Masters... what are you doing now?

tomake wrote:

At 71 I feel grateful every day that I am able to go for a run along the river, run/racing or not.

I needed to read that. At 60, I am starting to believe that running is over for me.

You are doing fantastic at 71. Congratulations.

DanM wrote:

tomake wrote:

At 71 I feel grateful every day that I am able to go for a run along the river, run/racing or not.

I needed to read that. At 60, I am starting to believe that running is over for me.

You are doing fantastic at 71. Congratulations.

Nice work by you at 71. Almost 69 here now in Delaware. Have done a few TT but virtual racing seems like a stretch for me. Always loved the anticipation of a race and being able to be elbow to elbow with fellow races. Been doing Sunday morning speed work, mostly by time. There was a local summer race series here at the beach. Ran one in very hot/humid weather. Just ran another race last weekend in NJ in much cooler conditions and ran well. Another 5k in 2 weeks at Cape Henlopen State Park so looking forward to that. Hope to break 21 but it may be too early in my cooler (can't race in the heat anymore) race season. All the best to all of you. Stay safe.

My own running has increased in last few months to 25-30 miles as I have a new training partner....my dog. Coaching gbusiness has been very busy but no road races make it tough. A few small xc and track races are happening here but will be happy when back to normal. Might jump on a few track races in November but will wait and see. Running 10:15 for 3k doesn't excite me.

Good luck.

fisky wrote:

No races, except virtual and virtual races hold zero appeal to me so my training has really suffered.

My weekly training groups aren't meeting. My indoor track isn't open. Our [Cityname] Fit Games have been canceled so I can't even compete in fitness. Competition is a much bigger deal for me than I had realized.

So... how are you coping? What's keeping you motivated?

Building a massive base! Increasing the miles with lots of slow easy runs, finally cracking 60 miles per week. Did a time trial the other week, on my 35th birthday (yay I'm finally a master) in the 10km and set a 2 minute PR, 38:33.

I started running an hour every day last November 2. The goal was to do that every day this year. Haven't missed a day yet and now shooting for 9 miles a day. On pace to run 3,200 miles this year.

Other goal was to race at least once every month. Accomplished that the first 3 months. Haven't raced since.

fisky wrote:

I searched the USATF website (off topic... I hate the new design) and masters have apparently ceased to exist. I could find nothing about upcoming events. You'd think they'd at least have a page saying Masters Track and Field Outdoor Championships... TBD. But nothing about next year.

It's been strange without races. I'd just kept ticking over during lockdown - once a day, up to an hour, then got back into a more normal routine when things opened up a bit. Without races, I'd explored some other areas around where I live - finding some routes where I could get off the roads and onto the trails for at least half the distance of my long runs - that has been good.

More recently, I've gone through a 12 week build-up for a marathon, due to run on the 4th, pushed to the 18th, then cancelled last week. The plan had been to run the virtual London marathon in this other marathon, now I'm left with a 26.2 mile training run this weekend. Assuming nothing breaks, I'll try to take the fitness from the training block into another race in a month or so. Where I am, races have started up again but only seem to go ahead if they're on private land, with tiny wave starts.

AllComersObserver wrote:

fisky wrote:

I searched the USATF website (off topic... I hate the new design) and masters have apparently ceased to exist. I could find nothing about upcoming events. You'd think they'd at least have a page saying Masters Track and Field Outdoor Championships... TBD. But nothing about next year.

https://usatfmasters.org/wp/upcoming-events/

I hate the new tabloid newsy design of the USATF website. If we're forced to use it, at least USATF should provide a better drop down menu to let people like us find meet information. I searched everywhere (or at least I thought I did) and did not see a link to the USATF Masters website. I searched the event calendar and did not see it. Sure, maybe it's buried somewhere, but my point is that it should be EASY to find masters events or at least a prominent way to get to the other website. on the USATF website.

<rant over>

Anyway, thanks for posting. I used to do workouts every week at the Sac State track in 1995-1997 when I lived in Sacramento so it would be great to get back there. In fact it was a USATF masters meet back then that first got me interesting in masters track. I was there for a workout and couldn't run because of all the old people on the track. "These runners are amazing!" I remember thinking to myself. I need to look into this when I turn 50 next year. I remember talking to the late Randy Sturgeon about it and he told me that I would probably be better at track than the marathons I was training for at the time.

During the week I run an hour in the morning before work—mix in 10k intervals and uphill tempos. On the weekend I do a 2 hour run on trails and another hour run on trails. Coach baseball, work around the house. It would be nice to race but it’s also nice just to run for fun. Happy hobby jogger.

Yep, USATF is slow to update their own site. We are forced to find info from other sources.

i live under a bridge wrote:

I biked the C&O Canal over three days at the end of June.

I did the Great Allegheny Passage/C & O Canal ride about 10 years ago. Took 5 days to roll from Pittsburgh to D.C.. A great ride with a lot of really beautiful country and history along the way.

fisky wrote:

No races, except virtual and virtual races hold zero appeal to me so my training has really suffered.

My weekly training groups aren't meeting. My indoor track isn't open. Our [Cityname] Fit Games have been canceled so I can't even compete in fitness. Competition is a much bigger deal for me than I had realized.

So... how are you coping? What's keeping you motivated?

I think mostly I'm waiting to die at this point, but I do want to keep my streak going until then and maybe even afterwards for a while, so there's that for motivation.

Looks like US masters nationals will be held first week of August in Sacramento. That is about the only thing I'll be targeting as I think everything else is up in theair.

Not sure where you guys live where no races are happening, but in my area small races began starting back up over the summer. I've run several since then and am registered for some more in the coming weeks. That's kept my motivation high, and I'm basically running like normal now.

When the lockdowns started and it looked like races were going away for a while, I just went into maintenance mode. I figured there was no point in increasing mileage or hammering workouts at a time when no races were going on. There was no sense increasing injury risk at a time when non emergency medical care was more or less unavailable.

Now, it's fully game on.

We are playing in November now, still no fans

I don't think we have any races happening in Seattle.