50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Anything "poisionous" is of course not good. processed foods is especially tricky in that the nutrients become so easily digestible that they start interacting with the body in unknown and often quickly unhealthy ways. I think whole and normal food with carbs, protein and fats is very safe. No need to be extreeme to any low side on anything. When running a lot the carb need is very high and research is showing that inability to replenish and recover nutrients is an important driver to stagnation and over-training. Carbs are needed to replenish the glucogen levels. Proteins are needed to recover the tissue and muscle tear and wear. What is probably the least needed is excess fats (apart from essential fats). Still, a study on marathon results showed that eating carbs+proteins+fats during the marathon compared to carbs only had a measurable effect on the finish time (up to 5 min). So a well balanced diet in terms of all basic nutrients is needed.

I try out extra proteins since the older you are the less protein uptake and recovery is happening. Elevated protein intake might help. I also take care eating protein and carbs immediately after training.

This morning one of our local ladies Jill Wilkie ran a virtual marathon along the O'Keefe trail finishing in my town. A number of friends paced her throughout the run. It was wet and windy on dirt trails with muddy sections with some decent hills. She clocked 3.00.27. I am not sure of her exact age but recall her running a 3.04 in the 50 plus category of a marathon in 2017. She may now be in the 55-59 age group.

Virtually fast.

She is 55 I believe. I would think on fast flat roads her run would be low 2.50s. It was a crappy windy morning here this morning and heavy overnight rain has made the trail quite soft. My mountain running buddy Lisa had told me Jill was flying often pushing our top 55 male on training sessions.

Pretty impressive running.

Yes, that is impressive. We have a gal about the same age who was national class marathon runner as a youngster winning Cal International and Honolulu back in the 1980s. Same in that she pushes guys of similar age. She races an occasional half marathon and 5k. Still a very good runner, but I don’t think she could handle the volume required for a fast marathon like your local lady.

definitely not till it hurts, and I don't even do this if it's acting up a lot. I don't time it but maybe 10 sec or so? first thing in the morning.

disclaimer: As i understand it, everyone who actually knows what they're talking about (which is not me) favors stretching after running. I've tried that and just seem unable to stick with it. Creature of habit -- when i started running at age 14, the norm was to stretch beforehand. I remember that a very good local ultra runner, Peter Monahan, was famous for just starting to run (slowly at first), not so much as one toe-touch beforehand, and we all thought he was crazy

--Dave

[quote]Zillionaire wrote:

Thanks for the helpful replies!

@dhaaga - those are some great suggestions. I am always a little nervous about stretching (tip#4), though - is that something you do before or after a run? And do you stretch until it hurts? And for how long?

Stretching is something I am trying no to over-complicate. Before a "real" workout, I am warming up and know that some minutes of fast running is improving the warm up. Then, I do whatever feels to loosen me up. Some stretching, some short accelerations, some drills, maybe 200m relaxed walking. Leg swinging... I do whatever looses my muscles and opens my stride. Never felt the urge to stretch until it hurts to make me ready to run fast. If I cannot loosen up myself, then I should call it a day.

After running, I learned by trial and error that stretching the hammies is helpful to keep the muscle tonus low enough to avoid tensions afterwards. Here, I am stretching (and due to time constraints I am only tretching the hammies) to get back the full range of motion even if it hurts a bit at the beginning. After some stretching there should be no pain, just free and painless full range of motion. If I cannot reach the free and painless full range of motion, then I know, the hammies need a day off. Never got trouble with too high tonus of other muscles.

However, it is my experiment of one. Everybody seems different. And everybody changes by time.

Cheers

Owain Lewes wrote:

Good work. Plenty of cycling in there and I think the value of threshold work should never overlooked.

Will you introduce any VO2 work?

I just changed block 1 from hard, meaning from over threshold (CV) to less or at threshold. I also tried crazy blocks of hard workouts on consecutive days before summer. So I come from harder training and should have the vo2max well developed. But the testing day every other week is at a 13min race pace so you can say I race every second week. I also do these 30s sprints which are lactic. I think that in sum is enough hard stimulus. It's like slightly recover,peak and race every other week.

As long as I improve on the testing, it's fine. If I stagnate I can always do a hard block to see if I improve.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Yes, that is impressive. We have a gal about the same age who was national class marathon runner as a youngster winning Cal International and Honolulu back in the 1980s. Same in that she pushes guys of similar age. She races an occasional half marathon and 5k. Still a very good runner, but I don’t think she could handle the volume required for a fast marathon like your local lady.

Jill has been running 70 to 90 km most weeks hasn't topped 100 km a week in the lead up months.

Very talented and pretty darn tough.

Greetings, fellow 50+ers! And a belated Happy Veterans Day to those who served, or are currently serving. Thank you for your service!

This was week two of storm cleanup and there was no shortage of things to get done. Most of my efforts involved brush cleanup/disposal and fence mending. Naturally after that was done, Friday brought us a lesser, but still potent, storm that damaged some parts of the fencing that had been weakened by the earlier storm. So those repairs have been added to the to-do list for the upcoming week. After that I should be just about set except for some house trim repairs that will require a professional.

The good news is that there was still time for running and the weather on my running days cooperated nicely. I was able to continue my personal “build back better” plan to the tune of about 22.6 actual running miles! 🏅 That included several “long” runs and a touch of “speed”. I have some medical appointments coming up this week which will undoubtedly affect my running schedule somewhat. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I’ll be able to get at least 3 good runs in. Life is good!

Sun: 62’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Mon: off

Tues: 63’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 45’ running (3); 16 oz curls

Fri: off

Sat: 62’ CR w/ utility pole fartlek (5 x 2 on/off); body wt ex + med ball routine

Best to most!

Hi all - our grandad is 99 and a month, and is one of 250,000 WWII vets living. There were 16M who served in that war. Amazing.

M-sluggo 4M marathon recovery @ 12:00 pace

T-sluggo 4M

W-work

Th-sluggo 6M

F-progressive 7.5M: 11:55-10:20

S-progressive 10.5M: 11:25-9:45

31 miles for the first recovery week

Enjoy the week ahead

Veterans Day I had the thought to Google the name of the pilot of my father-in-laws B-24 that was shot down over Vienna May 29, 1944. The pilot was lost with six other crew members, the four surviving crew men spent the next year in a prisoner of war camp. I found this article, searched phone records, and called the daughter:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2015/05/31/wwii-pilot-never-forgotten-by-the-daughter-he-never-met/

I passed on some of my father-in-law’s stories to her, which she knew thru communication with a cousin who had done some research on the subject. We chatted for a half hour. I new the stories well, since my wife and I were my father-in-laws caregivers the last seven years of his life. I also took my father-in-law to three meetings of the 376th Heavy Bomber Group Reunions. My father-in-law has been gone now for over a decade, and with the passage of time most of his former bomber command colleagues, so much so there are no reunions anymore.

Good week, back on track. I call it my Make Igy Better Plan. 😷 smiling behind a mask. Started the week running in tights with morning temperatures in low 30s, by Saturday morning shorts were in order, afternoons in the low 60s.

Sunday: 60:00 spin

Monday: 2 miles easy; 2 x ( 500m critical velocity pace / 300m easy; 1,000m tempo pace / 400m easy) mile easy; core exercises; 2 sets weights

Tuesday: 2,000 yard swim

Wednesday: AM- 2 miles easy; 4 x 700m critical velocity pace / 100m walk; mile easy; core exercises; 2 sets weights; PM- 3 miles walking

Thursday: 60:00 spin

Friday: 2,000 yards swimming

Saturday: 2 miles easy; 4 x 100m repetition pace @ 25 / 20m walk; 200m walk; 2,000m tempo pace @ 11:00; 400m walk; 1,000m interval pace @ 5:10; 400m easy

Have a good week.

Igy

Cool beans Magic Shoes re: your Grandad...my Dad would have been 97 this week and was WWll Purple Heart from Assault on Okinawa...he was Navy. When I became USMC, he would always rib me "you do know that the Marines are Dept of Navy, don't you?"...those WWll vets are / were a special breed of tough.

amkelley, sounds as though you may be making some headway in terms of getting an actual diagnosis...might I suggest that you seekout an osteopath that is familiar with athletics...there has GOT to be a really good one down your way.

I had a very solid training block this week...just patiently stacking them as I'm still early on in recovering from a year of surgeries. Put toether 34 miles this week (the most in any week since having 4 screws permanently installed in my balky left foot) . Incorporated in those miles were a number of little current regime personal bests. Though far from racing shape, I inend a rust buster 5K on Thanksgiving...a race in which I have no expectations, and instead just excited to lace up my 'fast shoes' for the first time. Until 2020, I had competed every single year for 50 consecutive years. COVID and my foot 'restructuring' ended that streak...time to start anew. ;}

Wishing everyone a seriously swell week of training.

your pal,

MF

neat anecdote re: your father-in-law Igy...and, your MIBP looks really solid...nicely executed.

I skipped one day of running this week because the previous day had felt so bad, but managed 28 very slow, difficult miles over the other six days. Tuesday’s 5-miler took a full 60 minutes but today’s on the identical course took only 58 minutes, so I guess that’s some sort of progress.

Mon: 4.5 mile jog, 16 mile bike, gym

Tues: 5.0 mile jog, 15 min stair climb, 15 min row, gym

Weds: 4.4 mile jog, 18 mile bike ride

Thurs: 45 min bike trainer, gym, 22 mile bike ride

Fri: 4.6 mile jog, 45 min bike trainer, gym

Sat: 4.7 mile jog, gym, 13 mile bike ride in misty fog

Sun: 5.0 mile jog in 55 degree misty fog, will go to gym soon, not sure about bike

MikeF, good to hear of your progress and I hope you have a successful Thanksgiving 5K. I keep toying with the idea of entering a 5K just to get out there, but then I think about how embarrassing it would be to show up and run 34 minutes when my last official 5K was 24 minutes, and I decide against it. Hopefully someday…

I don’t know how to find any medical professional in my area who knows anything about runners. I joined a runner’s dystonia Facebook group and several people there swear by a “Dystonia Recovery Program” offered by someone named Joaquin Farias. He is not an M.D. but has a Ph.D. in biomechanics—from where, I don’t know. You can pay $1200 plus travel expenses to see him in person in Toronto, or you can pay $35/month for online access to a program of exercises based on movement therapy for “neuropsychological rehabilitation”. As a scientist, I’m very skeptical of any treatment program advanced on the basis of anecdotes and testimonials and no peer-reviewed studies. On the other hand, a treatment based on exercises can hardly do much harm and the cost is low. I still haven’t decided, but I could certainly use some fresh ideas about how to try to treat this problem.

Thanks MikeF and glad you are progressing well. Enjoy your FB posts, today the shoe key pocket intersects well with mopac’s kangaroos. Keys can still be an issue, especially when traveling alone to a road race. I prefer a safety pin. 😹

i know what you mean about being skeptical of treatments without convincing evidence. I wonder, though, if the problem is perhaps so little-known and poorly-understood that research funding is lacking, etc., so might have no great options in that regard. Whatever you end up deciding, good luck!

good week for me in cooler weather:

M 1:15

Tu 1:50 with drills/strides

W 1:45 with 12 X 90sec hard (60sec jog recovery)

Th 2:00 double

F 3:05

Sa 45:00 + 1:00 x-t

Su 1:00

nothing left to do but supervise WFT to shocking upset win over Tampa Bay

have a great week,

Dave

66 years old.. 46 years of wear and tear. Cancer

50.4 miles.

13th week over 50.

Only one quality run. Tempo 8.11-8:33-8:39

Strides.

Next week it’s time to put shine on the blade ( ha) getting ready for the turkey day race which I am determined NOT to DNS

It’s all about maintaining a training habit now. I know that’s weird but the hassle of driving to a race, finding a place to park, finding a place to put my key and all to me anyway is opposite of what is best about the primal freedom of this sport.......... and of course when you get old and slow it’s no fun ha

My DNS rate is about 50%.. I have run 7 races this year.