50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

I track that every day, for the previous night. So for example on Monday I record the time I went to bed on Sunday night and the time I got out of bed on Monday morning.

Week 69 Monday-Sunday:

Mon 6 (42)

Tue 7 (42)

Wed 5.5 (42)

Thu 5 (43)

Fri 6.5 (42)

Sat 5.5 (43)

Sun 8 (40)

I ran every morning and 4 evenings. Averaged 6 hours sleep per night--not enough. I figure I need 8+ per night, but as long as my resting HR (# in parentheses) doesn't go to 45 I don't worry too much. Notice that my hardest day was Saturday, the extra sleep had more effect on my resting HR than the extra effort. I also took a 1.5-hour nap on Saturday afternoon, not shown in the sleep numbers.

I get to bed about 11 or 11:15 and get up at 5:30. I don't think I've slept 8 hours in my life. Since I was a kid its been the same, about 5 or 6 hours. Whether I was fat or skinny, running 100 mile weeks or, like now, crawling 15, it's stayed remarkably the same. I feel like I do get enough sleep as I feel good and rested in the morning.

WOC,

Nice weekly reports on your workouts. Thanks for sharing them.

Does Thunderhill Court mean anything to you? From the past? From the Southwest? I ran many a long run from Thunderhill Court many years ago and am wondering if that rings a bell with you......

I've never been more than a 5-6 hour a night man either. Working shift work makes a regular routine difficult.

I'm doing night shift the next 2 nights so won't get home until 8.30am. I was awake around 6am this morning so I will go 26 plus hours without sleep then probably only get a 4hr sleep tomorrow and then again on saturday. I will be back to "normal" saturday night.

I get between 6 and 7 hours of sleep a night. 7 seems adequate, a few nights of 6 and I start to feel it. Integrated over the week, I'd say it averages to 6-1/2, and is not quite enough. Every couple of weeks, I'll have a sleep catch-up day, but it's never enough, and it's not really the right way to do it, either.

That must have been "dazzling" Darren.... He didn't ever have the best marathon prep. IMO.

Good pickup there Dr T. You have to be an Aussie, possibly Melbourne based if you recognised the might Dazzler by his stats. If I'd been managing him I would never have let him move up to the marathon. He had the capacity to get low 27s and sub 60. A couple more solid years of good diet and no grog/late nights and who knows what he might have done.

Mo'Pak, I knew Dazzling Darren from his AIS daze..... I was 'Berra based at that time and spent many Wednesday and Sunday morning running long with Creighton, Carroll, Higgins elder statesman Deek, etc etc etc, and painful Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays.. you obviously know well the weekly training program :-).

I have been away for 2 weeks to visit the grandchildren and also it was our 36th wedding anniversary. I have just started my base work training between 12 to 16 weeks. Here is the last two weeks -

WEEK ONE

MON 5 MILES

TUE 3 MILES

WED 8 MILES - 20 MINS AT AHR - 141

THU 4.5 MILES RECOVERY - LEGS SORE MORE MY CALVES

FRI 4.2 MILES

SAT 7.2 MILES 20 MINS AT AHR - 140

SUN 4.5 MILES

TOTAL 36.4 MILES

WEEK TWO

MON 6.2 MILES

TUE 8 20 MILES MINS AT AHR - 141

WED 5.2 MILES

THU 8 20 MILES MINS AT AHR - 141

FRI 5.1 MILES

SAT 7 MILES FINISHED WITH 10 X 150MTS STRIDES

SUN 4.2 MILES - (TOMORROW)

TOTAL 44 MILES

Watched the Berlin Marsthon and was disappointed yes it was a fast time but no race!! I hope Chicargo is a better race. I am not keen on pacemakers I prefer a good old fashioned race like it was in my day hahaha!!!! :)

Week 70: 9 hours 28 minutes in 9 runs, 1 of them a workout

Tue 1 hr 36 with 5x hill, moved to a steeper hill this week so ditched the drills and shifted the strides to the easy runs.

Speaking of side stitches, I had my first attack in ages on Friday's easy PM run. Also accompanied by a weird pain in my left shoulder/pectoral. I can safely say that the stitch was brought on by eating a HUGE quantity of food within 1.5 hours of running, when I got out of work early and ran at 2:30 instead of 6:30. The stitch lasted less than five minutes, I did some strides and it went away, replaced by an urge to vomit, which I quelled. The shoulder pain must have been some compensation for the stitch, it disappeared at the same time.

The week was cut short by a sprained ankle on this morning's long run. Not the worst sprain I've ever had, I should be out of action three to seven days depending on how it recovers. Three days of slow walking and then I'll start testing it. Watch out for random tree nuts hiding under the leaves. Run healthy, everybody.

alf tupper wrote:

I am not keen on pacemakers ...

Half of me agrees and yet without the pacemakers Berlin would lose much of its interest. Or was there a different reason you watched this one?

The Pacemakers do spoil a race to me I really enjoyed the Olympic Marathon both the mens and womens because it was a race and it was about winning! Yes Berlin does hold a special interest to me because years ago I finished second one year and won the race a couple of years later. Both times they were pure races with no pacemakers. Cheers

Mon - Worked a double shift so didn't manage to get anything else done.

Tue - Went out to the Quarry Hill Golf Course before work. 15 min. warmup run then did 5 x 850m undulating with 200m uphill finish. 3.30,3.30,3.25,3.24,3.19. 1 min walk recoveries. Then did 4 x 300m alternating uphill and downhill with 1 min walk rec. 1.27 for both of the uphills and 1.00 for both downhills. 15 min jog to finish off.

Wed - 1 hour of solid kyak work on the lake before work.

Thu - 2 hours 20 min trail running from home up into the National Park. 4 times up and over the top of the ridge (from different directions)about 600m of elevation gain accumulated.

Fri - Poor sleep after working night shift (2.5hrs), went out in the afternoon for 2 hours on the mountain bike riding on fairly fast trails and farm roads/tracks. Highlight was skidding to a halt 2 metres short of a 1.5 metre Eastern Brown Snake. Beautiful creature but one I was happy to avoid contact with.

Sat - Better sleep after the night shift this time (5hrs). Slept too well actually because I had some thought of heading into town to the first of our track meets. Didn't get out of bed until 1.30 so gave it a miss.

Went out later in the day and ran for 2 hours up the back with 3 climbs over the top. Pace was pretty slow, just getting it done after a tiring work week. Nicely timed to pass the lookout point right on sunset, I did the same on thursday too.

Sun - Walked across the other side of the highway to the Argyle State Forest. Did 2 laps of a pleasantly challenging 5k trail loop. 1st one in a leisurely 26.00, 2d one was in a sharper 21.30. Felt pretty good, gave me a chance to break in a new pair of Merrells.

Not too bad a week running wise. Missed out a bit bike and kyak wise. Monday's unplanned double shift threw me out of whack. Good to stretch out on tuesday and again today. Despite weeks of just jogging around on the rugged terrain I seem to have not lost much pace.

I'll be 50 on 12/21 and looking forward to joining y'all!

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Week 70

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Good morning, 50+ers. The weather tide turned abrupty yesterday, and we're suddenly not getting out of the 50's. What happened to those nice 60-degree days? Hopefully, they'll show up before we get into late fall weather. The Chicago marathon is underway as I write this; I have fond memories from my trip there a few years back, even if I blew up and positive-splitted by over 10 minutes (1:25,1:37). They really know how to put on a marathon. Meanwhile, the US Masters Marathon Championships are taking place in Minneapolis today. I'll be interested to see how Kevin Castille does; this is the first time that he feels that he has properly prepared for the marathon; he told me that learning how to negotiate nutrition has been a key difference in his training.

On to my week. I had a enjoyable and solid week of training. I really feel like I've turned a corner in my training, and hope it will be reflected when I hit some races here in the coming weeks. I logged 56+ miles on 8 runs in 7 days. The log book looks as such:

Sun: 8.2 w/3.5@6:05 pace

Mon: 3.5 easy

Tues: 7.2 easy

Wed: 8.3 w/3x(3laps@5k pace,30s rest, 1lap@mile pace, 2lap jog)

Thur: 6.1 easy

Fri: 10.1 (5 easy to moderate AM, 5.1 easy on grass PM)

Sat: 12.7 progressive for first 7.7 (from about 7:40 down to about 6:25), easy for last 5

Notes:

1) Regarding Sundays hard tempo: Last week I intimated I needed to run some longer tempos. It wasn't really planned, but one of my running buddies started running our club run at a high pace from the start, and I took off with him. He wasn't planning on holding that pace, but somehow it just felt good, so I kept it up. I was then joined by the young faster frenchman, which gave me good motivation. It honestly felt very controlled, and I really only started to feel it with about 3/4 miles left in the 3.5 mile section thanks to a decent hill that we had to climb.

2) Wednesday's track workout was meant to work on some finishing speed on tired legs. The 5k pace I was shooting for was 17:40, and I hit that on the first, and the 2nd and 3rd were progressively faster. All the 1 laps were right around 70-71 (which translates to 74-75 on a 400m track).

3) On Friday, I ran a moderately-paced (~7:10) 5.1 in the morning, then knowing the weather was turning, I ran another easy 5 in the afternoon. I had a meeting at our other campus on the far end of town in the early afternoon, and used the opportunity to run on the grass at Masterson Station Park (where the USATF Club Cross-country Championships will be held) afterward. Was great to run out there, and makes me think I need to go over there more often. The course will be a little different than what it was 3 years ago, owing to the fact that they extended the dog-run park into that great start funnel that we had. I'm still not sure where the start will be.

4) I thought Saturday was going to feel a lot chillier than it did. High was in the mid-50's, but it was sunny and only light winds. My daughter's boyfriend had an extra ticket to the UK football game (which ended up being lack-luster.) After the game, and after the traffic died down, the weather just felt perfect for a nice run. I started out easy, but once again, I was just feeling really good, and though I started slow, I started racheting up the pace with each mile. I don't have direct miles splits, but I did take splits with my watch along the route and then gmapped it when I got home. From that, I deduced average paces of 7:23 (first 2.8), 6:45 (next 2.5), 6:30 (last 2.4) along this 7.7 mile loop. When I got home, I was planning to do another 2-miles of cool down, but the weather was so nice, I made it another 5, instead. My hip did start to tighten after about mile 11 on the day, so that was also pretty remarkable. Normally, it would have started bugging me during that last section of the progressive run---the hip-raising exercises are definitely working!

5) Everything I did this week felt well within myself. I never felt that I was pushing myself into uncomfortable zones, so that was very encouraging. If there is one cautionary note, it's that the left knee is feeling a little tight this morning. I'll be working on properly massaging the muscles around it today.

OK. That's about all I got. Hope everyone is doing well. Any fall racing to report?

Cheers.

I haven't posted here yet but it's nice reading the posts on the thread. Ran about 60 miles this week; most of it easy running. Strained my calf on Tuesday running a steady run so I had to take the rest of the week really easy; including today.

WOC.....did you used to live in Phx? 36th pl? Thunderhill Ct? I ran several long runs from there many moons ago.....

Mon = 5K, road: medium

Tue = 5K, road: medium

Wed = 5K, trail, 300 foot climb/w 6X 200 meter hill bursts: hard

Thr = rest

Fri = rest

Sat = 4 miles trail with 1325 feet of climbing: medium hard

Sun = 5K mountain/gravel/trail, 304 feet of climbing: medium hard

Total Miles = 16.4

It was A good week.

Okay since I cannot run and therefore get to sleep in tomorrow I have extra time tonight. So it's an opportunity to revisit the dreaded PF (plantar fasciitis). I poked around for previous threads on letsrun, and found plenty of over-confident statements, but no real consensus.

To bypass the ancient history and recap just my recent experience: After being off the running for some weeks in late spring all symptoms cleared up; until one particular yoga session with a super-aggressive downward dog brought the PF back with a bang. My advice is if the yoga instructor says "do more" then think hard before you actually do it.

On the advice of the physician I tried night splints, and for a long four months I was managing with those. I got sick of the status quo, and decided to revisit the Strassburg sock.

http://www.thesock.com/

You may recall that I tried these before but found them too painful due to pressure on the heel. Well I put my subconscious mind to work on this problem and came up with the Superfeet solution. Basically I put a Superfoot(?) inside each Strassburg sock, thus creating a small space behind the heel that keeps the pressure off. The other piece of the puzzle is a foam pad from the craft store (5cm x 38cm x 56cm) to go under the calf and keep the heel off the mattress. (Make sure to trim the pad so it does not touch any part of the under-side of the knee.) I applied the Strassburg socks for four weeks (three weeks and five days to be precise) and can now report the PF is gone.

To be sure, I did a lot of other recommended things for PF: heel drops/calf raises, stretching, foot twirls, toe pointing. (I did not try: ice, golf ball, towel exercises, shoe change, complete rest.) But I did those things all five months. There were two differences between the four months on the splints and the one month on the socks: the first difference was the socks, the second difference was HIGHER mileage and GREATER intensity during the one month with the socks. I am confident in my conclusion that the Strassburg socks were beneficial.

I should warn that even with the Superfeet, the Strassburg socks were never completely comfortable, and sometimes hurt enough to wake me up. This was either because my feet had slipped back against the elastic, or because I had them cranked too aggressively. But I found that I could make some adjustments and get back to sleep. They did not hurt less over the weeks because I kept cranking them tighter as the PF improved. It was only in the last couple of days of use that they stopped bothering me at all. This coincided nicely with the vanishing of the last trace of PF pain on my runs.

been one of them good news/bad news sorta' weeks

good news, 43 miles and "only" 258 miles to 100,000 lifetime miles...bad news, 16 miles(longest in years) yesterday felt like 35 or 40 miles may have once upon a time in the past... good news, recent sharp and scary back spasm injury issue not so much a factor yesterday...bad news, my SF Giants got beat by Cincinnati in first game of playoffs last night...good news,our 49ers totally killed it today in their win over Buffalo...the real bad news is gotta go to Philly tomorrow for my dear sister's burial...good news, will get to run run 13 miles on Philly Marathon course before flying back to left coast...bad news, being 56+ years old and the associated 'new reality' of regularly losing family and friends

for many many years, the act of running, regardless of whether it is competively focused or not, has seen me through countless good times and then without reserve, always(and more importantly) gets me through the absolute worst of times...for this I am MOST thankful

hoping your upcoming week is nothing but good news

warm regards,

MF