have Murph and the letsrun mob check on that 60+ runner, you never know what kind of nefarious characters and posers are out there. :)

Yeah I'm not sure if they'll send something out, I think I saw something earlier but haven't double checked. I do know they did way back when in the 90s when I ran it.

Hi all, thought I'd officially check in after years of lurking. Not really sure why I haven't before, nor why I decided to now - maybe we're all just complicated like that. Anyway, I can't remember exactly when I really started running, as initially it was just to stay in shape for high school soccer - tagging along with my dad a couple times a week (he had started running marathons). One thing led to another and in '78 (a couple days before my sweet 16), I ran a marathon with the idea "I better hurry up and run one before I get too old…" Brilliant ?. It did not go without notice and eventually I was "traded" from the soccer team to the track/cc teams - for a first-rounder in the next draft I believe (?). I continued thru college - training quite seriously but never in the spotlight due to lack of elite-level talent. Does it even matter? I think not.

Shortly after graduating I moved to CO and took up a host of other adventure sports - mountain biking, bc skiing (skimo), climbing (14ers), etc… no shortage of fun to be had here. Nowadays, including running, everything is seasonally based, which has probably helped me stay relatively injury-free all these years. When the time of year is right (like now) I ramp up serious training for a bit and chase some (old) glory. Cool to see so many others here still doing the same.

I have noticed many of the posts here relate to daily/weekly mileage, pace/mile, and the like, things I used to track as well but seem alien to me anymore as they are largely irrelevant in mountain/trail running. I still do some speedwork and hit an occasional flat 5K, but it's just training for the fun stuff (mountain/trail races). If you're looking to try something new and you haven't run one, maybe look into it. They're a blast - running in the most natural form, where pace/splits and etc… are nearly meaningless. Go for it, run by feel, just leave the watch at home type running (re: like an all out fartlek session where you don't really call the shots, the terrain does).

Anyway, if anyone else here is into the same and/or is interested in it, let's talk! Or not ///.

Happy trails,

CLF - B.G.S.U. 1984

M: rest.

T: 4 miles easy.

W: 12 miles progression.

R: 4 miles easy / 7 miles easy.

F: 9 miles progression.

SA: 7 miles easy.

SU: 16.7 miles.

Looks like we were a bit better off than our Southeastern neighbor (KY). We had "only" 8 inches of snow on Monday, and a bit more on Wednesday and Friday. Shoveling the snow for a few hours wiped out my Tuesday morning run, and I stopped the evening run at 4 miles as I was too tired. I went back to schedule on Wednesday, and the progression felt easy. (Either I ran only 4 miles on Tuesday, or actually my fitness was improving.) Another windy Sunday for my long run before my half marathon next weekend.

I got an email and a booklet from the half marathon organizer, and they have changed the course from previous years. It looks like it is a little flatter course. This will be my first race since September, and I don't know what to expect. My biggest concern right now is the race day weather.