50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

D good luck with the 10 sub 64? glute activation fixed my hs issures

Decided to cut my running time down to 30 minutes a day using the easy interval method doing them on a hilly 1 mile loop running the uphills and flats walking the downhills lots of fun.

Interesting at least to me. Doing the SHIRT(super high intensity repeat trng) stimulates muscle strength. I might try using this prior to racing.

SHIRT on the beach 4x30 seconds

next day

SHIRT on the bike 4x30 seconds felt really strong on this so followed up with

Track repeats iow all the rest I want to do em strong relaxed

4x100 22 down to 18

4x200 42 down to 38

2x300 59,58

1x400 76.26( ?,37,58,76) first 300 relaxed last 100 pushed a bit into wind felt strong

rest of the week just std easy int stuff

10th week over 50 miles since May.

Nothing impressive. Taking tomorrow off, then some faster stuff and I do my longer run on the lower mileage week because my legs are more fresh.

On my run this morning I was thinking about how during the course of 43 training years my mind has changed on things..

In the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, I never would have thought of running on sidewalks

I would have thought I was the victim of some repressive whatever if it was implied that I SHOULD run on sidewalks...

I can honestly say nowadays that I can still feel like the hippie wild eyed runner and run on a sidewalk if I have to ha... just thought that was funny.

*Week 492*

Greetings, 50+ers!

Wish I had more positive news, but the week didn't go well. I'm pretty zoomed out at this point (technically we use Teams for most of our online meetings.) I was added to several more action teams and everyone felt we needed to meet last week, plus our academic leadership team had two 3-hour meetings this week (normally we only meet every other week. That and the fact that Lexington has crept back up into the red zone prompting needs to create contingency plans in case we go fully online again have left me pretty drained. Oh, and I still have lectures and labs to prepare. The end of this can't come too soon....but I fear that won't happen. The one day during the week where I had a little free time was of course the day that remnants of zeta came through and made for a nasty cool and rainy day. With motivation so low, I didn't get it done. So three 45+ minute walks and no runs is all I've got for this week.

Nice to read some good news from many of you, especially racerdb on his tenex progress and some really nice training from a bunch of you, so kudos to that.

All for now, every week is a new "adventure". Be safe out there.

All the Best!

PS-my nephew won the Wisconsin State HS D2 XC title yesterday with 0:44 gap to second. So we're pretty stoked about that. I'm embarrassed to say that I believe I stated in an earlier post that he's a junior, when in fact he's a senior. That's what happens when you haven't been back home for a couple of years. His fastest XC time this fall was 15:37 at the sectional meet, and he ran 15:49 on the well-known UW-Parkside course.

Sorry, it wasn't at the Sectional Meet that he got that time, it was a week or so earlier.

Allen1959

Post

M61, 5'11", 172 lbs

Goals: Retain/regain basic level of fitness, manage chronic knee issues, maybe participate in races if they ever return.

I'd like to break a 6-minute mile again some day, and finish one more marathon -- both unlikely. Knees don't allow the training to do either.

OCT 25-31, 2020

Sun-Fri -- Off

Sat -- 7.7 miles @ 8:17/mi (8:57, 8:42, 8:17 ... 7:57, 7:29)

Busy work week and fewer daylight hours conspired against me. Yesterday's run was an easy effort, but I could feel the loss of fitness. Only three runs total in two weeks after maintaining a pattern of three runs per week for several months.

I'm looking to catch up with work commitments by December. Until then, probably just one run per week. And hope I don't lose too much fitness, or gain too much weight.

Be well.

Dhaaga: Always impressed by the amount of time on your feet. Good luck on the 10 miler!

Robert E. Lee: Nice work keeping it over 50.

lucKY: Hope you catch a break someday. May have retire for that! I’m counting down myself….18 months…

Mon – Wed = 4 miles each day

Thr = 3 miles

Fri – Sun = 4 miles each day

27 miles total; 104 for the month of October, all done under a heart rate of 129

I finished out October with 104 miles, the most since 2014. I’ll be adding a tempo run once per week for variety, depending on when a race becomes available.

Have a good one.

Like a couple others here not much accomplished on the running side. Still occupied with winter prep, and a nagging muscle imbalance. A bit of good news, PSA test was 0.71, which is two years of numbers under 1.00. As a result I am getting back on the spin bike, I will monitor PSA for another year. If still under 1.0 in a year, I will not even test in the future.

Have a good week.

Igy

The week was a little lower on volume than I planned but I am trying to pay more attention to how I feel rather than to the training plan I made. The week ended well though. 28 miles running and 4 miles paddling -

M- 4mi walk

T- 6mi with 1mi w.u., 8x400 (1:37 ave) with 400 jog recover, 1mi w.d.; 2mi paddle

W- 4mi walk with strides

Th- tired so rest day

F- 4mi walk with strides

S- 6mi trails with my son 8:00/mi ave (This was a PR for the trail loop we do. My prior best was 8:19/mi)

Su- 4mi walk; 2mi paddle

lucKY, congratulations on your nephew's XC performance.

Good running to all!

LucKY, Teams is the stealthy Zoom beater coming up wide on the outside kerb Mary Keitany-like. And MS hasn't even merged it with Skype yet....Zoom is annoying.

The flat-n-fast course for next Saturday's half marathon was moved to make it pandemic-friendly, and now has 570 feet of climb. So today I ran 12 miles with 570 feet of climb. Most of the run back was into a 15-20mph wind. Came back and did piriformis stretches ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Haven't done those in a long while, just what I needed. Two weeks ago I rediscovered the quad stretch after having trouble recovering from 5x5x300s. It's funny, I don't consider myself a stretch guy — was it MikeF who said in the book, "that's time I could be out running"? — but sometimes the right stretch is like a magic spell.

Other than today's shorter LR and a mini taper end of week, it feels like any other week, 55-60 miles with a workout Wednesday torture of some time. We'll soon know how much hay there is in the barn.

58 for the week, and have kept a steady +/- 60 mpw since early July. No big peaks, no tapers.

This was kind of a recovery week and just added a mile or so a day through the week. I did 2 miles at 5K race pace yesterday to shake things up, and felt okay. Just under 12 today. Last week's snowstorm have slowed/stopped the fires for now and air quality was good all week. Back to warm and dry next week.

This was a reasonably good week by my recent sorry standards. The huge Creek Fire that started 8 weeks ago is still burning and the air quality here still gets pretty iffy on some days, but not bad enough to stop me from doing anything. I managed to run five days out of seven for 54 miles, but I still have no strength in my legs and can barely get under 10 min/mile, so it’s taking me a long time to run 54 miles!

Monday: 10.9 miles at 10:00/mile

Tues: 10.8 miles at 9:49/mile

Weds: 60 min easy spin on bike trainer, 10 mile bike ride with some hills

Thurs: 10.9 miles at 9:49/mile

Fri: 10.5 miles at 10:11/mile

Sat: 11.1 miles at 9:49/mile

Sun: 34 mile bike ride

dhaaga, hoping for good weather and a good outcome on your 10-mile TT.

lucKY2b, congrats to your nephew! I empathize with your remote-meeting-exhaustion. This is the time of the semester when teaching and administration both become intense. At least so far I’ve only seriously had to learn one remote platform (Zoom); people keep threatening us with Teams but it hasn’t materialized, and the one group I have that insists on using Slack isn’t very important.

Igy, good that you’ll be able to get back on the spin bike as the cold and ice of winter looms.

KCgeezer, I’m looking forward to a race report from your HM!

I am very, very nervous about the upcoming election—not just the result, or lack thereof, but the promise of major civil unrest following almost any plausible outcome. I still have the stockpiles of food, etc. that I acquired at the start of the pandemic, so we’re ready to hunker down for a while if necessary…

Greetings, fellow 50+ers! Regarding the very interesting heart rate monitoring discussion, I am a fan. Our sport is very data intensive. We use data to quantify and measure performance, training, physiology, and more. HR data is just another arrow in a coach’s, or athlete’s, quiver. I used HR monitors for a number of years to focus training and understand it’s effects. Today I am no longer training per se, but I still wear a chest strap on every run primarily to monitor my hydration status.

As I mentioned last Sunday, this past week featured a busy non-running schedule. A colonoscopy (all good), a day of volunteering, and a family commitment necessitated a reduction in running. Still I was able to complete 15+ miles of actual running. The hammy thing lingers, my groin niggle makes itself known occasionally, and yesterday I had some knee issues. But I have been able to complete the desired volume albeit without any “speed” work. Life is good!

Sun: off

Mon: 53’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Tue-Wed: off

Thu: 53’ CR; body wt ex

Fri-Sat: off

Sun: 53’ CR; body wt ex

Best to most!

LucKY - Congratulations to your nephew!

Dhaaga - Good luck on the 10-miler

Rtype - I'm retiring in 18 months too. Sooner if possible. Online teaching has done me in.

amkelley - Any luck on getting your referral?

runnerdb - Glad your recovery is going well!

Three days of gale force winds and snow dictated my run schedule this week. We currently have sustained winds of 37 mph and snow with huge waves on Lake Superior that crash ashore and have eroded our beach so much that we lost three trees today. I ordered a big box of Hothands so I could do longer runs without freezing my fingers. Weekly totals: 43 mi. running, 83 mi. biking.

Sun Bike 22.6mi @ 17.8 mph

Mon Blizzard Run: 5.0 Easy, 17.1 Bike

Tue 7.0 Easy

Wed 6.3 Easy, 23.2 bike @ 18.4 mph

Thu 5 Easy + Strides

Fri 12.2 Long Run

Sat 7.1 Easy, 19.7 bike

Long May You Run!

Hey Everyone

checking in two weeks in a row!

Monday Mike 1.5 11:49 on track Michelle 6*800 2R 2:57 down o 2:47 no work on the house

Tuesday Mike 1.5 12:14 road Michele WU 10-5-2:30 tempo (short break 6:31 6:20 6:05 no work on house

Wednesday Mike 1 mile 7:48 Michelle 5 mile at 7:24 no work on house - weather has been crap

THursday 1.55 miles 8:27 pace Michelle yoga and run in the morning and short run with me in the afternoon - her foot was hurting which meant I had to work on it for like an hour to get it back straight again

Friday Mike2.28 miles 8:32 pace Michelle 3 miles easy pre-meet run

Saturday Team Time trial. I ran 6:56 (1 up 1 down) Michelle ran 5:37 chilly and windy with the team

Sunday Mike 1.5 miles 8:10 pace Michelle 8 miles 7:23 pace

We have a5k TT coming up on Friday night with the team. NO work this week as the weather was horrible and my projects are outside. THis week though looks good!

daagha -- good luck on the 10-mile TT. I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

Charlie -- always fun and interesting to see what you're up to.

Robt E -- Impressive block of training. No sidewalks for me -- pure agony for my knees. Actually, my 20-mile loop has a 1-mile section through a nearby village, so I tolerate the concrete for a bit ... then turn onto the canal towpath. Soft, fine crushed-stone -- heavenly!

LucKY -- 2 x 45 mins ain't bad, all considered. More than I managed. Congrats to your nephew. A former co-worker and friend (she introduced me to my wife) was Wisconsin State Champion in 880y. I'm thinking probably 1975 or so? 2:05!

Rtype -- Congratulations on the October "milestone"! Highest mileage in 6 years is a good thing.

Igy -- Good news regarding the PSA results. Mine have been high, the last three blood tests, and my primary keeps referring me to a urologist. I"be been ignoring the referrals, even though my brother is currently dealing with prostate cancer, and my uncle died from it.

Old guy II -- nice week. How late in the year do you continue paddling?

KC -- Good luck in the Half, looking forward to your results -- your training has been great. The course sounds as challenging as my most recent HM. Hope it also doesnt have the 15 90-degree turns I dealt with!

Coyote -- Your consistency is amazing. Waiting in the MD office recently, I was scanning old race results. One year in particular you had a great result at the Subaru 4-Mile Chase! Was that a relation of yours who finished 4th overall woman?

amkelley -- you mention the time investment to train those big miles, and it's something I've always thought about when seeing your schedules. Super impressive to me, a man with horrid time management skills. At present, I am the victim of having scheduled jobs based on my INCOME requirements, rather than realistic time schedules -- and finding at my age I can no longer work 80+ hours a week!

Brittle -- you still out there, man? I miss your banter and your training reports. You were probably the most similar to me regarding fitness and mileage. Plus we went to neighboring high schools in the mid70s!

Alan Bennett -- Are you still out there? At our ages, that is of course not a safe assumption -- every year, I hear of more old friends who have passed on ... Hoping the best for you -- always enjoyed your posts.

SCgal wrote:

"Three days of gale force winds and snow dictated my run schedule this week."

I hear you SCgal. We are getting a taste of those winds here in downstate Michigan as well. Gusts to 40mph and some flurries. I got buffeted around like a kite on this afternoon's easy seven miler.

36th consecutive 50 mile week.

On Friday we drove 400 miles round trip down into southern Ohio so I could run a live 5Km race

Rolling start of social distanced waves of five runners across - Chip time determined the final standings. Interesting course with 90% through a very large old cemetery. One large hill and one other smaller one just past the 1.5 mile mark. The hill and Lots of turns and twists certainly affected the final times. About 150 paid entrants.

I went out a little fast, but basically hung on without completely folding - just no kick at the end.

My time age graded to a 16:15 effort (79.9%), so I am basically okay with that. No taper, cold, long drive etc. (Note, I was the second faster age graded - the second over runner was just 13 and age - graded to 15:56, whew!). There were seven runners within 8.5 seconds ahead of me. They weren't pulling away, but neither was I able to overtake them. I know that first fast mile affected me.

Then on about six hours of sleep, yesterday morning I ran a nice 'slow' 13.1 mile time trial event out north of Ann Arbor with about 65 others. Three waves 15 minutes apart and social distance starts. Beautiful Fall colors on rolling country dirt roads. Basically a light uptempo at about 00:45 over projected marathon pace.

Feeling it a little today - so kept is super relaxed - no watch. Quads are a little mushy.

The best news is the forecast is 60s temp by midweek.

Allen1959, I expect to paddle year round. Water temp in San Diego this morning was 65, and air temp was about 68 at 7:30AM when we started, and well into the 70s when we finished about an hour later. When it gets colder I'll just start wearing my surfing wetsuit instead of the board shorts and t-shirt I was wearing this morning. https://imgur.com/rak9n5j Worst case San Diego Winter is water temp in the low 60s and air temp in the low 50s, maybe high 40s.

Olde Farte -- looks like things are going reasonably well. Ive had some hamstring niggles, too. Thought six days off surer it ... Until I felt a twinge at 6 miles last night. Meanwhile, i think I'm due for another colonoscopy. Ugh. Good to hear you had good results.

SCgal -- Impressive training in brutal conditions!

Coach Rohl -- Those were quick 800's. Nice! Good luck in the 5K TT.

Not done -- Wow, great streak of 50+ mpw. I doubt I've ever had more than three or four consecutive 50+ weeks in 48 years of running! AND it's great to see a real live race report. Congrats on the 79 9%.