50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

pretty good week on my end -- even when it's hot/humid or raining hard out there, running at least gets me away from the noise in our condo -- big project to replace pipes has reached our unit.

M 45:00

Tu 1:15

W 1:10 with 5 X 3:00 (2:00 jog) at 5k effort (thru 800 in average of 2:58)

Th 1:10

F 1:15

Sa 1:00 with 2 X 10:00 (2:00 jog) at 1 hour race pace (through 1.5 miles in 9:30 down direction on bike path, 9:35 in up direction)

Su 1:20

have a great week,

Dave

Allen1959 wrote:

F - 4.0 miles (splits 9:36, 8:45, 8:00, 7:35)

Allen1959, your time-trial splits tell me you aren't doing an effective warm-up. Your first mile should not be two minutes slower than your fourth mile (but you know this).

If I were doing a 4-mile time trial by myself, my mile splits would probably be similar to each other, with small differences. Here's a typical relative rank of my splits (back in the day when I could actually run with full effort):

Mile 1: Second-fastest mile (going a little fast because I'm fresh)

Mile 2: Third-fastest mile (steady-state because I've settled down)

Mile 3: Fourth-fastest mile (getting tired)

Mile 4: Fastest mile (because I can run to exhaustion)

If I were you, I'd look to make your 4-mile time trial a lot faster over-all by doing whatever it takes to start that first mile well warmed-up and ready to go. Just a thought. I know you are a lot better runner than I am, but sometimes it helps to have another pair of eyes look at the picture. It's also possible you have already thought of all these things and you just don't care about your over-all time because it's just a workout with no time goal, which of course is totally fine, and it's none of my business what your workout goal should be.

Allen1959 wrote:

F - 4.0 miles (splits 9:36, 8:45, 8:00, 7:35)

Or you could start with a really good warm-up, and with the same fitness level, run your over-all time trial a lot faster, with splits like these:

8:00, 8:05, 8:10, 7:35

which puts you comfortably below 8:00 pace over-all.

Notice that you could actually run your third mile 10 seconds slower, and the last mile same as before, but you haven't given away tons of time in those first two miles.

I think strength isn't your problem, so you could afford to burn some energy with a good warm-up.

I wouldn't have said anything, but you called it a "time trial," which tells me you want a good time over-all.

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:I wouldn't have said anything, but you called it a "time trial," which tells me you want a good time over-all.

Thanks for the feedback, but bad writing/editing on my part. After posting, I saw that it could be confusing.

"Final mile equaled my 1-mile time trial from June 28, that seems like progress. Looking to schedule another TT this week."

Should have said "another ONE-MILE time trial," the previous being in June. That 4-miler was NOT a time trial, just a hard effort, especially after the turn-around point. I would definitely incorporate a warmup prior to a TT, or any sort of workout.

Wasn't it great to see DL track on TV again? That 5000m was amazing!!! Plus, the Music City Distance Carnival was on Youtube last night including the master's mile in which an ATC teammate of mine placed second. Great mile and 3200 runs by some fast highschoolers.

A recovery week for me after my race on Sunday:

Sun Race

Mon off

Tue 6.0 E, 2000m swim, strength

Wed 6.3 Fartlek (12 x 1H/1E)

Thu 6.0 E, 2900m swim, strength

Fri 6.0 E, 25.7mi bike @ 21.2mph

Sat 7.0 E

I'm trying to find some fall races to keep me motivated since I should finish my 500 mile Blue Ridge Challenge this week. I'm considering entering the Natl Senior Games in Nov, 2021, but I need to participate in a real 5k or 10k race in 2020 in order to qualify. That's going to be a challenge.

I don't know about any of you other posters, but I find it difficult to keep up with the thread when workouts are posted on a daily vs. a weekly basis. Historically, we have posted on a weekly basis following LucKY's update. I find that's a more efficient way to catch up with everyone than having to read through pages of posts. Just a suggestion.

This week saw our third (or fourth?) official heat wave of the summer. Thus the mileage was intentionally reduced primarily thanks to a few HHH days. So put me down for about 17 miles of actual running. Felt fortunate to get a more typical run in yesterday when the heat index dropped back to two digits. Temps are moderating, but having trouble shaking the tropical humidity. Did not really “touch on speed” this week, but hope to do more in that area soon. Looking forward to fall!

Sun: 44’ CR; body wt ex

Mon: off

Tues: 37’ CR; swim; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 43’ running; 16 oz. curls

Fri: off

Sat: 54’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Best to most!

Dave: your weeks are always impressing. I cannot keep on training daily. Not yet. On Friday, I ran out of glycogen. I achieved a streak of 15 good training days until Friday. However, this week started pretty tired from the last week with high volume and intensity.

Mo 10x100m with walk back

Tu 8.5 miles easy

We 1 h drills, jumps and sprints uphill

Th 8.5 miles easy

Fr 3x400 m uphill with jog down. Very humid and tired legs/overheated, pulled out and called it a training week

Sa 6 miles easy hilly. Very humid and tired legs/overheated. Stopped after 6 miles and walked home.

Su nice walk in the forest. No desire to run.

Hoping for cooler weather and trying to replenish my glycogen afap. Would like to learn more about the right nutrition for folk like us.

Monaco made me a bit sad. I have no more fun to see some of the historic performances. No trust in lions. Call me like you want. Great race of Jakob and Jake. Liked the 800m very much.

Have a good week!

I finally am going to do some mild whining about my usually wonderful running weather. This was another good effort week on my current hard runs on Wed and Sat training program. However, Saturday's run started at about 81F and was up to about 86F by the end of the run. It was 6 miles and the first 3 went well at high 7s pace. Then the wheels kind of fell off as I overheated and struggled back the last 3 for a 9:00/mi average. 27 miles of running for the week plus about 5 miles of paddling my new SUP board.

M- rest

T- paddle 2mi

W- 8mi hills 9:19/mi, plus paddle 2mi

Th- 60 minutes learning to surf my SUP board

F- 7mi walk plus strides

S- 6mi trails 9:00/mi

Su- 7mi walk

The balancing effort on my new board is noticeably fatiguing my hamstrings and glutes. Hopefully, that will translate to more running strength. My team mates are talking up a team 4 mile race in 4 weeks. I'll probably give that a go then,

Good running to all!

SCgal wrote:

Wasn't it great to see DL track on TV again? That 5000m was amazing!!! .

You bet it was! SCgal, I loved your race report. First, I’m really glad to know that actual races are occurring somewhere other than just the pro circuit. Second, the guy handing you his bike to ride was wonderful. Third, your choosing to run in with your injured friend, given that your own overall race was blown up anyway, was classy. So many things can go wrong in a triathlon! Best wishes on your next opportunity.

Racerdb, yes, a good road bike makes all the difference. If I weren’t so worried about getting clobbered by a texting driver I’d ride mine a lot more. I always tell my husband (the cyclist) that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my bike except the engine…

Rtype, I totally agree with you about heat. I’ll be so happy when we get to October.

Allen1959, great to see the progress!

Brittle, wow that breakfast sounds nice! I’ve been longing for my favorite breakfast restaurant for five months now. Although they do have outdoor patio seating, they haven’t reopened except for takeout and catering, which just isn’t the same.

dhaaga, nice week! Keep up the good work.

ogII, you’re in San Diego, right? Yesterday I did notice that even Santa Cruz was over 90 degrees. The high of 104 we had here is not unusual, but 85 degrees at 7:15 am, which we had today, is unheard of. If I wanted midwestern weather I’d go live there.

This was a bad week for me. For about a year I’ve been dealing with a chronically mildly sore right hip/sacroiliac that never bothered me much when running but never went away—distinct from the severe and diffuse muscle stiffness and soreness that hit suddenly in March and am still trying to get definitively diagnosed. Suddenly the hip flared up this week, and on Tuesday, about half a mile into my run, my hip suddenly went into spasm and I stumbled and nearly fell. That should have been a wakeup call, but I didn’t pay attention. The next day about a quarter-mile into my run it spasmed again, I couldn’t pull my right leg forward fast enough, and I crashed to the pavement, skinning a knee but suffering no structural damage. I walked home, pumped the tires on my bike that’s hardly been used this year, rode for half an hour and called it a day.

Then we were hit by that midwestern-style heat wave affecting the whole western third of the country. Thursday and Friday I just went for short bike rides; Saturday and Sunday I jogged carefully for 4-5 miles and then got on the bike for short rides. Alas, this is near the peak of goathead season and it’s impossible to ride a bike very far without getting a flat. My luck ran out on Saturday, four miles from home. I ended up sitting on a sidewalk in the shade in front of someone’s house with a freshly watered lawn (yes it was nice and cool there, thank you) nearly breaking my thumbs wrestling the oh-so-tight tire back onto the rim after changing the tube.

I ended up with a grand total of 31 miles for the week, my lowest mileage week this year. The hip feels somewhat better, but I think I need at least several more very easy days, and given the prevailing weather conditions doing anything else is going to be very hard for the foreseeable future.

Hang in there, everyone. Summer is almost over, I hope!

8/15/20 Saturday 719am 75 degrees overcast & muggy.

61.5 yo black male 150lb 6ft.

Total 14.15 miles 8k easy to moderate. 5x1k @ 345,356,354,342,357 (all with 90sec R except 3rd 1k 2min R ) 8k easy to moderate.

8/16/20 Sunday 651am 75 degrees clear less humid.

7 miles easy to moderate 754,620,603,600,541,543,

507,503,438,439,425, & .20 @1215.

Cheers to yall.

SCgal wrote:

I don't know about any of you other posters, but I find it difficult to keep up with the thread when workouts are posted on a daily vs. a weekly basis. Historically, we have posted on a weekly basis following LucKY's update. I find that's a more efficient way to catch up with everyone than having to read through pages of posts. Just a suggestion.

Life is messy and sometimes overflows the bounds we try to set for it.

Many years ago, I used to participate in a thread on another board, to which it was the norm for everyone to post daily. On that board, I believe most people found that posting daily provided a little boost of motivation to follow their workout schedule. It was also more of a social board, with people sharing their thoughts and personal news, and often getting together in real life for races and running-related meet-ups.

I understand the tradition may be different here, and I am not seeking to change anyone else's habits. Personally I have a higher level of interest than once-a-week posting. For one thing, posting more often helps motivate me to train. I don't have any real-life running friends.

My suggestion is that everyone post as often as they like, and read as much of the other posts as they like. Since this is Sunday, let us recall God's Final Message to His Creation, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe books: "We apologize for the inconvenience."

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:

the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe books

Oops, that would be Galaxy, of course! It's been a couple decades since I last read those books.

Charlie wrote:

Cavorty if the 6:53 for 5 miles at 138bpm is correct you are in great shape! What is your RHR and your MHR? JDs vDOT of 61 easy pace is 7flat ....16:49.

Effects of aging on vDOT would be an interesting study.

WAG vDOT not do accurate as we age.

Fur instance I can run 7 minute pace at 144bpm which is about 70 percent of mhr but the effort feels like about 80 percent of mhr. Even though my rhr and mhr are the same now at 64 as they were in my eary 40s.

Slogged 50 minutes every day except for a couple of faster days:

Monday

6x75" sand dune medium effort full recovery

2x30" sand dune all out full recovery

5 minutes fartlek rolling twisty dirt trail

Wednesday

3x a mile up a slight hill worth about 20 seconds full recovery

7:00 hr 132

6:45 hr 140

6:30 hr 148

Building a big base which I enjoy

Onward!

I think it's pretty accurate. It was 2.5 miles out, turn round and run back, stopped exactly on 5 miles, and I finished a few yards from where I started. HR appears accurate in that it was behaving logically through the run (so to be wrong it would have to be consistently x beats off).

I've had several runs that come out at 61 Vo2max on the Garmin lately.

The weaker ankle/calf has stopped me doing any speedwork, and I've done virtually no long runs, an no hills, or V02max pace either, but I've had several months of running most of my runs at between 3 to 6 miles in the 6:55 to 7:30 range (rarely run slower than 7:30 - for example, the recovery run the day after the 5 at 6:53 was 5 at 7:20).

It's hard to tell where I would be with a systematic training plan. I ran around 17:50 in a very hot and humid Chicago summer when I was 55 and 18:00 on the road when I was 56. I've been injured on and off ever since, but did run 11:31 for 2 miles on road when I was 60.

Until I was injured, I'd actually been improving fitness from 50 to 56.

The current foot/ankle discomfort has nearly cleared up, and I'm hoping that I can then get back to strengthening the weak calf.

Plan at the moment would be to have a 10 day or so break in about a months time - would be a typical 'end of track season' break when I was in England - and then start back with a winter base.

If I got back to my best kind of age grading, I'd be looking at around 19:00 at 63, and my longer term goal would be about 19:25 at 65.

Charlie wrote:

Cavorty if the 6:53 for 5 miles at 138bpm is correct you are in great shape! What is your RHR and your MHR? JDs vDOT of 61 easy pace is 7flat ....16:49.

Effects of aging on vDOT would be an interesting study.

WAG vDOT not do accurate as we age.

Fur instance I can run 7 minute pace at 144bpm which is about 70 percent of mhr but the effort feels like about 80 percent of mhr. Even though my rhr and mhr are the same now at 64 as they were in my eary 40s.

Slogged 50 minutes every day except for a couple of faster days:

Monday

6x75" sand dune medium effort full recovery

2x30" sand dune all out full recovery

5 minutes fartlek rolling twisty dirt trail

Wednesday

3x a mile up a slight hill worth about 20 seconds full recovery

7:00 hr 132

6:45 hr 140

6:30 hr 148

Building a big base which I enjoy

Onward!

Sorry, meant to add HR low is about 38, high 165

amkelley,

I have no idea about your spasms. But loss of coordination does not sound good. Please take care of that.

BR from Germany

Good afternoon from Eagle, Idaho. Our weather moved to the Dog Days with projected 100 degree days for the next ten. Fortunately the mornings remain cool and in the 50s at 5:30-7:00 am.

As most of you know, I was diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma Grade 3a Valentine’s Day 2018. My disease is a non-Hodgkin B-Cell Lymphoma; an aggressive blood cancer that is both treatable and cure able. For most patients with my disease the tall hurdle is no progression of the disease 24 months post chemotherapy. Early progression of the disease makes the treatment more challenging. I received the results of my CT scan today which was clean at this 24 month benchmark. Therefore, I can now comfortably have my chemo port removed, and go to annual CT scans. My wife and I plan to celebrate this good news, and our 46th anniversary tomorrow.

Training is progressing with slant toward volume on quality days. Saturday’s session was cut short with dead legs and a quad cramp. I did bump up the weight session to 3 sets, two doubles, and the swimming days to 1,500 yards. I covered a total of 34.5 Igy miles, so a bump from last week.

Monday: AM- 2 miles easy; 6 x 200m good speed / 100m easy; 400m easy; 4 x 500m good swing / 200m easy; 400m easy; 6 x 200m good speed / 100m easy; 1200m easy / walk; PM- 3 mile walk

Tuesday: 1,500yd swim

Wednesday: AM- 2 miles easy; 4 x 1,200m tempo @ 7:15, 7:10, 7:11, 7:03 / 2:00 rest; mile easy / walk; core; weights; PM- 3 mile walk

Thursday: 1,500yd swim

Friday: 2 mile walk

Saturday: mile easy / walk; 4 x 100m repetition @ 25, 23, 23, 21 / 20m walk; 200m walk; 2,000m tempo @ 11:29 / 2:00 rest; 1,800m tempo @ 10:43 (stopped 200m early with quad cramp); 1,000m walk

Sunday: Off

Have a good week.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I received the results of my CT scan today which was clean at this 24 month benchmark. Therefore, I can now comfortably have my chemo port removed, and go to annual CT scans. My wife and I plan to celebrate this good news, and our 46th anniversary tomorrow.

Big congrats, Igy! :-D

May you live to make many more troll posts on this thread. ;-)

thanks for the new word. never heard of "goathead" -- quick google yields descriptors such as "monster" "noxious" "devil's thorn" "puncturevine" -- sounds like quite the menace. Good luck with managing the injury issue.

--dave

dhaaga wrote:

thanks for the new word. never heard of "goathead" -- quick google yields descriptors such as "monster" "noxious" "devil's thorn" "puncturevine" -- sounds like quite the menace. Good luck with managing the injury issue.

--dave

Consider yourself fortunate that you don't know about goatheads. Puncturevine is the other common name I know, and very descriptive. Little nuggets that have very sharp, tough thorns pointing in every direction (kind of like the coronavirus cartoon but pointier and the core is less nicely spherical) so however it lands on the ground, there's a thorn pointing up ready to puncture your foot or bike tire. They make neat little holes in bike tubes that never cause a blowout and are easy to patch, but leak too fast to allow you to ride home without changing the tube. The thorns are short enough that they're completely harmless to any kind of shoes, although if you run through a patch your footfalls click nastily for quite a while until they all break off.

Goatheads are the ideal demonstration of the non-existence of a just and loving God.