50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

*Week 424*

Greetings, 50+ers! The end of July rapidly approaches. Not as far along as I'd hoped, but being cautious to not cause a big flare-up of the knee. Didn't quite get the walking/running in that I wanted to this week (owing to missing last Sunday and Monday for asundry reasons.) However, I did get 3 decent run/walk sessions and a long walk in this week that culminated with this weekends 1.0,0.6,0.6,0.4 run portions (all in the 7:20-8 min/mi range) interspersed with about 1/3-mile walks followed by 2 hours of pressure-washing our back patio. Happy to report that the knee responded well to both activities; the pressure-washing was a little hard on the lower back, though....but I survived.

A big shout-out to my buddy Rick T. for his fantastic M55-59 victory at Bix 7 yesterday! Kudos! Also, our Bluegrass State Games (counts as our state championships) were this weekend, and I sure wish I was ready to participate. Some local masters buddies of mine did some nice things there: Blake B. (M53) ran 10:24.63 to break an 18-year old M50-59 state meet record set by the legendary masters runner, Don Coffman; Wendy A. (W47) broke both the 45-49 800 and 1500 state meet reccords by substantial margins going 2:47.18 & 5:37.33, respectively; and Erin R. (W41) broke the (admittedly soft) 40-44 400 with a 69.37 time. Note: Some M65 dude I don't know ran a 61.65 400, as well. Granted, these aren't national record level results, but they are locally pretty significant.

OK. That's all I have for today. Nice discussion last week. I completely get the sentiment of just throwing away the watch and running off-road/trails, etc. TBH, Part of what I imagine we're doing here is documenting what is doable as 50+ masters and reporting results. One could probably pick through this and find some longitudinal data, I suppose. We've actually had coaches who have looked in on this thread to get some perspective on how to train their massters athletes and pitfalls to be concerned about. Who knows what extrinsic value there is in this endeavor, but it does help to keep me motivated.

Hope you've had a great week! Looking forward to AMK's report. Any others?

All the Best!

PS-never ran college, no way I was going to walk-on at D1 Wisconsin, so I ended up doing my speed-skating and asst. coaching HS XC/track for a couple of years.

Good morning. Up early on a Sunday. Ready to tackle a couple of furniture refinishing projects. I have spent a portion of my spring and summer weekends on a variety of honey-dos. Of course making sure I still get in my running. My wife is so used to the running routine it is often a “yes, I know your getting up early to run.” Well not this morning.

I am about ready to end my summer season by August 17th. Speaking of my wife, that will also be our 45th wedding anniversary. I would say about 70% of the wedding attendees were members of the Santa Monica Track Club. My high school coach and club coach were both there. So definitely a track affair. Fortunate to marry who I did for a variety of reason.

I can’t really say I will be peaking for season’s end. I was simply too far down the fitness curve. A more realistic goal is to continue to build a foundation and let the future fitness speak for itself. Key workouts this week were:

Monday: 2 miles easy; 2,000m tempo @ 10:19 / 800m easy walk; 1,200m critical velocity @ 5:46; mile easy/walk

Wednesday: 2 miles easy; 4 x 1,000m critical velocity @ 5:12, 5:05, 5:02, 5:06 / 1:30 rest; mile easy/walk

Saturday: 2 miles easy; 4 x 100m repetition @ 25; 2400m tempo @ 12:15 / 600m easy/walk; 4 x 200m fast @ 43, 42, 41, 42 / 200m walk; 400m walk

Igy

Intersting training week in that there was a bunch of variety...just 27 total miles but on two different treadmills, one high school track, an old logging haul road throught the redwoods and single track trail on a cliff immediately adjacent to the Pacific Ocean...just real good to still be able to pick em up and put em down even at a mostly aged pedestrian clip...headed out momentarily to pace another 63 year old geezer through a two mile time trial on the local oval...he's a two time winner of one of the most famous triathlons in the world and so ALways fit...should be great fun and make the beer afterwards taste that much better while re-hashing war stories.

RE: college, ran two years of California JC track and cross country...made the state meet at 10,000 meters twice...then two years of D2 track and XC...loved competing in college track...speaking of which, am HOPING to do Worlds next year...they are in Toronto at this exact time frame in 2020...here's a link:

http://wmatoronto2020.com/

Have a very fine week of training and racing...many thanks for your inspiration that leads to my continued perspiration.

your pal,

MF

Muddy girl wrote:

Been slogging along after another weird fall/injury in February and finally I think I've turned a corner this week. Some of runs have been dreadful, like a couple of Fridays ago where my goal was to run for an hour, and after 15 minutes, I was doing fractions in my head (1/4 done, 1/3 done, 2/5 done, etc. up until 11/12ths.) Felt like crap the whole time - brutal. The only runs were I feel okay are my long runs on the trails, even when I have to do them without my Sunday run partner. But I feel a tiny bit better this week - improvement maybe?

I can relate. Seems most of my runs are dreadful these days. And slogging along. I entertain thoughts of 'this is stupid, whats the point and I don't want to do this anymore' several times each week. Then I go have a good run or a decent race and feel better about running again!

So with that said I had about 62 miles last week, 50 this week with a day off. No real workouts this week but did get down to the low 7:00's on a run Wed and did six x 30 sec strides around 5:15 pace Friday. I should probably start thinking about running some short faster stuff with the mile champs just a few weeks away! Then out of nowhere yesterday I did 10 at 7:19/pace. Got after the middle three in 651,632,616. That staggered me pretty good. Everything else has been untimed, feeling old and crippled.

I've got a 5k this Saturday. Thinking about a shorter, faster track workout Tuesday. I'll hit 80000 lifetime miles Tuesday. Planning on running a celebration mile with my daughter before hitting the track. The way I've been feeling I'm not sure I'll make it to 90K...

Have a good week,

Dave

Week 3 of base feeling really good no aches or pains.

Running 40 minutes to 30 minutes a day with some tempoish stuff

IMO being goal orientated can take the fun out of run

Goals can be fun but they can also run your life.

If I get tired I walk or slow way down or maybe just sit under a nice shady tree

Miles from nowhere

https://youtu.be/jzplmeMMB84

thanks Mike. great ultra advice. uphill and [i gather] technical trail early in JFK should help me keep it in check early.

this week went fine, incl.

M 40:00

Tu 60:00 with hill repeats

W 45:00 + 60:00 x-t cycle class

Th 1:10

F 1:00 incl. 8 X 3:00 at 5k pace (1:30 recovery) -- averaged just over 800m + 30:00 x-t

Sa 40:00 to/from parkrun course marshaling

Su 1:30

hope the marathon went well, amkelley

interesting to read people's college running experience. My HS in those days had no track or x-c, so i ran road races alongside HS baseball and basketball. College had no cuts, so I joined cross-country team and made it through one season on JV x-c and part of a season of indoor track before getting injured. Not healthy till about middle of junior year, by which point I just stuck to road racing on my own.

I remember being shocked at how fast college athletes ran just on normal group-run days [not hill repeats or track work] -- always felt as though I were borderline racing to even keep in contact with a group. To be sure, a lot of them were much faster than me, but even the ones at my level seemed to push easy days more than I had on my own.

have a great week,

Dave

[quote]MikeF wrote:

dhaaga, my experience with racing 50K - 100 miles has always been that when I go out way super slow without a care, i always ended up running WAY faster than ever expected...and when I tried to stay on a certain pace early, I usually faded more than I'd have liked...50K 3:05:13 was just out on a lark at 7:30 pace for 5 miles and ended up averaging 5:53...same with the longer ones...lord knows I've died my share of horrible deaths after 35 or 40 miles...eeeeesssssh...keep it light, keep it casual and you are likely to break 8:00 IMHO...oh, and its all about fueling and keeping your blood sugar level at stasis

I did about 8.2 hours of running with about 5.5 off road/pavement.

Did a short speed session on the turf and 3 days later some odd-distance reps on the track (alternating between 3 something and 5 something in duration), totaling 30 minutes faster stuff for the week. Had a goodish longer run today on a gravel road, alternating between a decent aerobic pace and about 30 sec faster than that--so still aerobic but cruising along.

and rtype, hobby jogger because this IS letsrun, where they say sub 14 5K in your prime or go home. And I never broke 15.

Well it was another down week on the road (hopefully) to recovery. The calf/Achilles issue lingers, though it does seem to be improving albeit slowly. I walked a couple of miles in the high heeled trainers on Wednesday and threw in a few short bouts of jogging on the return trip. Though there was some slight lingering stiffness, it felt pretty good and I was excited to give it a more serious go the next day. But two hours later I was as sore as a bugger and decided more rest should be in store. So it’s now been three weeks. I’m at the point where I think I’m just going to throw caution to the wind and see how a 20-30 jog feels. Maybe tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Regarding this week’s discussion, I was also a D3 runner who loved the trails. Advancing age has me sticking mostly to flat paved surfaces in recent years though. Could be worse.

Best to most.

I was recruited to Oklahoma State University to help an already strong cross country team. My sophomore year the Big Eight Cross Country Championships was 4 miles, the team was 2nd. We were 14th at he NCAA that same year 1970, but I did not fair as well with competitive distance of six miles. However, our coach was Tom von Ruden (3:38.5 1500m, 9th 1968 Olympic Games) was a believer in the Lydiard long run. Sundays even after a meet had us out at 9:00 am running 12-16 miles. The runs got very competitive, probably too much so. There were several times we clipped the 16 milers in under 1:30. The cafeteria opened at 11:00 on Sundays and we usually went down for some fluids, moving any solid food from side to side on the plate, retiring back up to the dorm room to sleep until dinner. However, I learned over time my talent was at the longer events.

M59 -- 5'11" 171 lbs

Open PRs ---- 16:04, 2:40:30 (age 23)

M55-59 PRs --- 18:58, 3:07:23 (age 58)

Goal 1: 15K in 1 week

Goal 2: Be competitive this fall as M60

July 22-28, 2019

M- 5.0 miles @ 10:22/mi

Tu- 1.5-mi wu; 4 x 1-mile @ 6:31 avg w/5-min jog; 2-mi cd

W- 16.6 miles @ 9:10/mi

Th- Bike 18.0 miles @ 19.5 mph

Fr- 1-mi wu; 5.0 miles @ 7:14/mi; 2-mi cd

Sa- 3.0 miles @ 12:57/mi

Su- off or bike

TOTAL: 40.9 MILES

Tuesday VO2max workout was 4 x mile at 5K pace -- 6:35, 6:33, 6:30, 6:28.

Friday LT workout was a 5-mile threshold run at 7:14 average.

Since introducing workouts five weeks ago, I've experienced a slow-down in training paces. I suspect cumulative fatigue, as I've been quite aggressive with the progression. Below is my workout schedule and paces (VO2max, Long runs, Lactate threshold):

Week 1

VO2 - 6 x 800 @ 3:11

LR - 16.6 miles

Week 2

LT - 3 x 1.5-mile @ 6:55/mi

Week 3

VO2 - 3 x 1-mile @ 6:25

LR - 16.2 miles

LT - 4 miles @ 7:07/mi

Week 4

VO2 - 6 x 700m hill

LR - 12.2 miles

LT - 2-2-1 miles @ 7:15/mi

Week 5

V02 - 4 x mile @ 6:31

LR - 16.6 miles

LT - 5 miles @ 7:14/mi

Week 6 is Race Week: Planned taper

Looking forward to reading amkelley's marathon report. Have a great week![/quote]

Well, I gotta own my story, but of course I envy your college career. I walked on the high school XC team and in the course of three months went from JV to third on the team, and we were runners-up in state, but here’s the thing. My coach didn’t coach. A runner on the team put together the workouts and gave them to coach, who was an English teacher looking for a little extra pay. (I learned this at our last reunion.) So of course I was not prepared for college and didn’t even try (it’s a D1 school). Had I known that walking on I could’ve had a good experience anyway, and who knows, maybe with more than three months of training I could make the team eventually ... oh well. At least I have this time, running is a joy, and winning is fun, as you know!

I really enjoyed all the college rundowns! I’m running in part because I was inspired by our intern, who was a walk-on at Mizzou that wound up making the team. Coulda shoulda been me ...

Anyway, I did a hard long run today, probably harder than I anticipated. The last hour was at tempo, a 9-mile tempo run, finishing on a long incline the last 2 miles home. Pretty sore now, glad I’m taking Monday off, but it felt right. I really would like to figure out these longer distances, and I learned some things today.

47 miles this week on six runs. For the life of me I don’t know how I’ll ever get to 8-hour weeks or 60-65 miles with my current commitments. One problem at a time ...

lucKY: Glad you are still dipping your toe in the water a bit..and didn’t hurt yourself working around the house.

Allen: Good luck next week.

CM: I got it, I didn’t break 15 either and I don’t make 750K a year like, you know, is the norm on here...

Mon = 3 miles elliptical, easy

Tue = 4 miles treadmill, 3 @ 7:30pace

Wed = 3 miles elliptical, easy

Thr = 4 miles treadmill 3 @ 7:30 pace

Fri = 3 miles elliptical, easy

Sat = 4 miles treadmill, 3 @ 7:30 pace

Sun = 4 miles easy cemetery

Just got back from a week at North Myrtle Beach.

Trying to train hard at the beach with temps 90+ and humidity 80+ was just about impossible outside so I stuck to the really excellent quality treadmill they had at my resort. Last year I actually got into a bit of trouble with the heat and this year I’m training much harder. Jogging at the beach is great, actually training is something different.

Basically I’m trying to “normalize” 7:30 pace so it feels more natural and comfortable. By measuring my HR I can tell that 7:30 pace really is getting easier….at least on the treadmill.

Have a good week folks!

As distance runners we tend to believe that more is better in training. It usually is but not always. We tend to find out that more is too much when it does some damage to us. That's the story of this week's training for me (and my training plan from May until now). After last week's very good 55 miles I headed out on Monday for my usual 8 mile hill loop. At about 5.5 miles my left knee started to get that runner's knee pain at the bottom of my kneecap and the top of my right calf started to really tighten up. So I shut it down and walked the rest of the way home. Since I now am 3 weeks away from the start of my XC season and my primary goal is to be on the starting line 100% healthy and reasonably fit I decided to take a break and let things settle down. Tuesday I had agreed to meet my son after work and it was a 3 mile round trip to walk to his office and back. Wednesday I took completely off. Thursday i walked 2 miles. Friday and Saturday I walked 5 miles. This morning I did an easy 6 mile run (9:30/mi) with my son and my knee and calf felt fine.

The week's events caused me to give more thought to my current training. This year I have felt my best and run my best workout times at the end of February before I got sick and again in the middle of May before I got sick again. For that first half of the year I was alternating running and walking days. After getting well again at the start of June I went to a cycle of two days running and one day walking to both "catch up" some lost fitness and get stronger. Upon reflection, June and July's training have produced a slower rate of improvement and a higher risk of injury. So, starting tomorrow I am going back to my alternating running and walking days plan.

Good running and racing to all!

Big marathon failure today, adding to my long string of DNFs broken only by the one marathon I managed to finish in March.

In retrospect, I realize that San Francisco was about the absolute worst course I could have chosen. This race had been my last successful finish (in 2004) before this March, but back in 2004 I was a much stronger runner AND the course was different and not as hilly. Some combination of the hills and the fact that I've been running terribly all month completely did me in today. I could never get into a comfortable rhythm with the multiple not too long but very steep ups and downs. I was sort of OK until the first descent from the bridge, which was about the steepest thing I've ever tried to run down, on a bad dirt trail with rocks and ruts, with a stampede of other runners whizzing past me and bumping my elbows. I was terrified that I would crash, clumsy as I am. Coming up the other side was almost equally steep and also on dirt, not scary because of the reduced speed, but very hard. The bridge crossings themselves were on a pedestrian walkway containing hundreds of metal plates that were wet in the just-passed overnight fog and seemed very slippery, and the wind was strong and gusty and coming from unpredictable directions. By the time I got off the bridge the second time my nerves were shot, and by the time I got halfway up the next grueling grade up to Golden Gate Park I was nauseous and exhausted. When I finally lost touch with the 4-hour pace group I gave up, walk/jogged to the finish area for the half-marathon, and took the bus back to the starting area. The steep hills were murder on my bad heel, which is now very sore.

I'm pretty sure I could have walked/run to the finish within the 6-hour time cutoff, but I saw no point in further beating up my bad heel and the rest of my body just to get a cheap medal. Aside from the heel I felt pretty much OK within a few minutes after stopping, but I'm not second guessing my decision to bail.

Perhaps I should just give up on the marathon. I'm sufficiently stubborn that I'll probably try it one more time, at my local marathon in November for which I don't need an overnight hotel. Not that the logistics of today's event were in any way responsible for the outcome. I slept fine last night and had only a 5-minute walk from my hotel to the starting line.

I had not been in San Francisco for several years and I kept reading on other LetsRun posts about how the city has dissolved into anarchy, overtaken by the homeless and buried in human excrement. Nonsense. San Francisco was just as enjoyable as a place to hang out as ever. Cleaner than most big cities and visually stunning. Yes, there are homeless people but neither their numbers nor their behavior seemed particularly problematic. I still look forward to running in San Francisco on my own if I have to be there for professional reasons (and someone else is paying the exorbitant costs!). But I don't expect to attempt the marathon here again.

Just Another Run of the Mill ex-D1 er wrote:

Nice to see I'm not the only one with a dirty mind (or shoes) ?

I come by the moniker "muddy" honestly. (though depending on the situation, "dusty" or "bloody" might be more apt.

Yet another ex-D1 er (at a non-scholarship Ivy)

Amkelley,

Sorry it did not go well, but you gave it a shot. My last marathon, and it was my last, was a bad experience, however it set me up for my best year at other distances.

Igy

amkelley - I'm so sorry about your disappointing results. I don't think you made a mistake in bailing on the race. It sounds like the footing, your heel, and the elevation changes made it a tough situation to achieve the outcome you wanted. Your local race in November sounds like a much better choice if your goal is to beat a certain time. If your dream is to run a "good" marathon then why give up on it? Just pick a course where that's most likely to happen. Sending you good thoughts for your heel to settle down and for a good build-up for November!

sorry this didn't go better for you. best wishes for speedy recovery

Dave