50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Hi,

Mo off, needed

Tu 30 min jumps and drills uphill, 6x60m uphill, 2x150m uphill

We 7 miles easy, 6x 30s/30s on/offs

Th 12 km zone 2 in 57 min

Fr 7 miles recovery pace, 5x100m buildups with jog back

Sa WU, 8x300m uphill with jog down, CD

Su 90 min recovery pace in the hills

Use the FTs somehow for five days, rest them for two days. repeat.

Stay healthy, keep the fun.

Highlight was on the mill 4x 10%grade 10mph for30 seconds with 5 minute rest .

Lots of ez mill stuff like 1mph at 16%grade or turned off just pushing

A few sand dune runs with a 20 minute LT

Vivaldi's 4 seasons fall winter spring summer recovery build base build speed race

M62, 5'11", 180lbs

Age 23: 16:04 5K, 2:40:30 marathon

Age 43: 17:10 5K, 2:56:04 marathon

Age 58: 18:58 5K, 3:07:23 marathon

Mon - Off

Tue -- 8.4 miles @ 9:16/mi.; out @ 9:12, back 9:20.

Wed - Off

Thur - Off

Fri -- 2-mile wu: 3 x 1 mile w/5-min jog recoveries (7:03, 7:07, 7:05); 1-mile wd.

Sat -- Off

Sun -- Off

I had planned 8 miles today, but it's 34° and rain. I'll do 10° and snow, but not cold rain! I'll make it up tomorrow, although forecast isn't much better: 38°, showers, 20 mph gusts.

4.4-mile race planned for Nov 25.

Be well.

This week was another pre-race week, and today was my 7th race in 12 weeks. This was our local XC series 8k championship race on the course that will be used for USATF XC in January. My training this week stayed on track and I had a good outing today. I felt good in my warm up and decided that this was the day to take it out hard and find out who was willing to suffer late in the race. Conditions were pretty much the opposite of Allen1959's weather. It was mid-70s at the start and mid-80s by the finish. It was 91 degrees when the awards ceremony ended. My splits weren't too terrible considering my race plan - 6:54, 7:04, 7:13, 7:25, 7:25. There are three guys, ages 61 to 67, who have been a couple of seconds ahead of or a couple of seconds behind me in all the prior races this season. Today, the closest of them was 66 seconds behind me. I've finished the series winning the 70+ age group in all 7 of the races. Now I have 4 weeks to prepare for Club XC, and then another 4 weeks to prepare for USATF XC. After that it will be time for a long break from serious racing.

Good running to all!

old guy II wrote:My splits weren't too terrible considering my race plan - 6:54, 7:04, 7:13, 7:25, 7:25. There are three guys, ages 61 to 67, who have been a couple of seconds ahead of or a couple of seconds behind me in all the prior races this season. Today, the closest of them was 66 seconds behind me. I've finished the series winning the 70+ age group in all 7 of the races.

Fantastic results. Congrats!

Yes, nice racing. You have been consistent in training and racing results shows it.

Consistent training and staying injury-free seem to make for good racing seasons. Who would have guessed? :)

old guy II - Great race and you nailed the key for master runners. The longer you avoid injuries with intelligent harder sessions produces consistent results. Might lose a few seconds a mile vs redlining but very few can redline for even 6 months without injuries. Seen many master runners high on their performance while training extremally hard. None of them have lasted more than a year or two. At some point they come back but usually are not nearly as fast.

Great week and found a race on January 22. My first race in 55 AG. It is a marathon and might be hot but can’t be picky if there is only one option. It would be fast in the morning but the organizers opted for a 6pm start. It will be my first evening race here because it is a silly time of day to race in the tropics. With some luck it will be in the 74-75 degree range at start which is bad but it is what it is. On a positive, the humidity will be lower in the early evening vs the morning. Goal - 2:45 - 2:53 depending on weather.

This week: 40 miles running with 2 hard sessions. 6 hours 20% incline treadmill walks with one session of about 15 minutes of surges at 2k effort.

Mon- 90:00 treadmill

Tues- 50: run @ high end easy

Wed- AM: 40 minutes with 1 mile @ 5:20 PM:1:00 treadmill walk with 15 minutes of surges at 2k effort

Thurs- 60:00 at high end easy

Fri- AM: 50 run at high end easy PM: 50:00 treadmill walk

Sat- AM: 80:00 fartlek -1.2 miles @ 5:37/mi, 2.73 miles @ 6:24 and end with a comfortable but fast 1.25 @ 5:40 PM: 35:00 treadmill walk

Sun- AM:70 min run high end easy PM: 65:00 treadmill walk

Update. I last Tuesday felt symptoms of a cold at the end of a threshold workout. I just listened to a podcast with a national endurance team doctor talking about training and sickness. So I stepped down immediately to wait for it to develop or not. Waited until the end of next day without more symptoms and have just done easy single workouts since. I feel worse and worse when I just train easy. The legs respond being slow and heavy and I lose the springness.

Yesterday I thought it was enough and did some single easy threshold reps. Felt heavy in the start, but forth rep was back to normal speed. So I guess I am well enough to start normal training again.

I learned by this doctor that when we get sick, the body works hard and gets the extra energy and proteins to fight back from the muscles. This means that when we get sick, the muscles get weaker. I supplemented extra proteins, but now I never got very ill so I guess this will not be the case this time. What this means is that if we train when sick we don't manage to adapt positively to the training and we get even weaker. The best for long term performance is to rest and get well fast again (and eat well)

Will have an easy day today and then do a workout tomorrow (just one and not double). If that is OK, I will go for full training from Thursday.

Well, I hope you are soon over your cold and back to full training again soon. Any races coming up?

It is winter time, so few possibilites. Also I have smaller kids (my second "attempt" now with twins 5 yo) so all competitions happens during key family time. I try to rather do frequent testing to see progress and not in too long future I will have time again for local races.

(But really I have a mental barrier for racing on the road I need to overcome. My main sport is orienteering, running individually with a map. Hard running and tough endurance that does not stand back to road racing, but we do not get that head-on-head racing som I have some issues ;-) )

Great running OG11.

My week was a bit messy as my body seemed to still be a bit weary from the 4 Peaks fun and games. Just rolling with the punches but hoping to be back into a routine this week.

Mon. Paddled the kayak for 67 mins. before work.

After work (10.15 pm) I ran 3 km on the grass inside the velodrome in 14.58. Barefoot, running in my scrubs.

Tue. A crazy day, I won't bore you with the details. I sqeezed in a run during my 150 km drive home. Managed 10 km with 8 x 800 easy pickups enroute.

Wed. A steady 70 min mtn bike ride in the forest andstraight into a 6.6 km run on a forest loop. 4 x 800 and 1 x 400 pickups.

Thu. Cut the 10 km run short by a km as my right hip was niggly. 9 kms trails in 52 mins.

Fri. 41 min kayak session.

Sat. Hilly 24 km mtn bike ride (300m plus elev) in 85 mins.

Sun. 20 km mtn bike ride with 5 good climbs. 69 mins.

Copped a hailstorm the last downhill.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

... I feel worse and worse when I just train easy. The legs respond being slow and heavy and I lose the springness. ...

Hi Jon Arne, just a thought from my side: After a period of hard training, it is not unusual that I feel worse when going back to easy training. In this case I know, that I should continue the (really) easy training until feeling fast and strong again with fresh/springy legs. If the legs will not feel fresh after 2 (really) easy days, i.e. on the third day, then I was overtraining and I should reduce the hard running in the next block.

All the best

Newbi wrote:

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

... I feel worse and worse when I just train easy. The legs respond being slow and heavy and I lose the springness. ...

Hi Jon Arne, just a thought from my side: After a period of hard training, it is not unusual that I feel worse when going back to easy training. In this case I know, that I should continue the (really) easy training until feeling fast and strong again with fresh/springy legs. If the legs will not feel fresh after 2 (really) easy days, i.e. on the third day, then I was overtraining and I should reduce the hard running in the next block.

All the best

I realise I exacerate :-)

I have recovered and the muscles are absolutely fresher in one sense, but it does not feel ready for racing. I guess this effect can be explained and is known to be that leg stiffness adapts to what you do. If you run many days of just easy, the stiffness is reduced, if you run a sprint session, the stiffness will the next day be higher. Running economy and leg stiffness is known to belong together. I guess that is the reason we should do strides after an easy run.

At least I feel better if I do workouts or at least do some speedy work every other day. Every 14-day I have a block of recovery with 3 easy days coming out of 8 days with 4 workout days. I might get a mini-peaking, but I do strides on the 2nd day and 4x20-30s sprints on the 3rd day to prep the legs. I have felt good on the 4th day (testing day) every time but the last when I did leg weigths on the 2nd day which was to close to testing day...

I have experienced what you describe too. I did some crazy block in the spring and after some time with easier work I realized I was tired and in need of more. Especially easy volume can attenuate recovery and mask it out until you let go and peaking is not happening as expected.

Jon Arne:

You wrote: "...(But really I have a mental barrier for racing on the road I need to overcome. My main sport is orienteering, running individually with a map. Hard running and tough endurance that does not stand back to road racing, but we do not get that head-on-head racing som I have some issues ;-) )"

Orienteering was my favourite sport too, back in my youth (late 70's through early 80's). I competed at a national level, and in the world elite it was Oyvin Thon of Norway "on the throne" at that time.

Since that time I mainly run in the forest, on trail-like courses. Fortunately, it is everywhere around my place.

But opposite to you, I had no problem with head-to-head racing in XC events (both on feet and ski). Did not like track at all (and still don't, last time ran on it some 25 years ago), but had to get used to roads when it's too much snow in the forest.

OG II: congratulations on your awesome and consistent performance throughout the whole season! Quite encouraging.

Greetings All,

Quick weekly update:

- USATF Michigan X/C meet last Saturday. 34 degrees rolling (read: hilly), rutted and in places muddy course. Everyone was 'slow', but that is what X/C is all about "won" the 60+ and 2nd Master (40+). My new Nike Zoom Victory X/C's worked just fine -although they did hold a lot of mud on the pyramid spikes. Boy, has the technology improved since the 1970s! Not happy about my time, but actually just a little faster than four years ago on the same course. I know I can run faster, just have a hard time racing hard when I am in 'no man's land' and can't see anyone ahead of me to at least mentally latch on to/

- Just over 40 miles for the week. Did just a few strides and accelerations leading up to Saturday. I think tapering for this type of race is generally overrated and will only cut back for two days before the big Turkey Trot next week in in Lexington Kentucky.

-Will do the local ParkRun this Saturday as my hard up-tempo run for the week. Getting to know the course really well. Twisty, slick and not real fast, but is a really good workout for me.

- The race next Thursday in Kentucky will be my last as a 64 y/o looking forward to 2022 and the new mini age bracket You gotta take what you can take.

Stay safe everyone....

Great work young guy II. You are rounding into great shape just at the right time.

First of all good luck in your final M60+ race, and on hitting the new age group.

Yes I agree regarding spike technology. Purchased pair of DragonFlies because from what I had read about them, their zoom cushioning protect the lower limbs and enable runners to not feel so knackered in a way that conventional track spikes such as Mambas don't do. Very important things o consider as we get older. And boy did I make the right decision. The track at my school in China is rock hard, but with these spikes, it's like running on a waterbed. Also they have a good amount of forefoot cushioning which up to now most distance spikes have lacked. In fact I think they would be a superb spike especially for the steeplechase. Absolutely beautiful shoe to wear. Have worn spikes for nearly 40 years, even had a pair of the 1988 Nike Zoom Ultras (remember those) but these are by far the best spike I have ever worn.

Thanks Owain Lewes. Yep - I splurged on my Dragonflies last Spring. Used them a few times (local all-comers meets and USATF Regionals during the summer) in the 800 & 1500 with good success. Also did a pretty decent (for me at least) 3K at the U of Michigan track with a few others. They will be my "go to" spike for racing in 2022 and can use my NBs for limited training.