50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Allen, sorry to hear about your medical issues, but glad to hear that everything is treatable.

Just coming here to follow up on my post of about a month ago. Looks like I have arthritis in both hips, with my right hip being bone-on-bone at this point. Got a cortisone shot today for some pain relief, and will stick with those for as long as possible before I eventually face hip replacement surgery.

So there ends my competitive running career which was anchored by two bright spots - a good college career after walking on without any prior running experience and a nice masters career - separated by almost 20 years of drinking too much and getting fat.

Smoove: Dang! Sorry to hear that. Well, your attitude is laudable: Celebrate the accomplishments and memories. I imagine you'll no longer be frequenting this forum; your wise advice and tales of DIII escapades will be missed! Best of luck and happiness going forward.

As far as my heath woes, I'm being a baby. Prognosis is very good. But like you, my wife is suffering with arthritis -- bone-on-bone knees. We met in a running club, and she's always been active. It's really difficult for her now.

Robert E Lee: Thank you for your candor. That's good information to know as I weigh the choices.

Smoove,

Here are some ideas that may be helpful. Like a German shepherd, my hips are my achilles heel. 😹

Best,

Igy

Allen, here's to a seamless treatment and swift recovery.

Smoove, hope that you can find a way to keep going. There are runners out there who have kept at it some, even after hip replacement.

Wife is now performing landscaping and snarking at me; she still tires way too early, but good signs.
2000-2019, there were three of us at the Cactus League spring training, then Covid Era hit. Two of the three went this past weekend and I was one of those two. Ran four straight days on crushed desert floor in Scottsdale. My calves are happy, I am happy, and my wife missed me.
28 days to Boston:

M- 90:00 treadmill

T- 90:00 treadmill

W- 10M w/8(800/400) in the middle for 6M @ MP

Th- 6M at Reach 11 open space

F- 6M at Reach 11 faster

Sat- 8M at Reach 11 - last 4M @ MP

S- 5M at Reach 11

March in Scottsdale, AZ is the bomb 💣

enjoy the week

Hope for the best of all endings for Allen and Smoove. How do others deal with the mental fear of these types of health issues? Currently the air quality is extremely unhealthy and this will last for another 30-60 days when the rains come and stop the annual burning. There will be days passing 200 AQI and 130 will be the norm. Worry about the damage being done to my lungs and also cancer but not really much I can do in a rural agriculture based part of Asia that still burns crops. Bought my first air purifier and wonder why I was so stupid not to have done that 10 years ago. Inside air is now below 35 AQI.

My training has been random but staying fit. I run fast when I’m in the mood, which is about every 3rd day and the rest days are easy stuff but focusing on form. Over the years I’ve developed bad habits in the name of speed that cause too much impact stress. Primarily not landing under my center of gravity and this has been an easy fix the last month and at this point I don’t have to give it any thought.

Didn’t record my runs this week but had a few faster 1- 2.5 mile runs around 5:40/mi and one uphill 34 minute tempo. Lots( 5-7 hours) of 20% treadmill walks at about 60% of max HR. Plan on doing much of my training inside until the air quality improves. Might splurge on a new treadmill, but debating the purchase. The 5x2 foot deck eliminates fast running which might be why I have been injury free for basically years now. Lost a little speed but think it the best option for me.

How do others deal with the mental fear of these types of health issues?

I never gave a thought to a serious health issue until a lump appeared on my shoulder. I knew something was wrong and the next day had it examined, likely lymphoma. The fear came from the unknowing the nature, severity, and treatment of the disease. Once the oncologist had a name for the disease and treatment plan I had a decision to make. I put my faith in the oncologist recommendation, and from that point I was moving forward. That alone was comforting.

Igy

I had my long-awaited visit with the movement disorder specialist today. He spent nearly an hour with me listening to my story, giving me a bunch of standard in-office tests of sensory and motor function, and watching me move up and down a long hallway both with and without shoes at a variety of gaits (slow walk, fast walk, jog, backward walk and jog). He could find nothing amiss except for the awkward and asymmetric gait when walking or jogging in the forward direction. He wants to get a brain MRI to be sure, but he thinks the runner’s dystonia diagnosis is very likely correct.

The really good news is that the physical therapy department at UCSF has people who actually know about dystonia and have some clue about how to treat it. I expect it will take a long time for me to get an appointment, but I’ll start the process tomorrow.

Since recovering from the surgery and antibiotic poisoning from my bout with not-breast-cancer eight weeks ago, walking has been going somewhat better but jogging just gets
worse and worse. Half a dozen times in the past two weeks I’ve either walked or walk/jogged about 4 miles nonstop, but I can only jog for 30-45 seconds before I start scraping my bad foot against the ground hard enough that I’m really afraid of tripping and falling, and I have to pull up and walk for several minutes to recover. I really hope the PT can give me some exercises to help.

A few nights ago I dreamed I was racing Eliud Kipchoge down the hallways of my building on campus. We were neck and neck as we made the sharp right turn from the long bar to the short bar. I woke up sweating and with a very dry mouth. I really hope I’m not all done as a runner.

Allen1959, I don’t envy you the decisions you have to make about your treatment. I suppose there’s a lot of evidence about what works best, but everyone is an individual and it’s probably hard to find a statistically significant truly appropriate peer group. (I don’t like to make decisions for myself based on statistics for 60+-year-old women, who are mostly sedentary and fat). All you can do is get as much information as you can, and then make the best decision.

Good to hear Magic. I am sure it is therapeutic for your wife to be doing something constructive, and getting some sun as well.

Hi,

I do worry about the same with a knee since I had partial meniscus removal.

I apologize if this is something you've looked at, but one thing I'm taking is a collagen peptide, which there is some suggestion can potential help regenerate cartilage.

I also take a supplement that contains hyaluronic acid which helps cushion joints.

So far, the joint has stayed OK, six years on.

Hope it works out so you can keep at it.

Best wishes to those that are continuing to deal with struggles. Allen, Smoove, Amy. I almost hate to say my streak of painfree runs continues...

Shoutout to CM. Nice run at the Masters Marathon Champs! 1:21:42 for 2nd in the 60-64.

Week 9 Bayshore HM

Feeling mostly good these days. Mileage is increasing as well as the pace. Though I'm really working on keeping non-workout days comfortable. Logged a tad under 55 miles last week. I'm not sure I want to run much more than that. Maybe a max of 60. I need to access the benefits vs risk. Here's my week. One workout and a long'ish run.

Mon: 7.21 Miles in 58:26 [8:06 per mile]

Tue: 7.04 Miles in 56:36 [8:02 per mile]

Wed: am: 6 Miles in 46:18 [7:43 per mile] with 3 miles (19:33.0) 6:39.0, 6:34.2, 6:19.8

pm: 4.1 Miles in 34:34 [8:25 per mile]

Thu: 4.03 Miles in 35:54 [8:54 per mile]

Fri: 8.32 Miles in 1:05:03 [7:49 per mile]

Sat: 11 Miles in 1:29:19 [8:07 per mile]

Sun: 7 Miles in 56:38 [8:05 per mile]

I'm going to start adding some faster stuff this week. I've got about 2-1/2 months of tempo paced workouts in the books. I need to work on some turnover since I'm still not feeling very fast.

Have a good run,

Dave

My personal experience with bad knees: some 5-6 years ago when the problem was critical I started taking pills/supplements with Glucosamine + Chondroitin. Specifically the stuff named ARTRA. I am not sure it is available in the US, but at least I found some links, e.g.

clinicaltrials.gov

Efficacy and Safety of ARTRA (Glucosamine Plus Chondroitin Sulfate Combination) in Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov

Efficacy and Safety of ARTRA (Glucosamine Plus Chondroitin Sulfate Combination) in Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain - Full Text View.

Link:clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT0199072...

Though I am always very skeptical about such things, my feeling was that it helped. Not quickly, but in a few months.

I keep taking it periodically now as well as another stuff (Geladrink powder in this case):

Good luck!

I write seldom here, but have the last 3-4-5 months done adjustments to my training that starts to give improvements.

First I have been carefully trying to adjust my weekly plan and the amount of recovery and load. This is something one needs to do over time to assess if is effective. Really I try to optimize my training. What I have come to is to do micro-blocks every week. From Sunday to Thursday I do 5 workouts of 25 min work (every other day, one single day and two double days). I do 4 of 5 around or below Threshold (LT) and one hard hill (30-35s reps at mile effort) Then I do recovery days every other day and also friday/Saturday (so I get 72 hours recovery time). This seems to work as I am consistently fresh on Sunday and to not get overly heavy legs even on the 5th workout. on the day after a workout I do just 30min easy running at lunch and 30min easy cycling in the evening. That cross-training helps recover legs. Intensity control is key and very little hard (just 14x35s hills a week)

Then I have done a heat training experiment which has been shown to improve. I have for 8 weeks done 3x30min heat sessions (indoor, lots of clothes). This has probably increased my fitness and not at all lowered it. I am now maintaining with 2 times a week.

Then I have after some researched showed that just 10 day blocks of 70% increased volume for trained individuals (used to 40-50k running, going to 75k running or 4-5 hours to 7-8 hours) increased time trial performance of a 3k the same as an HIT block of the same length. That was suprising and I have added one volume week where I did 100k easy/steady instead of my normal 70k week. This for sure gave me an additional boost in fitness.

With these adjustments, I have managed to consistently do well in my workouts and paces the last weeks, so it is very motivating. For sure I have increased my fitness. I have also trained very well since 3 years ago, but I stagnated since 2 years ago and probably this has been due to too little recovery and maybe too much intensity. I have still a high volume of workouts for my age of 50, but I do recover quite fast and consistently feel well, and not experiencing bad days or heavy legs when I should be fresh (which is a sign of too much intensity/volume or too litte recovery)

It is spring and the snow is gone so I have to race something to prove my feeling is correctu

You should find this a compelling interview; Nils seems to have hit upon a very similar training arrangement as yourself (and published a large article detailing all of his training leading up to world records and Olympic gold double)

There are similar supplements available in the US that I have been using successfully for years. I do want to point out that ARTRA contains Glucosamine HCL. After reading comments on this thread several years ago, I switched to a supplement that contains Glucosamine Sulfate. The difference has been noticeably positive.

thanks. I have read the document, but not seen the interview. Disclaimer, I am not training like Niels :-) I am training very much acc to the Norwegian Threshold model (which the Ingebrigtsen use and master). BUT, there might be more credit to volume both short and long term than thought.

Sorry to hear you're dealing with this. I was diagnosed in 2015 with PC. I opted for one day high dose radiation. In the AM they inserted a series of probs at different angles. Then fish up cables with radiation to zap it. Whole day affair.

Sick from radiation but back on feet quickly. Much less nerve damage than removal. However, still need my blue pills for play time. Most important, free and clear at this point.

It's an amazingly all encompassing issue and I wish you the best. Good news is no matter which route you go the success rate is very high.

Thanks a lot. Will switch to Sulfate to see the result!

As usual, great world class level results from Coyote Montane and Across the Pond - congratulations!

I see that the guy ahead CM is 3 years younger, probably that is the reason. I assume CM was running 2-3 min faster than he 3 years ago...

ATP, it looks like 1500 is too short a distance for you. You would definitely (and significantly) outperform every one in your AG at 5K and longer.

Following up, I went back through some of the thread and found this link from about 4 years ago.

examine.com

Glucosamine Health benefits, dosage, safety, side-effects, and more | Supplements - Examine

Examine.com

The latest research on Glucosamine supplements. Expert analysis on potential benefits, dosage, side effects, and more.

Link:examine.com/supplements/glucosamine/

“Glucosamine sulfate salts are the best way to supplement glucosamine, with glucosamine sulfate as a close second. Glucosamine hydrochloride is ineffective. N-Acetylglucosamine is not glucosamine and should be considered a different supplement.”