50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

LuckyB....and all y'all helping to solve the mystery of the stitch in a very fit athlete... thank you! Having had these myself since those mile-2mile doubles for Tucker High School to anything over a 1500m race distance today (20 marathons 18 stitches) I know a little bit about this damn thing. Anyway this article by Rose is the most useful of all. I think my son needs to change his diet from Captain Crunch to Oatmeal.

KP

52 Portland OR 17:18 XC

Thanks for all the input. As I suspected, we have some pretty fast 50+ posting on this board. Keep up the good work.

53 - Roanoke, Virginia, July 4th 2010 19:14.

I'm still trying to understand: The screw points go in towards the sole of the foot, and the screw heads protrude and do the gripping. Is that it? That is what I would call a stud. I'm hung up on the word spike.

21 weeks into this come back. So far so good. Another 31 weeks before I up my limit of 20 minutes a day.

Setting some quality limits to go with my volume limit.

Reflecting on 9/29/2012 after a hard 2.15 on glendoveer

Worried about getting into the same old waspish rut of wanting too much too soon.

For example

Glendoveer golf course loop

July 4th 16:30 - 7:40 per mile 165 pounds

Sept 4th 15:00 - 7:00 per mile 150 lbs fifteen lbs lighter

Sept 19th 14:15 - 6:38 per mile 148 lbs two lbs lighter

Sept 29th 13:36 - 6:20 per mile 148 lbs same weight

Today was 18 secs per mile faster than 10 days ago.

The volume limit of no more than 20 minutes a day is working really well.

I can abide by this volume limit.

So why not a quality limit.

Hard running is harder to set a limit on.

I really do not want to get into monitoring time or heart rate.

I feel pretty good about running by percieved effort.

However perceived effort can also be risky.

Running too hard leads to injury, sometimes without even realizing you are injured until a day or two later.

My tendency to over do the quality combined with a lack of durability is a true formula for injury. I need limits to keep me injury free.

A limit on volume was really easy to come up with.

The quality limit is a bit more complicated.

Quality is for my purposes any sustained effort requiring 2/2 breathing or any type of repeat or interval work other than striders less than 100 meters.

The first hard workout I did this week exceeded my quality limit:

9/25/2012 tuesday 7x1 minute hill glendoveer gold course walk down for recovery

4 hills

400 on the flat hard between 800 and 1500 pace

400 jog recovery

3 hills

3 days for Recovery

9/26/2012 wednesday 9 to 10 min pace tired

9/27/2012 thursday 9 to 10 min pace sore and tired

9/28/2012 friday 7 to 8 min pace feeling much better

The above hill workout was 20 percent too hard.

I am pretty sure the hard workout done today was too hard.

Glendoveer covering 2.15 miles a 6:20 mile pace seems way too fast for where I am at .Depending on the number of recovery days needed I will adjust then just stay within the quality limits.

So now I have a volume limit and two quality limits.

Volume limit: run no more than 20 minutes per day

Quality limit 1:No workout should take more than 2 days of easy running to recover from.

Quality limit 2:Allow at least 4 days between quality efforts.

Quality adjustment rule of thumb :

If it takes more than TWO days to recover from a quality run it was too hard.

Alan Bennet wrote:I'm still trying to understand: The screw points go in towards the sole of the foot, and the screw heads protrude and do the gripping. Is that it? That is what I would call a stud. I'm hung up on the word spike.

Alan, this is a common technique for getting gripping on snow and ice. Yes, you just screw sheet metal screws into the soles of the shoes, so they're more like studs than spikes. They're commonly referred to as "screw shoes". I google'd a couple of examples for you.

lucKY2b wrote:

Alan Bennet wrote:I'm still trying to understand: The screw points go in towards the sole of the foot, and the screw heads protrude and do the gripping. Is that it? That is what I would call a stud. I'm hung up on the word spike.

Alan, this is a common technique for getting gripping on snow and ice. Yes, you just screw sheet metal screws into the soles of the shoes, so they're more like studs than spikes. They're commonly referred to as "screw shoes". I google'd a couple of examples for you.

http://whyrun.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/49-screw-shoes/http://camilleherron.com/2011/12/24/how-to-make-screw-shoes/http://www.competitiverunner.com/screwshoes.html

Thanks for that lucKY2b, I was posting late at night after a big day and some drowned sorrows after my football team went down narrowly in the AFL Grand Final so maynot have explained it too well haha.

ScottDye wrote:

As I suspected, we have some pretty fast 50+ posting on this board.

Thinking about the 5K times and relating them to the thread "What is an impressive half marathon time for a non-elite but serious runner?"

... I realized that I have a double-standard about race times. (1) I measure other people on a curve. (2) I measure myself on an absolute scale.

So to take a simple example, I know a guy younger than me whose half PR is 1:34, and I tend to think of him as a "good" runner, because "he ran a 1:34". But my own PR of 1:33 I look at as no big deal, only 71% age graded, etc. I can discount it as "not very good" because I am still just an age-grouper. Actually, I'm pretty sure that if I were to become a legitimate contender (say, like racerdb), then I would just start comparing myself to the international class.

By the way, not fishing for compliments here. I got enough of those locally for my 19:40, some from runners faster than me. But the fact that apparently they are grading me on a curve might just be the flip side of the same coin.

Can anyone relate to my double-standard?

I'm a hard marker both on myself and others. I spent my early 20s running on Sundays with a group that included several Olympians and a World Champion/World record holder. Later on one of the kids from my club became a 27.37/60.02 runner. He was shattered with his "slow" 2.11 marathon after running the first 30k with the Olympic Champion at Fukuoka.

A 33 min 10 k runner like I was at the time was simply a jogger compared to these guys.

These days I know I'm pretty slow. I rate myself as just a fit fun runner and nothing more, certainly don't think of myself as an "athlete".

At a local level I find myself struggling to be impressed by many of our best runners. Around here young guys running the sort of times I was running in my 20s think they are stars. They have heaps of talent but do no serious work.

Recently heard a coach commenting about a young bloke and his crazy mileage. The young guy (21) was only running around 100k per week but is now beating many of the kids who had his measure as juniors. The coach thinks no one should do more than 60km per week as they will get too tired!

Charlie wrote:

Quality adjustment rule of thumb :

If it takes more than TWO days to recover from a quality run it was too hard.

I think this sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb. I'm reminded of what Pete Magill tells us: "It’s not the training we do that counts; it’s the training from which we can recover." --http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=20378

Cheers!

I guess I ran my fastest 5k in two years today - in xc. 20:18 at almost 53 (but I'm obviously female, so I'm not sure how that would equate to a guy's time).

Nice job, KP! I hope you made it to both your sons' races!

mo'pak wrote:

{I} certainly don't think of myself as an "athlete".

I prefer the word "animal", which carries no pretense. Funny bits about the "stars" and the coach. But in general I reject discussion of the decline and fall(**). There were enough delusional athletes and clueless coaches back in the day as well.

(**) The obesity epidemic is one example of an actual decline, though. My aging body is another example. :(

Alan Bennet wrote:

mo'pak wrote:

{I} certainly don't think of myself as an "athlete".

I prefer the word "animal", which carries no pretense. Funny bits about the "stars" and the coach. But in general I reject discussion of the decline and fall(**). There were enough delusional athletes and clueless coaches back in the day as well.

(**) The obesity epidemic is one example of an actual decline, though. My aging body is another example. :(

The problem with our local "stars" is a long term one. Seems to have been the attitude for several decades in this region. Very different in one similar region where Steve Moneghetti lives. They have plenty of seriously good runners.

I've only lived in this region for 8 years but in that time no one has broken 2.30 for the marathon, not sure anyone has even broken 2.40.

We can't even field a serious regional team of runners for State XC events etc, the other similar sized region can field several top flight teams.

Seems to be some sort of "cultural" thing, the other region has had many successful runners dating back to the 60s and they were known for their heavy training loads. That culture has continued on.

*************************

Week 69

*************************

Greetings all. As I write this, the USATF 5K Masters Championships are just underway. Kevin Castille is now listed; he's been remarkably consistent, especially considering how heavy his racing load has been. Good luck to him. Can't say that I recognize a lot of the names in the 50-54 group, but Dennis Simonaitis certainly sticks out. As I said earlier, the 55-59 men's division should be quite something. The women's races seem to look a little more local, but I'd need one of the few women posters to speak to that (side-note: I would love to get more input on the thread from the female perspective, in general.)

It was a strange training week for me. I managed 52+ miles on 7 days, but my harder efforts were more distributed, so I don't have a good feel for what their value will be. Here's the log for the week:

S: 7.9 w/2@5:49 pace

M: 6.2 easy

T: 6.3 w/10 minute surge@ ~6:15 pace

W: 6.4 w/3 accelerated (7:12,6:09, 5:49)

R: 8.2 w/3x(1/2 mile trail loop, 1 loop rest) (3:02,2:58,2:54, rest loops ~4:05)

F: 6.5 easy

S: 11.1 w/3x(1.1K surges,1.1K rest) (3:50,3:49,3:54)

So, in total, there is about 8-1/2 miles of harder effort, some of it more intermediate than hard; maybe about 5-1/2 miles at or near 5K race pace. Point is that no single day was hard enough to make me feel like I needed a rest day (as per ScottDye's rule of thumb). I really need to get a good solid long tempo run (5 miles at 6:15-6:25 pace) sometime soon...maybe this evening. Hip has been better this week; still some tightness creeps in from time-to-time, but the exercises/stretches/massages have been keeping it functional...maybe even improving.

Hope everyone is in a good place. What have you been doing? What's working? What's not working? What's on your mind?

Thx Muddy G. A fine time for you on that true cross-country footing. Well done. Me? I was even splits with no kick and a bit of a wimp from 4k to 5k line. But I was on the road a lot for work and could use sleep. Although it was fun storming the field for that UW upset Thurs night. Eldest son PR'd for 8k XC in 26:22. He's #12 man on his team - Now THAT's a great NAIA squad. Next son made it to the finish without a stitch - 17:15 5k XC aint bad considering how damn hot it was.

Had a decent week here...62 miles, one workout and a mediocre half marathon on Saturday.

The race went ok but a few slight upgrades the last 4 miles killed me as usual. Splits went 556, 556, 553, 546, 545, 550, 556, 546, 546, 605, 606, 606, 603, 1:00 for a 1:17:52. First 10 were pretty good at 58:39 as were miles 4-9 at 34:49. I Garmined the race at 13.2 which would give me a little more respectable low 1:17's HM. Still not what I was looking for but whatever...It's pretty clear my training has been lacking the long run lately. And I really need to do something about dying whenever I hit a hill...

Ok, so it's back to the drawing board. I've got 5 weeks before my next HM on Nov. 3...There will be a steady dose of long runs, tempos and hillwork for the next month.

All the Best,

Dave

Alan Bennet wrote:

... I realized that I have a double-standard about race times. (1) I measure other people on a curve. (2) I measure myself on an absolute scale.

Can anyone relate to my double-standard?

I can relate to that double standard. I continually struggle with accepting that I can't run as far and as fast as I once did. It does not help a bit that I kept really good logs in my teens. My 19 yo running self mocks my old-man pedantic plodding.

Congrats on the races muddy girl and Dave.

For my week, thankfully the PF only bothered me a tiny bit on Monday and was gone the rest of the week.

The last few Saturday's my gf and I hit the trail. She hikes and I loop back and forth, hiking with her a bit, then doing another loop. Since this is a steep trail I get lots of hill work done and we get to spend time together. That's the highlight of the week.

Mon = 2, road, easy

Tue = 5K, road, easy

Wed = 5K, trail, 300 foot climb, moderate

Thr = rest

Fri = rest

Sat = 3.4, trail, 585 foot climb in 1.2 miles, moderate

Sun = 3.4 mountain gravel road, moderate

Total Miles = 15

Only 20 miles this past week. My race last Saturday made some little piece of connective tissue in my knee unhappy. I ran slowly on last Sunday and my knee was very tender at the end of the run. So no running Monday to Friday. Yesterday I ran 8 miles of easy pace trails with my son and the knee was a little sore at the start and then warmed up with no pain the rest of the run. This morning the knee was a little sore at the start again but then warmed right up and was fine for the run.