50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

KP - that's a solid 5k and glad the injuries are on the mend! Saw your note about out lunch time runs back in 'the day'... definitely had a great time there. I do keep in touch with our Kevin R and his family (our kiwi friend) and a few others occasionally. Bumped into Hartge and Truax a couple years ago at The Running Event.

CM - great race especially given the altitude! I wish i had wheels like that!

This was really week #1.5 back from the hamstring injury, first week I felt like I was able to run without worrying about every step. Managed 40 miles that included a 10 miler on Sunday. going to try to add a few cautious strides this week as well as a few hilly runs. The PT I'm seeing seems quite good, I like that she's more concerned about finding the root cause rather than the immediate symptoms. She believes most of my issues are coming from my low back/ hip area which is extremely stiff (thus confirming my wifes comments that I look like a robot when running!).

KC Geezer...so maybe it's worth experimenting keeping heart rate under 136 on a lot more of your runs and see how you feel? Of course, if you are feeling great keep doing what you are doing.

I'm paying attention to Charlie's advice because...now that I'm 63...after 45 years of running consistently pretty high miles ....I'm having very poor recovery. I've been feeling like I am always tired. Something changed a few years ago and I'm feeling like the easy days have to be much easier. ..and many more of them. I'm having a hell of a time changing habits but I'm noticing going ridiculously slow can be more restorative than doing an easy day the way I did them for years

Cavorty...if I ever get so slow that it feels biomechanically off, I just add walk breaks to lower the instensity. Seems to work.

My current weight is 130-131. (My height is 5-7.) The lowest as an adult is 128 at age 49 and the highest is 162 at age 39. My body fat was measured at 11% when I weighed 135 (in my mid 40s). This does not seem right because that should mean either it was 6.25% when I weighed 128 or I lost muscle weight.

My week.

M: off.

T: 7 miles.

W: 6 miles.

R: 5 miles

F: 3 miles.

SA: 5k race. (22:53, 1st AG, 7th OA)

SU: 10 miles.

I did my second 5k race of the year. It was only 3 sec slower than the last year on the same course. But then I remembered that I actually got my shoe laces untied during the race last year and stopped for 10-15 sec to retie them. So the net decline should be bigger than 3 sec. Unfortunately, I didn't have good competition this year. 6th place was more than 1 min ahead of me, and 8th place was about 20 sec behind me. After passing this runner around 3km, I felt like I was doing a solo time trial. My split was 4:33-4:35-4:42-4:37-4:26. (The 3rd km had the only hill on this course.) At least I no longer suffer from a "slow start" problem.

In the meantime, Jeannie Rice broke another WR, Her time is faster than anything I have run in the last three years. (And she is 71.)

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a28677255/jeannie-rice-half-marathon-age-group-world-record/

OGII I love cruising around Green Acres on my mtn bike something special about phat tires on pavement. I used to push around Schwalbe Big Apples like a caddy;)

So I have also considered the CAC now I am also thinking about the ultra sound for AA Thanks . Statin wise I like the idea of a low dose crestor Ford Brewer a cardiologist who treated his own CACS. He has a lot of good info on his youtube channel for example he reccomend getting a CIMT which I think but not sure on this stuff measures plague vs calcium deposits .

If I had a AA that was small / annual checks I would get a treadmill stress test to measure my blood pressure at max heart rate before any hard running.

The 50+ group reminds me of the breakfast group Orville Atkins (RIP) used to post about.

Thanks again for posting and please do take care of yourself.

btw my deal is crappy genes apoe 3/4 being the worst.

RF reader wrote:

My current weight is 130-131. (My height is 5-7.) The lowest as an adult is 128 at age 49 and the highest is 162 at age 39. My body fat was measured at 11% when I weighed 135 (in my mid 40s). This does not seem right because that should mean either it was 6.25% when I weighed 128 or I lost muscle weight.

You got my attention there at 162. I'm currently 170 at 5-6 (59) and weighed my lowest at ~165 in my late 30s/early 40s. No distance running background: played HS football & ran sprints, played a few years of college football (at 195), and then several years of competitive powerlifting & bodybuilding getting as a high as 200 before transitioning to running in my early 30s and shedding a lot of bulk & weight.

Curious: What was your milage & race times when you were at 162? Did you sustain any injuries at that weight? What made you shed the weight from age 39 to 49? That's a huge drop - similar to my 30+ lb drop going from PL/BB to running.

Agree TW was a great runner. I knew a couple of the guys on his early teams. One in particular didn't like the training methods and gave some detail on the types of workouts they did for XC. The others didn't say much one way or another.

old guy II wrote:

I haven't noticed any effect of the statins on my activities yet (muscles soreness and cramping are not uncommon side effects).

I’ve probably been on and off Crestor, and other statins, for almost 20 years. I’ve been careful to document how statins have affected my running. I did, in fact, set my 50+ 5K and 1500 PR’s while taking 10 mg Crestor qd (18:47) and (5:08) respectively. However, as I’ve documented here, I’ve had many, many bouts of PF, and some very painful and long-duration heel pain that defied diagnosis (not PF). I’ve had both anterior and posterior peroneal tendon issues as well. However, I stopped my statin in January of 2018 and the PF, heel, and peroneal tendon issues went away. I have photographic evidence that the statin gave me a droopy left eyelid, and that it did improve right after going off the statin. I’ve had numbness in the fingers of my left hand that went away right after going off the statin.

As far as I can tell it is my OPINION that the statin, in my case, resulted in the deterioration of type 1 collagen formation. I can quote you studies that point to this but I’m not because it is too easy to cherry-pick studies that support a point of view. This is called confirmation bias and I as well as others here have been guilty of this.

I cringe when I see folks quoting studies that they have picked that support their views. I’ve worked in and around the scientific community for 40 years and I can tell you that you can find thousands of studies from respected universities that are peer-reviewed and SEEM totally sound and downright biblical in their proclamation. Only…3 or 4 years later the study is completely overturned and found to be fundamentally flawed. But, the original study remains “in the wild” as it were and quoted and mis-interpreted by pop websites, completely missing that the study is no longer valid. So anytime I see someone quoting “science” I roll my eyes, because you can find a study to support almost any view, no matter how ridiculous.

In my opinion, the real danger with statins in my particular case were the very subtle changes in my personality. Here’s the deal, I, and with others I’ve spoken with, they, never had a clue their personality changed. Only their family members noted the changes, you can’t see it yourself. I became more irritable, argumentative, and disagreeable. It was always just below the surface.

This sounds all gloom and doom for statins. It’s not. It is a statistical fact that statins can and will save your life and extend it. I’d say the vast majority have zero problems. But your doctors are NOT going to notice slight changes in your tendons. Your doctor is not going to notice slight changes in your personality.

I’m just sounding a note of caution for you to monitor these things.

SO true ... which is why I’m jealous of NDJY finding a race where he had constant competition. I’m realizing I really don’t enjoy racing when there’s no one near me, which is where I often find myself.

Very legit points made here. My legs are fresher, three years on is all, so your mileage literally may vary.

But here’s a run I did today to test what we’ve been discussing here:

As you can probably guess, there’s a hill in that park.

But notice that while the pace remains slow — quite slow, it being hot and muggy even at 7 AM and yours truly didn’t have a lot of giddy-up today — the HR rises to where, at about the half-hour mark, it’s exceeding the 136 benchmark we set for recovery running.

Now I personally don’t have biomechanical issues with running slow, or any other issues for that matter. I will lose volume running slower because I have limited time and can’t increase my runs to make up for the lost mileage.

On the other hand, I couldn’t have felt any worse than I did on Sunday’s long run, and even with a rest day I was quite noticeably plodding today. Maybe that was the weather ... maybe not. I’m not tired otherwise, though.

So let’s try this: Tomorrow is speed work at the track, but I’ll run Thursday through Saturday at recovery paces, wearing the strap to keep my HR at or under 136. Then we’ll see how Sunday goes!

Preparing for a 5K on the 24th. Some training days already completed some pending.

8/10: Sat: Long Run @ 70 minutes

8/11: Sun: 4 miles medium @ 7:45/per

8/12: Mon: Rest

8/13: Tuesday: At Track- 1 mile warm-up @ 8:30; 6X1000M at the following: 4:05;4:02; 3:59; 3:57; 4:02; 4:01- 3 laps cool down and it starting pouring so packed up. Humidity nearly at 100% this AM.

8/14: 5 miles easy

8/15: 4 miles easy with 6X/30 sec hill repeats

8/16: Rest

8/17: Long Run

Advice- critiques?

KC I am off the red meat for good and cutting back on soft sand running as it was irritating the greater trochanter area too unstable so I have been running on asphalt and checking my pace.... 55percent mhr =126 hr 9:30 pace on a flat shady path with nice weather. WAG based upon my June 5000 19:05 peaking so current 5k race pace of 6:30 so 3 minutes per mile slower. So far kinda so what boring however let me add something different what if running slower actually makes you faster? What if running slower than your normal biomechanical robotic easy pace stresses/stimulates muscles that are undertrained? The thing is most of us do most of our running at a chronic pace a pace that is no doubt economical but maybe not the best training wise? So when a runner changes it up in my case slower in the sand that new stress builds muscle that makes em faster. Just a thought.

Allen53 nice workout 6x1000 was this super hard did you have anything more. During your cool down if someone offered you 10,000 dollars to run a 7th 1000 under 3:50 could you have done it? How about 6 more under 4 for a million?

Seriously how much rest and what kind of 5k is the 24 hilly flat track ?

KCgeezer wrote:

So let’s try this: Tomorrow is speed work at the track, but I’ll run Thursday through Saturday at recovery paces, wearing the strap to keep my HR at or under 136. Then we’ll see how Sunday goes!

That sounds good. I'm gravitating to a similar pattern - every week do something faster, something longer, and the rest very easy. We'll see how it goes.

Charlie,

What do I do now that I sold everything so I can move and run on the beach?

Good thing I didn’t give up red meat!

?

Igy

Igy consider yourself a free man, free to roam the earth looking for that perfect piece of sand.

Sand is still magic but all sand is not created equal.

Sand should be fine once the rainy season arrives. Mean while I am gonna keep running a few days in the sand until then.

Jogging/Slogging on pavement beats the heck out of me but that just shows a weakness in my training so I am going to keep a few hard surfaces days in the rotation.

Thanks Charlie.

You will have to excuse my humor.

I was getting tired of the laps around the long jump pit.

?

Igy

Charlie,

By the way I did two nico nico runs today. One in the AM in the foothills and another in the PM with the wife.

Igy

Just got done reading all 13,400 posts on this thread, and now I finally feel motivated enough to complete the 1:59 marathon, 4:41 mile, 12:36 5k, 7:57 3200, 1:39 800, and a 57 min half marathon.

Do you guys think I can pull this off? I've been training pretty hard the past year, hitting my highest mileage week of 10 miles in 7 days last week. (I don't want to burn out, which is why I avoid running more than 10 mpw and instead sit on my couch for 16 hours per day).

Cheers!

Creeping back a bit - 4 miles at an average of 7:17 today. Started off steady at 7:27, then 7:15, 7:16, and 7:09. Ran harder yesterday, but that was a mix of road and hilly trails. At the moment, nothing is to a plan, just trying to not lose too much while the ankle is getting better, so if it's fairly comfortable, that's what I run.

I'm hoping another couple of weeks and the ankle will actually be able to start training again.

I do probably 90%+ of my running on road. Don't have any problems from that - injuries have all be imbalance related - but it might be that since I've always predominantly run on road (other than track sessions). Always intrigues me how individual heart rates are. I'm mid to high 120s doing 4-5 in the 7:30-7:40 range.

Allen: I did a very similar 1000m rep session in June before I got injured - 6 x 1000m in 4:06 average with 200m in 1 min recovery.

Charlie wrote:

Allen53 nice workout 6x1000 was this super hard did you have anything more. During your cool down if someone offered you 10,000 dollars to run a 7th 1000 under 3:50 could you have done it? How about 6 more under 4 for a million?

Seriously how much rest and what kind of 5k is the 24 hilly flat track ?

Charlie,

I thought the workout was pretty hard. At the same time the I'm finding I recover way quicker than two months ago.

Yes, pretty sure I could have done a 7th at that pace for that amount. For the 6 more under 4 for a million $$$ I'm guessing an injury is the outcome there as I stubbornly attempt it.

The next 5K is on a very flat course. Not sure exactly what that next week should look like- I struggle figuring out how much to rest or run right before a race.

I'm not also convinced, for myself anyway, that such a workout translates to the race as one would think quite yet. In short I'm not sure I could run 5 of the 3:55/1000M in a row but could do with the 90 second rests in between. I guess we'll see.

Charlie,

Forgot to mention- the rest/recovery between each 1000M was an easy jog of 200M at 90 seconds- I was pretty meticulous with the time measurement for each rest. I'm wondering if that is too little or too much? The Magill workout suggested a 1:1 work/rest ratio with this workout which to mean seemed like too long of a rest. So I went with another source that suggested 90 seconds.