Help CoachB Break 6:00 For the Mile Before Age 50

Asdaf and coachN. Thanks for the good responses.

I tend to agree that adjusting my diet is what’s needed for the weight loss. I do have some sugar with my morning coffee prior to running, so I guess I’m getting SOME carbs ?. Mostly my dietary issues are between 7:00 and 9:00 PM. I’ve cut way back on beer and wine (maybe 1-2 days a week with dinner). But I’m really used to after dinner snacking and it’s a tough habit to break.

As far as coachN’s advice about letting the training come first and then the weight loss will follow, I agree. I don’t try to starve myself in the mornings or anything, I’ve just never felt the need to eat before my morning run unless I’m getting a later start on a weekend and going longer. Then I’ll have a piece of toast or something like that.

As far as the strides at goal pace, I need to clarify, the strides were at date pace (or at least what I think date pace is since I haven’t run a TT since October only 3 weeks removed from hernia surgery. I was doing 130m in 31-32 seconds, which is about 6:40 pace. It felt pretty comfortable. The goal is to let that pace come down naturally until it’s at 6:00 pace. Then I’ll start doing more of them or lengthen them out to 200

As far as 30 mpw, I’ve kind of had that in my head as a nice target to reach for by March. 4-6 weeks of 30mpw plus strides continuing to mid April should get me close enough so that I can do 3-4 weeks of specific workouts and still leave myself a few mor weeks in May to get the TT done.

If I don’t make it, that’s ok because I’ll still be in 1000x better shape than when I started and road races will be starting back up and I’ll be in a new age group.....

Coach B,

I think you have done enough of the 4 mile 9:00-10:00 runs. I believe you need more variation to progress. For example: Monday- mile warm-up; drills; 8 x 200m @ 50 / 100m walk; 800m cool down. Wednesday: 1.5 mile warm-up; 3 x 8:00m @ 4:00 / 2:00 rest; mile cool-down; Saturday: 8 mile run (walk if tired, but get distance). Easy runs or biking other days.

Igy

I think you are doing fine. Listening to your own body is more important than listening to us. ;)

With calf and hammy problems there is really no way to move forward besides taking it slow and easy-without a time table really. You will get this, it just might be into the new AG a ways. Turning the strides into 200s and then 400s is the ticket. The easy runs will probably have to stay easy, but the pace will come up naturally as your Vo2 max increases.

Cutting the before bed snacks is a matter of maybe going with some popcorn instead of cookies- or maybe just 1-2 cookies. I allow myself to eat anything, but just shrink the portion size. (Still hard). :(

Late on the update for last week.

Aerobic fitness is definitely on the upswing, but running has been a struggle.

Mon 1/18 AM: Lift, John Day Easy Strength with 3 x 10 burpees on the minute after (those suck!). PM 7.5 miles easy spin on Mtn Bike (34:00)

1/19: Ride 16.7 miles road bike. Avg HR 131. (Had to cut it short due to a minor emergency at home).

1/20: AM Lift John Day Easy Strength PM Road Bike. 21.2 miles mostly easy. Went after one short segment and got a PR :). Avg HR 130.

1/21: AM short walk / jog plus a few warm up drills. Then Jay Johnson SAM + 10 min core routine.

1/22: Lift, John Day Easy Strength. Calf was sore from the walk jog yesterday

1/23: AM: 1 mile jog @ 10:15 No pain. PM 15.0 miles mtn bike on canal banks. 61:53, avg HR 134

1/24: AM 1 mile jog @ 9:52, no pain. PM 36 min easy spin on trainer. HR 120

Finally able to get back to some easy jogging without any pain. Try to start to add volume next week.

Saturday ride was GREAT. Ended up riding almost 10 minutes faster than I did for the same route back in October (Thanks for telling me, Strava!). I wasn't really trying to set a "PR" or anything and honestly it didn't really feel that much harder than my other rides on that same route. If anything, my legs felt less discomfort (although that is probably due to the fact that I've been riding a lot the last few weeks).

So, the aerobic strength is definitely coming back. Next step is to try to add a few easy strides / pick ups into my morning runs.

I'm considering doing some, if not most, of my harder aerobic efforts on the bike and doing lots of strides to keep the biomechanics moving in the right direction.. When I tend to get myself into trouble is when I try for longer (relative to me) sustained efforts at higher intensity

CoachB were you on 'Kick' running?

Hahaha.

Yes!, then it morphed into "Cool Running". Back then, I had super moderator powers!

I'll pile in with more unsolicited advice since you're getting a lot of it anyway. :) I skimmed through the thread and agree with poster who said that sub-6:00 could be achieved any number of ways as it's a pretty manageable goal for a guy like you who has a solid running background, i.e., some talent for the sport, a notion of how to get there, and no significant health issues. For what it's worth, I'm in my 50s and still running sub-5:00 and mid-16s.

Honestly, I think there are only two key things you need to do at your age and with your running background to get under 6:00 or at least very close: stay healthy and lose weight. The rest is just ancillary. Well, some kind of training is also required, but almost anything would work if you can stay healthy and lose weight, whether it's a few runs per week with some strides plus cross-training, or a more heavy running schedule.

So my unsolicited advice is to focus on getting the weight down, a good 10 pounds to start, and ideally 15-20 over the long term. 5'11, 189 or whatever you are right now is a lot of bulk for running as I'm sure you realize! Importantly, I think we now know that diet is the biggest part of losing weight. People who think they're going to lose weight by exercising often don't have a ton of success because exercise triggers hunger, and so they end up offsetting the calories burned by eating more.

As for running and staying healthy, I think slowly working back up to 20 miles per week of total running is more than enough for sub-6:00 (could even be 15 miles), supplemented by whatever cross-training you enjoy and keeps you fresh and healthy for running. After you can get to 15-20 miles per week of easy running, I think straights-and-turns are a great starting point with the straights at low-6:00 pace and walking the turns. Start with a few laps and slowly build up to 8. After that, and if staying healthy, then you should think about a little more challenging running sessions.

I also think you're overdoing the weight lifting, as it seems like it's setting back your running. Remember, lifting is a useful ancillary exercise and helps stave off some age-related decline, but it seems like it dominates your exercise schedule right now. Lifting isn't a key part of the path to sub-6:00 at age 49. But of course you should keep up exercises that you think are useful for specific injury prevention (calves), just don't overdo it.

The general theme is slowly and gently easing back into running with no crazy stuff (hill repeats for an aging, overweight runner with calf issues who is getting back into running? hell no!) to ensure continued good health and getting the weight down as I said. I think you know all this as you seem to be a good coach but it never hurts to hear from others because it's easy to lose sight of what we are doing in our training even if we know better for our athletes!

Anyway, my two cents. Good luck!

Thanks, another old coach

In my mind, I do keep waffling back and forth about how to go about achieving my goal....probably because I realize that there are a lot of different ways to skin that cat. Whenever I try something and it goes well, it's like..."aha! This is what I need to focus on".

But, yeah, just being fit and getting the weight down and staying healthy will get me really close.

Really solid week last week. I delayed starting back to running for a few days after I felt no pain in the calf and it really seems to have helped.

1/25: AM 1.66 miles very easy. No pain

1//26: AM 1.5 easy + 6 x 100 striders @ date pace, jog back recovery, 2.3 total. PM 30 minutes easy on trainer.

1/27: AM 40 minutes on trainer with 10 min "tempo" effort and 10 min "Threshold" effort. Heavy rain and wind. PM. HIIT style weight training, mostly body weight and slam ball stuff. Finished with sets of 30 second burpies, 30 seconds off. OOOOF!

1/28: 1.5 miles easy wu. 6 x 100 strides at date pace, jog back recovery, .9 CD 3.2 total.

1/29: AM 3.0 miles @ 9:12 pace, HR average 137. Felt good. PM Lift, John Day Easy Strength

1/30: 4.0 miles @ 9:34 pace. HR average 138.

1/31: Hike 2 hours in foothills with the wife. Nice change of pace

I feel like I "checked all the boxes" last week. I was able to get some race pace strides in with no pain and was able to get tempo effort, although it was on the bike. The HIIT weight stuff I think can go a long way toward replacing harder speed work for now. It's certainly giving me some lactate tolerance. Easy pace is 10-20 seconds faster than a couple of months ago while staying at the same HR. I'll try to bring the mileage back up toward 20 this week.

I'm back to coaching daily now, so I might not be able to get as many second workouts in, but yesterday I had like 7000 more steps than normal, so that's got to count for something.....

Pretty good week again, but feeling run down by the end. I need to remember that stuff like 6 x 100 strides at goal pace with a jog back recovery IS a quality session for me.

M: AM 3 miles (9:42. 9:12, 9:08) then 6 x 100 @ date pace with 100-200 at 9:00 pace as recovery. 4 miles total PM: Weights, gotta have that chest, brah!

T: 4 miles easy (1.5 @ 11:00 pace with dog then 2.5 @ 9:30 ish). HR nice and low the whole time.

W: 40 minutes on Trainer. (10 WU, 10 Tempo Effort, 5 easy 10 Threshold Effort, 5 easy CD

Th: AM 1.5 with the dog @ 11:00 pace. 6 x 100 strides @ goal pace with jog back recovery. 1.5 CD PM cardio circuit (rower, push ups, abs, bicep curls, burpees. ) 3 x circuit 21 min total. Burpees suck.

F: 2.56 miles at 9:32 pace. Legs super tight. Overslept in morning and ran after work after sitting all day.

S: 1 mile WU, drills, strides, 1k hard @ 4:18, 1 mile CD (3.0 total) Legs still felt crappy. Probably shouldn't have done this.

Sun: 9.5 miles easy spin on MTB. 40 min HR 120.

Saturday SUCKED. I've had it in my mind for a long time that I wanted to to a hard mile to see where I was at. After Friday's crappy run, I thought my legs were feeling better so I jogged over to the track. On the way, my HR monitor was like "Performance Condition, -6", but in my mind I was thinking, my HR is just up because I'm psyching myself out for this hard mile. My legs, and lungs, were in fact doo doo on that day. I wanted to start a little slower than what I thought my current fitness indicated and work down to goal pace by the end. Splits were 1:45, 1:42, then 50.8. I pulled off at 1k because I could feel the wheels starting to fall off and I really didn't want to give myself a setback for the next couple of weeks.

Looking back at the week. Monday, Wed, and Thu were pretty hard days, by the standards of where my training has been. So, it's not too surprising that I fell apart on Saturday.

Another solid week. Doing less cross training type stuff and more harder running. Calves and hammies fell pretty good. Ran 6 days in a week for the first time in.....I honestly don't remember.

2/8: 4 miles @ 36:59 (9:52, 9:32, 9:05, 8:26) Avg HR 142

2/9: AM- 4.5 easy @ 45 min. (1.5 super slow with dog, 3 @ about 9:35 pace) HR avg 128. PM - Lift, general strength type stuff

2/10: 4.1 miles with 5 x about 200 @ a little bit better than date pace effort (6:40-6:20) inserted, jog between reps at about 9:05 pace. This was kind of tough

2/11: Day off entirely :)

2/12: AM - Lift, 10 min circuit then bench, rows, core then drove to SLO, PM 3 miles easy shake out 28:34. Really stiff from drive.

2/13: 2 miles WU then 6 x 200 uphill hard (57-54 sec). Jog down @ 1:30-1:40. 1 mile CD

2/14: AM 3 miles shake out, easy hill run. 30:35, pretty sore. PM Easy 30 min on trainer after we got home from SLO

Monday: Kind of went progression by accident. Was just feeling pretty good

Wednesday: Wanted to do something kind of fast. Was just going to do strides at the end but decided to make it a fartlek instead, kind of impromptu.

Sat: The plan was to go tempo on the beach, but the wife wanted to run before we left the hotel for the day. Found a hill near the hotel and got after it. This felt like an actual workout ;)

Well seeing that the 60 meter dash is way more popular and has more of a fan base than the mile then why not switch up your game plan and go for a below 9.459 second 60 meter dash?

Wouldn't that be a bigger accomplishment than your current below 6 min fairy tale fantasy?

And also why do you think the mile is so special? Who told you or placed it in your head that running a mile below 6 was so special especially for someone of your age? Why do you think that it's such a tough thing to do?

If you did it would that prove that you're at like NFL running back status or something? Would that prove anything? So let's say you do accomplish this then what would that mean? Would it mean that you're tough? Would it mean that you're a real man?

You do realize that running backs are tougher than milers right? So first off why not place yourself in the toughest category of running backs and go for that 60meter dash PR?

Yeah just a few of this and a few of that... Just take it easy.. Blah blah blah. And also maybe just a few like 1500s if you're feeling up for it. No biggie.

John_James_413 wrote:

And also why do you think the mile is so special? Who told you or placed it in your head that running a mile below 6 was so special especially for someone of your age? Why do you think that it's such a tough thing to do?

Clearly you've never been in a david45 thread before.

At this point especially, I would cut out the jogging rests between strides, 200s, etc. Getting the quality running in is more important than whatever extra aerobic/endurance benefit you are getting from the jogging. I am in the coach JS school of walking rests, especially when 90 seconds or less.

Been a couple of weeks since I updated. I've run 13 of the last 14 days and my legs feel pretty good. Still struggling with anything approaching goal pace causing lingering tightness, but otherwise I feel like I'm making pretty good progress.

Last week:

2/15 : AM 30 min easy spin on trainer

2:16: AM 2 miles WU, 2.55 Threshold @ 7:50 pace (This was kind of too hard, had to back down the last 5 min min because it was starting to feel like a race. 0.5 CD

2/17: AM 3 miles @ 9:35 pace PM Lift, John Day Easy Strength style

2/18: AM 4.9 easy (1.5 slow with dog, then 3.4 @ 9:30 ish pace. Avg HR only 131

2/19: AM Lift John Day Easy Strength

2/20: AM 1.5 easy wu, 3 x 100 @ date pace, jog back, 3 x 3 min CV (7:40 pace, 7:20, 7:15) 1 min jog recovery, 3 x 130 @ goal pace, 400m cd

2/21: AM 4 miles easy @ 9:22, avg HR 139. PM Circuit style lifting, about 20 minutes.

21.2 total miles + 3 lifting sessions

This week:

2/22: AM 2.5 easy shake out @ 10:00 min/mile

2/23: AM 1.5 easy wu + 3.5 tempo effort (8:23 avg), much more controlled than last week.

2/24: AM 10 min on trainer, tire went flat, so ran 2.5 miles easy @ 9:40. Had to hurry to work. PM: Lift, John Day easy strength style

2/25: 2 miles easy wu + 8 x 130 @ goal pace effort (it was windy, dark and on the canal bank so it was really like 6:20 pace), jog back recoveries. 1 mile CD. PM first CC meet of the season. Got about 15,000 more steps walking around. Legs really tired.

2/26: 4.0 miles in 42 min. Legs extremely sore and tight. PM Lift, John Day Easy Strength style

2/27: 3.5 easy @ 9:40 pace, HR only 133, legs still pretty tight.

2/28: 6.5 miles progression. Splits of (9:25, 9:17, 9:14, 8:59, 8:47, 8:26, 8:12 last half mile). Kind of by accident, legs finally loosened up at about 3.5 miles. I'll lift later today

28.3 total miles with about 7 of those at tempo effort. + 1 day of "speed work" + 3 lift. I'm happy with this. Gonna take tomorrow off!

It's been about 5 weeks since I updated this thread.

I had a significant setback in early March. I'd tried some fast stuff with a jog/walk recovery. I was aiming for 100 in about 20 seconds. I got 3 of them in and decided to bag it. The next morning, I was about 2.5 into a normal easy run and my calf grabbed super hard on me. It was pretty bad for a few days. I was limping around, not really able to go up stairs too well......

I think it was mostly a cramp that took some time to fully resolve itself. I was jogging a mile again within the week, but it took a long time to get back to any normal running because the tightness in my calf ended up spreading up through my hammy, into my glute and even low back.

I was able to start doing regular runs about 3 weeks ago and have had a decent last 2 weeks, although I can feel I've lost some fitness.

Here's the last 2 weeks.

3/29 - 3 miles @ 9:20

3/30 - 2.8 miles @ 11:00 (1.5 wu + drills = 4 x 130 @ date pace with jog back recovery)

3/31 - AM Easy spin on trainer 26 min. PM Lift, general strength, about 30 min

4/1 - 1.5 miles slow with dog, felt terrible, upset stomach, tired, bagged the rest.

4/2 - 3.0 @ 10:00 (this included 1.5 WU, slow, a little stretching and then 3 x 3 min @ about 7:30ish pace with 1 min jog)

4/3 - Lifted for 50 min with my son who was home from college for the weekend

4/4 - 4 miles @ 9:40 "Long Run" ugh....

4/5 - 15 miles easy-moderate on the mountain bike. Got into the top 1/3 all time on a often traveled segment.

4/6 - 3 @ 9:38 (1.5 up, 3 x 3 min on 1 min off (7:20ish pace) PM Lift 20 min

4/7 - Lifted 20 min, included "good mornings"

4/8 - 4 miles @ 10:00. Hamstrings stupid sore from yesterday's good mornings. PM 5 miles easy spin, which was really just a warm up for a stretching session.

4/9 - 4 miles. 2 up + 4 x 3 min on 1 min off at about 7:30 pace. Slowed down a bit because I added an extra rep.

4/10 - AM easy 7 mile spin on mountain bike (30 min). PM easy lift, 20 min. Did good mornings again, hopefully with less soreness tomorrow.

4/11 (planned) 4 miles easy + easy spin on bike. Same as 4/8

I don't know if I'm going to make it before my birthday. I've got about 5 weeks to go and don't feel I'm anywhere near where I need to be. That calf strain in March really set me back more than I thought it did.

I did 2 workouts this week that ended up feeling way harder than they should have. Last week seemed OK though.

4/12: AM 1 mile WU. Drills, 8 x 130m @ about 6:15-6:20 pace average. One or two were pretty fast. PM. Lift

4/13: Lift

4/14: 4.55 miles with 2 miles @ 10:00 ish pace then 2.5 @ 9:25 ish pace.

4/15: 4.0 miles with CV intervals, 4 x 3 min @ about 7:25 pace, 1 min recovery jog.

4/16: Lift

4/17: 3.5 miles easy @ about 9:40 pace. PM easy spin on mtn bike. 10 miles 46 minutes on canals

4/18: 4 miles progression run. (9:23, 8:45, 8:08, 7:54). Felt pretty controlled until I picked it up in the last half mile. Then it got kind of tough.

Pretty solid week

4/19: Lift

4/20: 1.5 easy with dog, then 1.0 easy. Stomach upset, shortened from planned 4.5 miler

4/21: 1 mile WU, drills, 3 x 130m strides @ 6:05 ish pace. Jog back recovery. 3 x 3 min @ (7:03, 7:12, 7:16 pace) 1 minute jog recovery. I was going to do 4 reps, but the 3rd rep was feeling like a race effort, so I bagged it.

4/22: 2.25 mile shake out run. Very sore

4/23: 4 miles easy @ 10:00ish pace. HR only 125 but legs super tight and crampy.

4/24: 800 warm up, drills + 3 x 6 min @ threshold, 1 min recovery (7:35, 7:47, 7:45 pace. first one had a pretty good tail wind, second had mostly head wind and 3rd was about 50/50). Was at a track meet until about 10:00 last night and my legs were super dead right from the get go.

4/25: AM 7 miles easy spin on mtn bike. PM Lift. Legs sore.

I'm spending a couple of extra hours a day on my feet now that track practice has started back up. That could be contributing to my dead legs.

6:56 today.

The return to in person instruction, coaching my track team, and being AD for every sport we offer trying to go all at once, just took too much out of me. I feel like in late February I was in 6;20-6:30 shape, but since then, my life has just been crazy hectic.

I never realized how much being on my feet all day took out of me. Looking back at my Strava logs, it's pretty apparent that as soon as we started back with in person instruction and I started walking around all day and then walking another 8000 steps at track practice, my ability to recover went right in the toilet.

During lockdown and 100% distance learning, my training stress scores were consistently around 300 per week, and I was handling it, recovering easily. Since mid February, I've had a hard time keeping it over 200, with the average probably around 150, but my legs are always sore, the achillies has been acting up, and my right hip has been sore since the workout on 4/24

On the plus side, I was still 21 seconds faster than when I tried a mile in October and am in way better shape heading into our summer break than I've been in years. I'm hoping that some local road races will open up and I can get back to the level of running I was at from December-February and establish a few new 50+ PRs.