50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

amkelley wrote:

Welcome to the 60s!

Thanks, amkelley! My aerobic fitness just isn't there yet, but the hamstring maybe took a biggest toll in the race. I suffer from "old man shuffle" even on the best of days. Today, I could manage no back kick whatsoever. Light jogging and biking for a while, I think. ... Although .... Thursday night there's a road mile ... I would need about 5:40 to win M60-65 ... :)

Pleased to read this, Igy — as well as Allen59’s report, especially the business about doing your business. Welcome to my world! Next year both of you get to be the new kids in your AGs — as do I. SCgal, many times I see two groups pitted against each other for scarce resources and think “you should be teaming up and going after the real enemy” (e.g., walkers and bikers forced to share a needlessly tiny sliver of road space). But in the case of Title IX the inequities were real and the women were never going to get ahead waiting for the men. As it is, the USA led most other countries into really getting behind women’s sports. There is some new use of T IX involving speech codes and whatnot that sounds sketchy, and I hope it does not give Congress reason to undermine this law that has done so much good. Quick trip to Chicago this weekend, so opted out of a long run, but I had 21k steps this AM walking and running so I think the legs got plenty of work. Logged 45 miles thusly: Tu, Th, F, Sa, Sun - easy runs 6-9 mi Wed - tempo intervals at track: 2 x 10:00 @ 6:30, 1 x 6:00 @ 6:00 Did I say a while ago I was on a 9/10-day cycle? Well, scratch that. It’s come to my attention that both Bernard Lagat and Gene Dykes run only 6 days/week, and since I like my injury-free life I’d best take a lesson. Also, this summer it’s been working for me to do the same things on the same days: track work Wednesday, group runs Sunday ... and now, a rest day every Monday.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I felt decent hitting the 1/2 way point in 12:48, but shortly thereafter I began to really struggle. It seems like any momentum in the first half went like air out of a balloon, finishing 3rd AG in a disappointing 28:07. I am at the top of my age group this year and will be competing in M70 next year.

Good luck at the next 5K!

Thanks KCGeezer, and everybody else. I’ll keep working at it.

Reminds me of how dramatically the world changed for women during the 60s and 70s. I think you're four or five years older than I and this is probably even more evident to you. I sometimes forget that I was 26 years old the first time women ran a marathon in the Olympics, or that the Help Wanted ads in the newspaper when I was a kid listed "Help Wanted: Male" and "Help Wanted: Female". I agree with your assessment of Title IX on both counts.

My wife is a very talented swimmer who swam age group all over the country because her father was a career military officer. She had the good fortune to be in Hawaii for high school, which was one of the few places in the early 60's that had good women's high school athletic programs. Her serious open swimming career basically ended when she graduated high school because there was virtually no women's collegiate swimming when she started college in 1966. Fortunately, with the advent of masters swimming she was able to continue competitive swimming and eventually swam herself into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Title IX absolutely was necessary to get colleges to provide women with the athletic opportunities they should always have had.

For most of my coaching career I was a head coach for both a women’s and men’s cross country/track program. I found women generally more committed to athletic excellence. Men, on the other hand, were expected to participate rather than committed. Societal norms supporting one gender’s participation as expected. That said, I found it easy to make the case for increasing funding a women’s programs, and advocated for it.

Seems to be more struggles than usual. I haven't really heard of many calf issues with anyone until this week. That one hasn't attacked me yet!

Only had about 43 miles last week but I rested for three days following a track workout Tuesday. I actually forgot about hitting 80k lifetime miles and doing a celebration. Instead it happened very uneventfully in the middle of a 400 running by myself!

The track workout went well. Did a 200-400-600-600-400-200 with the same jog rest. I was thinking 5:20 pace would be a reasonable place to start. Averaged a bit faster than that going 36.6, 80.4, 2:01.2, 1:59.6, 77.3, 36.6

My 5K went ok but geez... once I figure out how to run a complete race I'm positive I'll be 15-20 seconds faster. Placed 3rd amongst a bunch of young-un's in 17:45. My 46 year old training partner won in 17:13. Splits were 5:40, 5:51, 5:51. There was another big lapse were I fought thru the usual mind games around 2 miles. My Garmin says I was 6:15-20 pace for about a minute or so. I was able to get back on track and finish the last .6 or so strongly. Ended up darn near a 90% with a 89.74% age grading. The course did have some grass and a winding gravel path from 1.5 thru about 2-1/4. Might have slowed us down a tad.

So we're just going to play it safe the next few weeks before the Flint Mile. We'll do 12x200 this week, then KP's suggested 400-600-400-200 workout next Tuesday 10 days out from the race. Any suggestions to get us to to the starting line in one piece after that will be appreciated!

Have a good week,

Dave

Again Dave... great 5k. Your Flint Mile will be "Fun & Fast" if you simply believe in your already proven endurance. For the 10-days out gig it's important to start (if not already doing) adding 6-8 builder strides to the end of your day by day training runs. I'm sure there are mixed feelings from this esteemed panel but I still believe in ice-baths after track sessions like the 4-6-4-2 ten days out.

KP

slow and steady getting back into training

4 miles easy on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday

Hamstring is feeling better but still a bit tender so I'll ease into this week with a few more miles at an easy pace. Had a fellow team member highly recommend a local PT so I'll give that a shot as well.

KP - we used to work together inside the berm! I was there from from '90 thru '95. I'm guessing we probably went on a few runs together back then.

Here is an interesting article about a study that is consistent with peaking . Speed work reduces endurance. On the other hand you want to keep your fast fibers from atrophy wonder if alactic work ups the BDNF? Rower already are using this info gotta do some more reading.

Prof. Christoph Handschin's research group at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has more closely studied strength muscles and the myokine brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which plays an important role in the formation of strength muscle fibers.

Handschin's team has demonstrated that this factor is produced by the muscle itself and remodels the neuromuscular synapses, the neuronal junctions between the motor neurons and muscle. BDNF not only causes the strength muscles to develop, but at the same time leads to endurance muscle fiber number decline.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-strength-expense-muscles.html

Here is a tastier alternative to sliced beats. And I don't think there is any side effects...

https://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-weight-loss/a28593688/watermelon-nutrition/

My week.

M: off.

T-SA: 7 miles.

SU: 12 miles.

Now my "long" run is up to 12 miles. I am planning to run a 5k on Saturday, so this will be a cutback week as far as volume is concerned.

Igy, amkelley, LucKY2b, dhaaga, and Mike F, thanks all for the condolences. My wife has some happy moments and times she can reflect. It's now that we look ahead to what we want to do with our remaining years to give of ourselves as best we can AND enjoy our beautiful lives.

Still just walking her, my lower back is too sore to risk running yet, hopefully this week. She's doing 0.3 to 0.4 mile spurts to total 1.5 for a day's run, plus walking. Glad we're able to keep moving!

Mike Lundgren wrote:

Igy, amkelley, LucKY2b, dhaaga, and Mike F, thanks all for the condolences. My wife has some happy moments and times she can reflect. It's now that we look ahead to what we want to do with our remaining years to give of ourselves as best we can AND enjoy our beautiful lives.

Still just walking her, my lower back is too sore to risk running yet, hopefully this week. She's doing 0.3 to 0.4 mile spurts to total 1.5 for a day's run, plus walking. Glad we're able to keep moving!

mike, i want to offer my condolences as well. it's a tough time for spouses, kids, grandkids and everyone else. lost my dad and my mother-in-law recently--your wife and mine share similar qualities of kindness and resilience--and i have to admit that it was often difficult to see how it was affecting everyone else besides me. i do remember that adding to the grief at the time was that my wife was injured, and running could not offer the respite that it probably would have. good luck with the difficult times now and ahead.

training for my part has been tough as i recover from an achilles strain, but i still find inspiration here on a regular basis since some of you are dealing with far more difficult issues than me. i just completed my first week of running in over a month--.5 miles to 2 miles a day, with minimal issues. i've been more diligent than ever with cross training on my elliptigo, averaging around an hour a day (45 minutes to 90 minute rides) over the last month. i'll be curious to see what kind of rewards i see from this, never having cross-trained to this extent.

august races are now out of the question, but best wishes to those competing in flint (a fun, well-organized race) and atlanta (i was targeting this race back in may). hopefully i can be near the top of my form at clubs...

carpe crepusculum,

cush

Mike,

Please forgive me for my tardy response re your mother-in-law passing away. My Dad died the same way. I will never be able to thank his wife (my step-Mom) Keturah for how she cared for Don during the dementia days. Please tell Jane she is wonderful.

KP

Catching up with the thread this morning, and offering a little feedback and thanks for the continued inspiration:

lucKY2b - Good news on the knee. Looking forward to following your "comeback."

Rtype - I share your sentiment about injuries. But it's so darn hard to walk away from this crazy obsession, even long enough to heal.

Charlie - Thanks for the encouragement. I didn't get the miracle I'd hoped for, but after nine months of no racing, was good to be back out there. And new age group as of today. Wish I had your natural speed!

Dardee - Nice-looking 6 x 800. That's always my "go to" for an intro workout. Although I'm usually more generous with recoveries, as much as 3 minutes.

Igy - Sounds like we had similar racing experiences this week. Not bad, but not what we'd hoped. And both at the upper end of our age groups. Hey, at least you placed top three! You're comeback is coming along. Good luck this weekend.

Old Farte - Best wishes for the calf/achilles issues. Wish I had some constructive tips. It's unfortunate that the bike aggravated the achilles -- does that remove cycling as an option for now?

dhaaga - Maybe slower than 5K pace, but the conditions and that high-volume week make the 12:08 darn impressive. Although never at your level, age 58 saw the most successful running of my life. Enjoy!

KP - Good luck with the recovery. Fortunately, I've never had calf issues, so no tips to offer. But I will suggest trying to minimize the weight gain. I put on 24 pounds during my recent layoff, and, dang it's hard to take off. I am still 10 pounds over race weight.

MikeF - Yes, looks like a good maintenance week. I can't fathom your lifetime total ... I've been running since 1972, and would guess less than 20,000 miles in all those years!

old guy II - Good luck with the hamstring. I'm nursing the same injury, with a race planned in three weeks. Biking doesn't aggravate it, so that's what I'll be doing.

amkelley - An easy August sounds like a good idea. I don't know how you handle the mileage that you normally run. Maybe being 60 pounds lighter helps!

Allen53 - A couple strong workouts. What's next on your race calendar? Age 53?

CM - 18:26 as a workout. At altitude. At age 61. I'd say that's impressive! Your calendar doesn't allow a cool, sea-level 5K this year?

SCgal - Nice training week. And that's just crazy how things were in the "old days." Hard to believe that was within our lifetime. I'm just enough younger, I guess, to have always seen girls and women enjoying legitimate athletics, including swimming in high school (and even ice hockey in college).

KCgeezer - Hey, it's good I train in a rural area because I almost always need to stop after two or three miles to "take care of business." Just how it is. Regarding 9-day weeks, you can schedule workouts and long runs on a 9-day cycle, and still be have a day off every six or seven days.

Racerdb - "The course did have some grass and a winding gravel path ..." And you still ran an 89.74% AG! Any special prep planned for the mile race?

jimBOS - I'll be interested in what the PT suggests for your hamstring. Usually these sorts of injuries gradually heal over a few weeks for me, but this time seems more stubborn.

MikeL - My condolences, also, to you and your wife and family. Hold onto the happy memories. Best wishes going forward!

socalcush - Last year I had good luck with the Elliptigo. My sessions were less than yours, usually only 20 minutes on it, after 20 minutes on the ArcTrainer, which is a little different. Anyway, that was January through March, and I was able to salvage a good racing season (good for ME, obviously not at YOUR level!)

Have a great week!

Cool Jim. Remind me and my M59+ aged brain where you worked at the big swoosh.

KP

KP - I headed up the promo apparel team (we did all the stuff like USA & Kenya TF plus all the other promo product like college teams, etc...) I ran a lot with Herb L when he was there as well as the rest of the running crew (Peve, COD, Truax, Hartge, Wolfe, etc) Great memories (at least the ones I can remember!)

KPdx wrote:

Cool Jim. Remind me and my M59+ aged brain where you worked at the big swoosh.

KP

Allen1959:

Will run an evening 5K in two days and then another 5K two weeks from this Saturday. Beyond that see how the body feels and hope to do a couple more during the Fall/Early Winter.

For the coming 5K this Thursday planning to use that as "training run" of sorts with the best scenario being a more "all-out" one two weeks later. Not sure what a "training run" even looks or feels like on this end but mainly still trying to figure how to put together a sensible race for the entire 5K. For myself the speed is always there and the aerobic still needs work. That I'm still struggling at the 2.5 mile-ish mark implies a deficit in the training. most likely.

I'm 56- turn 57 this Fall. It's been interesting trying this stuff out- I've always been fit but really didn't realize how much actual training one needs to do for a 5K- it doesn't seem that far (laughs).

Allen53 wrote:

For the coming 5K this Thursday planning to use that as "training run" of sorts with the best scenario being a more "all-out" one two weeks later. Not sure what a "training run" even looks or feels like on this end but mainly still trying to figure how to put together.

Maybe on Thursday float through 2 miles at threshold pace, then 5K race pace for the last mile?

Except for strides or hill sprints, I've rarely run repeats of less than 800m when targeting the 5K. Maybe I should have. I've never been satisfied with my times at that distance.

I'm planning a 5K in three weeks. It's a major local race, and I won M55-59 last year. Second place and I have since turned 60. But while I've slowed exponentially, he's gotten faster -- mid-18s this year. Oh well! My dream goal at this point is to break 20.