50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

August 3, 2020:

3 miles running at the track, slow and untimed, 88 F. (“feels like 93”), mostly sunny, 53% humidity.

Rtype wrote:

Allen1959: Interesting on the Vapors. I wonder if there is a cost to the mechanics of the body? I have a 53 yo buddy who switched to them and now is having knee problems (but had probs before the Vapors too). He’s a high 17 low 18 5K guy and it would be good to hear from on this thread. Wonder if he thinks the Vapors are a factor? Yeah, he’s a damn good runner.

My recent knee problem probably started around the time when I race in my vaporfly. (I had to stop running four weeks later after it got worse.) And I wondered if it was because of the shoes. But then, if that were the case, both of my knees should hurt, and my right knee has been fine. So I don't think that was THE cause. It could be a factor, though.

My week.

M: off.

T: 6 km.

W: 4.8 km.

R: 6 km.

F: 6 km.

SA: 6 km.

SU: 7.1 km.

My plan was to run 6km on each day. But I could not get to the park that I usually go on Wednesday, so I decided to run on a bike trail near my home. I tried to make up the difference by running a bit extra on Sunday, and came up 100m short in total. This was the first week since March that I ran six times, and now I can focus on increasing the volume on each day.

WFH has been good for consistency for this 68 year old. I run four days a week for a total of about 30-35 miles, and cycle three days a week for 75-90 miles. Sometimes I will add in a cycle on a running day to make the week's total four days of each.

Fortunately, no injury issues. I have not been going to the track, so any speed work has been Fartlek.

Done. I've been a rock climber since I was 15 years old ... I honestly thought this would be easy but it definitely was not. I went to 1:48 and was fully maxed.

Nicely done! At 165 lbs

Relatively ezr for me at a buck thirty .

KPdx wrote:

New World Record 4 x 1500m Relay. 16:27.04. And I adore the Bowerman Babes. But is this a good time to brag (when you're injured with a right ankle/foot double stress reaction)? Of course it is. I am Still a proud owner of a leg of the Masters 4x1500 world record with these fine folks....

4 x 1500m Relay

Magill-Paulk-Roman-Young M40-44 2003 Hayward Classic 16:24.12

Hell why stop there?

4 x 800m Relay

Hinton-Pope-Paulk-Young M40-44 2004 Hayward Classic 7:54.17

I re

Y'all have a great week! KP

I remember this well, as I was running on a women's masters team in the same race (at least, on the same track at the same time). We ran under the listed record as well, but never submitted the reams of paperwork to get it ratified (we had no idea how involved it was). I ran leg 3, so started at the 200m mark, but had wandered up to the men's final exchange at the top of the back straight to watch, only to see poor Angel Roman pull a hamstring and basically hop to the hand-off, while his "sympathetic" teammates were yelling at him to "keep going!". lol Good times.

Oops, didn't see Pete's post, but yep, that is accurate and I had the inevitable choice of either starting my leg or seeing if he was okay. (I ran because it was my idea to run the stupid relay in the first place).

I had now fallen FIVE (!!!!!) times during the pandemic, and not once spraining an ankle (my weak spot since I have no ligaments in my ankles now), but landing hard on my ribs three times. The last two times (in the same run), caused my ribs to become somewhat dislocated and making it extremely difficult to breath and impossible to run, or even walk for a while.

I'm attempting to run again and started 10 days ago with 11 x 1 min jog, 1 min walk. When that went okay, with little pain, I've increased that by a minute for each "repeat" so yesterday was 11 x 8 min. So far so good, although last Tuesday I was in great pain again after a new chiropractic adjustment. Today was 4 x 9 min (my off day when I usually don't run at all), and I'll try something like 8-9 x 9 minutes tomorrow and take it from there. So, yes, I'm "Gallowalking" but it's something anyway and actually wound up with 42 miles last week.

For most of my running buddies, this is a stressful time and almost no one is running well, but as one teammate pointed out, we are doing "something" and that is better than not. For my fellow passengers on the "struggle bus" - hang in there. You are not alone.

MG

Yes, Pete... I took the baton from Angel... though we swear it was legally within our exchange zone, I recall running back to him to fetch it. My mediocre 4:10 split... although I believe I flew in from A Nike Sales Meeting pitch in Malta the day before. Not an excuse. just another testament that you can anything if you get your mind right. Or be extra motivated by three teammates counting on you to get it done.

Ah, the younger days of being 44.

Ouch MG, hope you can stay on your feet and healthy, falls at our age are not good. I used to bounce and roll really well. Now things break or tear.

As far as the struggle bus, it's really interesting during this pandemic. Some are thriving and excelling, like Dan King's sub 5 mile at altitude the other month, or like Sean Wade, or Shane Healy this summer. And I've seen a few others just take it to a new level. I have a couple of theories--one is the shoes. Many if not most (not all) are wearing Vaporflys even on the track or for road miles and those seem to make a difference. And another, might be the mid-distance runners can push through with fantastic performances, but maybe it gets more difficult the longer you go. I'm not sure about that, drafting makes a huge difference in the mile, but with 5K and up it's more about fitness. However, I've followed the Masters Milers group on FB and there are so many just killing these workouts.

I'm sort of in-between. Not struggling, and not problems with motivation. But my performance level has dropped 3-4% compared to the last few years. Now have been coming off an injury and took a slow gradual build up, but it's just not there. Not fretting much, because I'm healthy and time trialing just doesn't mean all that much.

After a couple of days off, a couple of easy days, a bit of stretching, I decided to give my hip a test this morning. I ended up doing a threshold 10 miler around 6:45 pace. The hip was good. I felt good running mainly because I have not done much in the last week or so, so was well rested. I will continue to stretch the hip area and monitor my leg length looking for imbalances. Thanks to your suggestions.

TUESDAY, August 4, 2020:

- Regular stretches (11 stretches)

- Upper Body strength (6 exercises)

- Back stretches (9 stretches)

- Lower Body strength (5 exercises)

- Knee strength (2 exercises)

Wednesday 8/5/20 645am 70 degrees 61.5 y/o male 150lb 6ft. Been this weight since high school. 4mile WU +strides & stretching. 10x 200m @ ave 42s with 200m float @ 55s ave. 3min R 2x 100m in 16s with 2min walk btw. 4mile WD. Total 10 miles. A good day.

Cheers to yall.

WEDNESDAY, August 5, 2020:

Lunchtime run at the track, 4 miles slow and untimed, 89 F. ("feels like 93"), mostly sunny, humidity 47%.

This run was excruciatingly slow; I had nothing.

This may have been a heat mirage but at one point I think I was lapped by an old lady using a walker. In fairness to myself, I would like to point out that she had tennis balls attached to the base of the walker's legs: I think that gave her an advantage. Also she had sunglasses and a sunvisor and I didn't. I like to think on a different day in different conditions I could have been more competitive.

Believe it or not, I am running an actual half marathon on Saturday. It’s in a small town in Missouri and it has the blessing of the county health department. They are taking precautions, no volunteers handing out water, masks before and after the race, social distancing in the corrals, etc. I doubt there will be more than 100 of us racing the half marathon. I must admit that after months of running in the park, I’m not very worried about Covid. I am more concerned about staying hydrated since it will be 75 at start, sunny and warming up quickly. I see in between the discussion of Igy’s cheesecake photos some talk about the vaporflys. I will be running in the Saucony endorphin pro which has felt great in training so far. Most surprising to me is how much kick it adds to my short sprints, I wasn’t expecting that.

Muddy girl wrote:

I (have) now fallen FIVE (!!!!!) times during the pandemic, and not once spraining an ankle (my weak spot since I have no ligaments in my ankles now), but landing hard on my ribs three times. The last two times (in the same run), caused my ribs to become somewhat dislocated and making it extremely difficult to breath and impossible to run, or even walk for a while.

I fell too! For no reason!! Had just a sore left pinky for a week so I got lucky.

More seriously I felt pain in my R adductor a few days ago. I told Kid Coach, he said go see my chiropractor, I did, he rolled it out and prescribed a regimen of rolling and no stretching. Later he sent me a sports phys article describing my exact malady. I threw an extra rest day in there and I think I’m ready to go on Saturday. Always see a pro when you can, folks. Best to all.

good luck KCg--go get 'em.

carpe crepusculum,

cush

Okay, I confess the 13 I did last weekend was actually a race. A socially distanced half marathon in the mountains. About 50 people signed up and we started in waves of 10 at every 2 minutes.

Here's the profile screenshot with some of the splits.

https://imgur.com/N3afcUK

My time was slow (1:38) but here's the profile and in an event like this it's all relative. Was 2nd overall, and person who was a head (by 1:40) ran 2:54, 1;20 last year. However, with no real racing to precede who knows what any of that means. I got water from my wife at 5K and 15K, but didn't take any from the aid stations--was getting thirsty in the middle part of the race.

I don't feel like I'm in super great shape, but at same time training has been steady and been feeling decent. I'm thinking of doing a similar event next month, near there, on the XC ski trails that I do during winter. That will be a fun comparison. Have one more virtual race in the meantime (because I'm the one who set it up), but then hopefully I'm done with those for the year.

It was great to get out--first time out of the Denver-Boulder-Nederland area since March.

KCgeezer wrote:

Believe it or not, I am running an actual half marathon on Saturday. It’s in a small town in Missouri and it has the blessing of the county health department. They are taking precautions, no volunteers handing out water, masks before and after the race, social distancing in the corrals, etc. I doubt there will be more than 100 of us racing the half marathon.

I must admit that after months of running in the park, I’m not very worried about Covid. I am more concerned about staying hydrated since it will be 75 at start, sunny and warming up quickly.

KCgeezer, wow, a real race, that's exciting! Sooner you than me in the midwest August heat and humidity, though.

Coyote,congrats on running a real half-marathon race too!

California's Central Valley is now officially designated one of the country's worst hot spots for COVID-19 and there will be no real races of any sort around here for some time. Not that I would want to run a race anytime soon. The moderate-dose prednisone (now down to 5 mg/day) is mostly suppressing the severe PMR symptoms, but my leg strength is kaput and I'm barely able to get down to 9:30/mile anymore. Any distance I would race would surely be a big PW now. Perhaps I should give up on races altogether and just enjoy chugging along at the jogging pace I can now manage.

8/6/20 Thursday 630am easy 50 minutes on the treadmill.

All 6mph or slower good for recovery. 61.5 yo male 6ft 150lb.

Cheers to yall.

“ I see in between the discussion of Igy’s cheesecake photos“

KC, I learned “real narcissistic” from watching RHONY and RHOBH. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Have fun in your half and best wishes on your race.

Igy