50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

[quote]lucKY2b wrote:

PS-Enjoy your well-deserved sabbatical, Dave![/quote

...thanks! off to a mixed start. Our younger daughter is here for a week's visit, which is terrific......and we all have colds. Oops. With the exception of getting sick, a decent week for me with first quality days since ultramarathon a month ago:

M 50:00

Tu 50:00 + 1:00 x-t

W 1:00 incl. 3 X 3:00 hills

Th 45:00 + 1:00 x-t

F 1:30 hilly trails

Sa 20:00 + 45:00 x-t

Su 1:00 incl. 2 X 10:00 (2:00 jog) at marathon pace + 40:00 x-t

happy holidays and have a great week,

Dave

I had my 4th consecutive high-mileage week and my longest run since before my last failed marathon.

Mon: 10.1 miles

Tues: 10.4 miles

Weds: 10.6 miles

Thurs: 11.1 miles

Fri: 7.2 miles easy

Sat: 20.6 miles in 3:14. Really slow, but having failed my last two attempts to run beyond 20 miles (crashed out of my last marathon at 10 miles and walked/jogged to the end of my last long run before the marathon), I just wanted to finish one without falling apart. Took it out nice and slowly, nothing went wrong, and I finished a little weary but still running just fine. And felt fully justified in growing roots into the sofa watching NFL games for the rest of the day.

Sun: 6.6 miles easy. I was delighted to find that my heel still felt good enough to run the day after a 20+ miler.

76 miles for the week, and 311 miles over the past four weeks.

I still haven’t decided about running a half-marathon next Saturday. I feel pretty beat-up today but I expect a couple of easy days will solve that. I think I can still sign up online until the day before the race but I’ll probably decide by Christmas.

Happy holidays to all!

I spent the week trying to find that happy medium between recovering from my race and rebuilding a base. I just finished the week right at 50 miles.

M- 7mi walk plus strides

T- 4mi hills 9:50/mi

W- 7mi walk plus strides

Th-8mi hills 10:07/mi

F- 7mi walk plus strides

S- 6mi trails 8:59/mi

Su- 11mi trails 8:44/mi (this was the first step in rebuilding a Sunday long run with a goal of however many miles I can cover in 2 hours)

Happy holidays to all!

MG: Congrats on 18 consecutive club xc’s!

Racerdb: Sorry about the results of the MRI. But it seems like its get-over-able.

TU: 4 treadmill with 3 @ 8:27 pace

TH: 4 treadmill with 3 @ 8:27 pace

SA: 4 road with 3 @ 7:50 pace

SU: 4 road with 3 @ 8:22 pace

It was a good week. Surprisingly, I’m feeling a little beat since I bumped up the pace on the easy days a bit.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays//Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Yule and, of course Festivus-for-the-rest-of-us!

Have a great week folks!

Have a great holiday one and all! Good luck to Olde Farte with recovery after the slip on ice.

I'm just about halfway through my build for the Napa Valley Marathon on March 1.

This past week:

Mon: 5.5 slow (fatigued from the previous week, 63 miles. Feeling FLAT)

Tue: 8.5 medium easy over hills

Wed: Rest

Thurs: 9.1 easy to medium (flat/creek trail)

Fri: 10.8 trail run/hill course medium> medium-hard

Sat: Rest

Sun: 3.85 miles total, including 5k tempo run 22:30. Still that FLAT feeling!

Week total: 37.75 miles

Cut back on volume this week to let my legs catch up with the work thus far in this build. I'd logged six weeks averaging a touch over 51 miles per week.

Next Saturday racing the "Almost NYE Half Marathon." I'll likely run sort of hard on Mon or Tues then taper for a few days. Feeling positive and looking forward to busting out a good race.

Base Time Sand Dunes Week One

Happy New Year (Dec 22nd is first day of year)

Build Base and Muscle Strength then Run Fast 400 up to 5000.

Strength IMO Hiit works.

like OGII, trying to recover from club nats, finish up the school year, yet build/maintain mileage as i gear up for x-c nationals in january and eventually carlsbad in march. had a good tuesday workout 2x1200, 2x800, 2x400 even though i was trying not to push too hard only a few days after clubs--first 1200 was around 79 pace, but 2nd was at 76 pace; both 800s were sub 2:30, but the 2nd was 2:21, faster than i've gone in a while; ran a 400 at 68 then figured i'd better not push my luck and bowed out of the 2nd one. took the rest of the week easy, but still averaged 8-10 miles every day (with some doubles), then finished with 14 miles today with the middle 8 at right under 6 minute pace, my best long run in at least a couple of years.

so, the fitness is there; now if i can just find that race sharpness that seems to have abandoned me since turning 50...

carpe crepusculum,

cush

Grades are in and I'm sequestered in a secret location out-of state to avoid all the emails from students who can't figure out why they didn't pass... Congratulations to all who braved the cold and mud to race at Club XC. I wimped out this year but am focusing on San Francisco in 2020.

Sending good thoughts to Dave and CM on their recovery and to amkelley on her racing decision next week. It sounds as if a few of us are heading into sabbaticals in the coming semesters so watch out; we'll have plenty of time to train and no excuses except for injuries.

I'm spending the Holidays in the frozen north and just finished a 10 mi. TM run. Thank goodness for TV and podcasts or I would have expired from boredom. I've been working on my race schedule next year and am looking forward to lots of fun races, which I've been missing for a while. We'll see how the schedule plays out but it's freeing to be able to decide what I want to do instead of ones I "have" to do. I'm feeling great after a few down weeks and am ready to get going once our Southern races begin in January. Lots of "fluff" in my workouts this week:

Su 6.6 Easy, 17.6 bike, :30 plyo

M 6.0 Easy, 2000 swim

T 17.4 bike, :30 Swiss ball

W off - Drive to secret location

R 2000 swim, :15 strength

F 6.2 Track on TM (2 mi @ 10k pace, 2 x 400 @ mi pace), :30 medicine ball, :20 yoga

S 5.75 Easy + strides, 19 mi biking, :25 core

Happy Holidays to all and "Long May You Run"!

Thanks SCgal, and good luck on sabbatical, as well as all academicians in this thread, amk, l2b, dhagga et al.

I might be taking a permanent sabbatical at some point this year, or at least get a new job. Enough is enough.

I got in 23 miles of running (5 easy pieces), 90 minutes of XC skiing, yesterday and another 90 minutes on the treadmill. So a lot of fluff. So if the fluffy person (aka syracuse?) thinks anything but running is fluff, I'd like some company for a repeat of yesterday's Nordic workout. 30 min warm up, then 5 of uphill threshold reps (L3 in Nordic ski talk) of 3:20 to 6:30 with short recovery at elevation of 8500' to 9000'. Now the snow was fluffy and soft at 12 F. So there's that. But that was a tough workout. And I felt like crap.

Looking forward to a week off from work ahead, including 3-4 days of skiing.

MikeF wrote:

Wishing you a swell week of geezer training and racing...and Merry Everything.

Your pal,

MF

"Geezer training" .... Love it Mike! You are coming up soon on your 365 streak day - let us know how it goes, please.

This week I managed 56 miles with 21+% of the total at or near 1mile to 5K race pace. Had two 11 mile runs separated by a 5.5 easy day. Last week I crept up to just over 60 miles but is was -or at least seemed like- more difficult to meet my 15% mileage goal of quality work. So this week I backed it back down to the 55 range.

It was mostly up to the 30s the latter half of this week - the roads were reasonably clear - and even some blue sky as an added bonus. That is about the best one can hope for in Michigan in December.

My spouse is itching to take a Florida trip in early February so I have nosing around to do a race while we are there.

They moved the date of the 5K race that I won overall earlier this year (at age 62), so the the pressure is off (thank goodness) to try and 'defend' my title.

There is a festival of distance races in St. Petersburg the week we are tentatively looking at. There is a 5k, 10k, 1/2 mar, and full mar to choose from. Pretty sure (hopefully) I could be fairly 'competitive' at least in the 60+ group at any one of those distances. My spouse is already shaking her head 'no' to the idea of me doing the marathon. I tried to explain I have 14 weeks of 55 mpw base and it wouldn't be too hard to get a 15 ,18, and 20 miler, in. But it makes more sense probably to shoot for the maybe the 10K or just bust the 5k and not back off any training.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday week!

M. am. 15 min jog to get the paper then 20 min jog home via Viewing Rock (100 metre climb in 1.5 kms) then easy 27 min mtn bike ride.

pm. 73 min kayak on the Goulbourn River. 24 mins downstream and 49 of hard slog upstream.

T. 105 min trail ride on the mtb then 20 min kayak and 18 min jog.

W. 40+°C at home so drove up to Toolangi and had a testing run of 13 kms with 800 metres elevation gain on Mt St Leonard. Temps only 32.

T. A solid 67 mins kayak on a bouncy Lake Eppalock.

F. 45°C when I finished work. Went for an easy spin on the roadie at 7.30 to test out new bike shoes. Still 41°. 28 mins was enough, still 41 at the end. Power went out 8.30 and didn't come back on until 1.30 am. Still 37 ° at 1.30.

S. Busy day but a lot cooler. Went out for a solid hour on the roadie then an easy 34 mins on the mtb.

S. A big day out and about arriving home after 6 feeling like rubbish. Went out at 7 and ran an easy 10 kms of mixed terrain.

Just call me Fluffy lol.

This is a bit of a chaotic time of year so it is just getting plenty of fun stuff done to keep me fairly fit.

Congratulations on great efforts at club nats! Looking forward to SF next year.

Need some advice on a long term hamstring strain. Hammy bothered me all xc season (and really all year) this fall but not enough to stop training or racing. High mileage fall (for me) maybe averaged 50 miles with a 14 mile weekly long run at 7:50 pace.

Committed to taking a full month off from running and just biking (road) and elliptigo ing for the next 30 days. Strain is high up near the tuberosity attachment.

Right now focusing on bilateral hammy flexibility. What approaches have worked for you all?

Rope stretching! The Wharton video ....

https://www.whartonhealth.com/shopwhartons/whartonsflexibilitykit

Restricting length of runs to 15 to 20 mins and doing 2d daily single leg "scooting" around my shed on an office chair. Doing just enough to feel the fatigue and gradually increasing load as tolerated.

Beckee wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Another poster guessed 15:29, which was close since I ran 7:50 + 7:43 = 15:33 gps. The official time was 15:50 but 184’ long.

Are you basing the extra 184’ on your GPS? If so, I hope you realize they don’t measure distances all that precisely.

This is an all too common mistake. Most courses, including the one referenced here, are measured reasonably accurately. It was certainly more accurate than any gps would indicate.

SD Runner, good luck with the hamstring. I took 3 months off last winter with a hamstring problem, I'd gotten greedy and did a tough interval session two days after a 10K race a year ago... BAM, here's your hamstring strain!

The time off really helped, it did the trick. When I began running again I built volume very gradually.

I have the beginnings of arthritis, so diet changes also helped a lot. I doubled up on cruciferous vegetables. Also Salmon, berries and even dark chocolate. I did my best to knock out sugar and cut way down on gluten. All this made a difference in reducing inflammation. Booze is generally kept to 1 cup of red wine daily, or less.

I'm doing a half marathon in 4 days, and have been eating the wrong foods a bit too much at holiday parties last weekend! The inflammation had flared up a bit. So I'm a-walking the straight and narrow dietary path this week. I'll be avoiding lots of my fave food treats on Christmas in pursuit of a good race this weekend!

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Chanukah and/or Happy Holidays

This guy's turtle neck fix cured my chronic neck pain.

He has some good stuff on hs glutes too.

As I watched this glute vid I had to try the exercise my glutes are just so so .

So I will try and add one ex of a month easy but effective

I like his stuff cause he is good at explaining/demonstrating smart dude

https://youtu.be/cz1gh_aYn5k

Left out the connection to upper hs

weak glutes make the hs work too hard

https://youtu.be/gXPDhggbWfM

DLew wrote:

Beckee wrote:

Are you basing the extra 184’ on your GPS? If so, I hope you realize they don’t measure distances all that precisely.

This is an all too common mistake. Most courses, including the one referenced here, are measured reasonably accurately. It was certainly more accurate than any gps would indicate.

Thanks, that is good to know. I am sure your astute analysis pertains to the timing mats as well. My chip time was 15:46 with a 9:02 first mile and 6:44 last mile. Jeez, ran better than I thought.