50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Of note here wrote:

Did y'all hear about Jaime Heilpern? 25:53 8K time trial on the track at age 50!

That's a 16:10.6 5K pace, if I did the math right. Damn good but not incredible for a 50-year-old.

I feel like one or two or three guys who post here could maybe hang with this guy.

Rick Becker is 65 (?), 15 years older, and I wouldn't put it past him to run a time in that ballpark. But I don't actually know his times so maybe I'm way off.

Maybe my math is off, or my judgment of what's super-fast for a 50-year-old is off. I'm fully prepared to be told how wrong I am.

Mind you, I would be hard-pressed to run 25:53 for a 5K, let alone an 8K. I was never a good runner when young and am worse now.

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:

Of note here wrote:

Did y'all hear about Jaime Heilpern? 25:53 8K time trial on the track at age 50!

That's a 16:10.6 5K pace, if I did the math right. Damn good but not incredible for a 50-year-old.

I feel like one or two or three guys who post here could maybe hang with this guy.

Rick Becker is 65 (?), 15 years older, and I wouldn't put it past him to run a time in that ballpark. But I don't actually know his times so maybe I'm way off.

Maybe my math is off, or my judgment of what's super-fast for a 50-year-old is off. I'm fully prepared to be told how wrong I am.

Mind you, I would be hard-pressed to run 25:53 for a 5K, let alone an 8K. I was never a good runner when young and am worse now.

BM 1958- Actually, That's a pretty fast/very good performance. When I was 50 I ran a 16:15. When I was 55 I ran a 16:14 (breaking the age group record at that time). I have only run two 5,000's in the last few years on the track. Age 60 in Michigan in windy conditions 17 something, and then two summers ago in Spokane in 80 degrees in 17 something. So I really don't know how fast I could run one now. I would need to sharpen my speed first. Thanks for your confidence in me. I was planning on running one this summer at the World Masters Champs but that's not going to happen.

And yes I am 65 will turn 66 in November.

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:

Of note here wrote:

Did y'all hear about Jaime Heilpern? 25:53 8K time trial on the track at age 50!

That's a 16:10.6 5K pace, if I did the math right. Damn good but not incredible for a 50-year-old.

I feel like one or two or three guys who post here could maybe hang with this guy.

Rick Becker is 65 (?), 15 years older, and I wouldn't put it past him to run a time in that ballpark. But I don't actually know his times so maybe I'm way off.

Maybe my math is off, or my judgment of what's super-fast for a 50-year-old is off. I'm fully prepared to be told how wrong I am.

Mind you, I would be hard-pressed to run 25:53 for a 5K, let alone an 8K. I was never a good runner when young and am worse now.

you're kinda right, but you're looking at it the wrong way--he'd come through 5k at around 16:10, but then continue at that pace for 2 more miles, which actually does make it pretty incredible. sean wade (53yo?), who posts here occasionally, could probably manage that when healthy; i ran 25:50 on the roads at 48yo, but i doubt i'll see those times again at 52. jaime's performance is probably around 91.8%. CM has been running some 90+% age graded races, and i'm sure rick becker has too; my 16:08 at the carlsbad 5k last year netted me a 92%. the fact that it was a time trial, at least to me, makes it more incredible...

25:50s for 8K at 50 is very good. The American record is 25:31. I got close to the 60-64 mark in 2018 (28:12, 5 seconds over) and maybe even ran better a year later with 28:19 on a day with a 20 mph head wind for half the way (granted it was a tail wind most of the other half!). M 65-69 record is 29:30 and Coureur de bois is going to crush that once things open up.

Coureur des bois wrote:

And yes I am 65 will turn 66 in November.

So are we going to meet in Tampere, Finland in 2021? I just saw that they accepted to upgrade the European Masters to World Masters. Saves me plenty of travel costs. I'm guessing/hoping that I'll be under 20 for 5k by then, but I've no idea by how much. I'll probably just see a clean pair of heels.

socalcush wrote:

the fact that it was a time trial, at least to me, makes it more incredible...

OK, dumb question: does "time trial" in this context mean "solo, unpaced run"?

When Kipchoge ran marathon distance in 1:59:40 last year, it was also a "time trial," but I believe he was paced by other runners.

What were the conditions of Heilpern's time trial? If he was running alone, that means he had no lane changes, no running wide around turns, no extra work to pass people like you have in a real race. I'm not saying it wasn't a great feat, I'm just trying to understand the conditions.

You understand, I'm just taking the critical perspective of a running fan.

socalcush - so art class pushed you into cross country? AM i getting this right? Pretty cool combo in my book.

At age 15 in 1972, I recognized my two big interests in life, running and drawing. And here we are.

If you want to see my latest graphic novel, search at Amazon on "Lucha Bruja", a fictionalization of my decade living (and running!) in Oaxaca, Mexico.

I won't put in a link, as I don't want to post a big "ad" in the middle of our training blog...

regarding the time trial question: to be fair, i don't know any of the circumstances surrounding heilpern's effort, but my guess would be that he had pacers. i don't think "time trial" ever implies a solo effort, unless they say solo time trial, which has been often the case during this pandemic. while having pacers, especially good pacers, can be essential to an effort of heilpern's magnitude (for many of the reasons you note: not changing lanes, drafting, etc.), for me there's something about competition that cannot be duplicated in a time trial effort, but for others this may not be a factor.

regarding art: by the time i got to college i was quickly introduced to the difference between someone who draws as a hobby (me) and someone who is an artist. that's not to say the former can't lead to the latter, but i was truly humbled when i saw the efforts of real artists and how my efforts (in the full sense of the word: time, energy, dedication, discipline and production) paled in comparison. probably not too different from a weekend warrior recreational runner's first look at a dedicated runner's training log, but in the case of art i was pretty certain i didn't have the discipline to bridge the gap. coincidentally, i type this just after my semi-weekly visit to my comic book store, so i'll see if they have any of big red's stuff on their shelves next week (or if they can order it)...

carpe crepusculum,

cush

Sean's 50 plus 5k is 14.53 and his 10 30.49

Aussie Keith Bateman ran 15.29 and 31.52 at 55.

Kiwi legend Derek Turnbull ran 16.39 and 34.42 at 65.

Monica Joyce ran 16.19 at 50.

A friend of mine Lavinia Petrie clocked a pretty handy 23.31 last year for 5k age 75.

Mopac wrote:

Sean's 50 plus 5k is 14.53 and his 10 30.49

Aussie Keith Bateman ran 15.29 and 31.52 at 55.

Kiwi legend Derek Turnbull ran 16.39 and 34.42 at 65.

Monica Joyce ran 16.19 at 50.

A friend of mine Lavinia Petrie clocked a pretty handy 23.31 last year for 5k age 75.

Those are some awesome times. Amazing what some people can do.

I just spent 2 hours 45 minutes watching the entire 2016 Olympic Marathon on Youtube at

.

Time well-spent I thought, but it did eat up my entire evening and now I will miss my own workout. Maybe for the best because I am hurting as usual.

Roger Robinson recently clocked a 25 something 5k virtual race. Roger is in his 80s and has had both knees replaced!!

He was an A grader in his day and I think won either Boston or NY masters division many years back.

Also an excellent writer.

As expected, our Fourth of July race will go virtual this year. And I expect our club half in September will also be virtual. Last week, our county had 17 new cases. That's down from 22 in the previous week, but we had mass test in that week. So I don't think the covid situation is getting any better in my neighborhood.

My week.

T: 6km.

R: 6 km.

F: 6km.

SU: 8.9km.

So I ditched my "jog-walk" routine, and did continuous runs in all four days. I also did my Sunday's run on a longer loop (1.78km) that I used to run regularly instead of the shorter loop (750m) I was doing for several weeks. It has turns in both directions, but my knee handled it just fine. It's not 100% yet, but the only time it hurts is when it is twisted in some unexpected way. So I am definitely improving.

Most of my last few weeks have been great results in my running.

I am having some pain and problems in the dog bites I received in early May.

The last Saturday of May I ran in a small meet...in the 1500/800/400/200. The 400 was a really good result but the others were great. I was shocked by my 200 time!

On the 6th of June at my Indigenous nation, I ran the 1 Mile and the 880y on the old track. The mile was not so good because it was more than 10 seconds slower to the 1500 equivalency than the week before. I know my dog bite injuries bothered me in that race.

Last Saturday, the 13th, with some other runners I did a self-timed 1/2 mile X 2 with a 3+ minutes recovery between them, and the 1st one was fast and the 2nd one was even faster. I ran them preparing for a Mile race.

OkaOkchakko69: Dog bites from a month ago are still bothering you? Whoa, I hope it's nothing serious and gets better soon.

Some thoughts from watching the entire 2016 Olympic Marathon on Youtube last night:

The announcers, who were mostly quite good and knowledgeable I thought, kept talking about how the race was slow "because Olympic marathons are always slow--they are about the medals, not the times."

That was their reason why all these 2:05 guys were running 2:10+ pace.

I disagree. Does an Olympic marathoner wake up on race day and say, "I could run 2:05, but I would rather run 2:12 and get a medal"? No, of course not. That would be nonsense.

It also doesn't explain why all these 2:05-2:08 guys immediately fell off the back of the pack in Rio when the pace got faster, even though the new pace should have been manageable if they were running their best times.

Here's my opinion as to why Olympic marathons in general, and this Rio marathon in particular, are slower races in which runners do not post their best times.

1. It's SUMMERTIME. Everyone runs slower in the summertime, especially in distance races. In this case, it was summertime in Rio. The week before in the women's race, there was blazing sun and high temperatures and a big chunk of the field DNF'd. The men were luckier in that it was overcast for their race, but it was still in the 80s and so humid it was actually raining at the start. No one runs their best times in hot humid conditions.

2. No one in the field had ever run this course before. Top marathoners have a chance to get accustomed to Boston, New York, Berlin, etc. But an Olympic marathon is usually a one-off race that almost everyone is running for the first and only time in their lives. Maybe some of the runners had jogged parts of the course beforehand, but in these urban races, it is impossible to shut down the city until the actual day of the race.

3. The course is not optimized for speed. Olympic marathon courses are cobbled together, usually in urban areas, as one-off events. Who knows why the final route is selected? Maybe the organizers want the course to go through the best parts of town that will look good on TV: no one wants the runners to wend their way through the notorious Rio favelas, where they will all be robbed and stripped naked if not murdered for the sake of any gold jewelry they may be wearing. The Rio course in particular was hellacious: full of hairpin turns. We're talking REAL hairpin turns, where the runners have to turn on a dime and reverse direction multiple times. This means slowing way down, turning on your heel, then speeding way up. Who sets up a major marathon with conditions like that? What were the organizers thinking? Were they thinking?

Anyway, these are my takeaways. Other than my criticisms above, I thought it was an entertaining race with good announcers and well worth watching.

I was told it was windy on the back stretch and he had to go around lane one obstacles. It was at Kezar in San Francisco. He had two good pacers though.

Beautiful sunny day here, cloudless sky, 72 F. with light breeze.

My rehab plan (designed by me), called for me to jog 1.75 miles at 12:00 mile pace.

However, I have always been extremely poor at doing what I should do, so I jogged 3.0 miles in 29:54 (9:58/mile).

To my surprise, checking my logs, that is the farthest I have run since Feb. 3, 2019.

Good runs to all!

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:

I disagree. Does an Olympic marathoner wake up on race day and say, "I could run 2:05, but I would rather run 2:12 and get a medal"? No, of course not. That would be nonsense.

while i'd agree with most of your assessment of why the pace was slow (especially the heat), i think you miss that that is exactly why athletes WILL say i'd rather get a medal in a tactical race. if you believe you're in 2:05 shape, you're still not going to want to take risks in extreme weather, especially in the marathon.

that said, my limited experience with knowing/training with olympians: they ABSOLUTELY look at the olympics from a medal standpoint first, time goals second. a medal ends up being a lucrative piece of hardware in terms of appearance fees and sponsorships. so yes, if i had the choice of running 3:32 (that'd be 5 seconds faster than i ever ran) and an olympic bronze, i'd take the bronze. i bet duane solomon would trade his 4th place 800 in 2012 (1:42, a time that would have won every other olympics and put him at #2 on the all-time u.s. list) for a slower time and a medal. of course, the two goals are often intertwined, but watch the 1500m/5k/10k races on the track and you'll see incredibly tactical races in the last few olympics for this reason. also, they'll wait for diamond league races with pacers to take on time goals.

so yes, i think many olympians wake up and think: my goal is to medal. and at least half the field in distance races knows their best chance depends on tactics and not superior fitness...

that's my story and i'm sticking to it,

cush

Of COURSE if you could choose either a medal or a fast time, you would choose a medal. That goes without saying. My position is, if you want a medal, it makes sense to run faster. I don't think it makes sense to think that you will improve your medal chances by running slower.

Yes, it's true that 90% of the marathon field is happy to dick around and run 2:10+, first because that's the best they can do under ANY circumstances (so actually they aren't dicking around, they're redlining), and second because they have no chance to get a medal if everyone runs as fast as they can.

But the 2:05 guys, they should be trying to run 2:05 (or whatever best time they can achieve on that day in those conditions), because that's going to give them their best chance to medal. And in fact, I believe the 2:05 guys would have run 2:05 in Rio if they could, but because of all the reasons I gave, they simply couldn't do it that day in that race in those conditions. The TV announcers were trying to sell the idea that the race was slow because for some counter-intuitive reason you do better at the Olympics by running slower, and I don't believe that's what was going on.

I actually think your best point was saying that no one wanted to take a risk in Rio because the conditions were hot and humid, not to mention no one was familiar with the course. So Kipchoge and the fast guys went out on the slow side to not risk blowing up, and when Kipchoge realized he was going to have enough in the tank to go faster and maintain it till the finish, he cranked up the pace till no one could stay with him.

If the 2016 Olympic Marathon had been held (for example) on the Berlin course in good running weather, I think you see much faster times and a different set of results. Kipchoge probably still wins, but maybe not as easily. I don't know if Lalesa (spelling?) still gets silver. Rupp definitely doesn't get bronze--he finishes maybe 10th and gets kudos for running so fast in only his second marathon. Jared Ward, the American who finished a totally surprising 6th in Rio in 2:11:30, and doesn't run faster than that until 2019, maybe finishes 26th if the race is in Berlin. His Rio 6th place was truly outstanding for him, and all I can figure out is that he must have done a really, really good job of 1) peaking for Rio; and 2) pacing himself under challenging conditions that saw a lot of faster guys blow up.