Getting ready to turn 60, and setting a goal to break 5 minutes in the Mile.

uh huh wrote:

hayward field wrote:

"Something that the youngsters do not seem to understand, is that, at an older age, training for long distances is much more forgiving on the body. The kind of training required to run a fast mile is extremely likely to lead to injury. So why Tommy would risk ending his running career just to check if his body is able to handle mile training? In an ideal world, where nobody gets injured, there would be a bunch of 60 yo running sub-5. In the real world, it takes very good genetics, a ton of cross training and a very smart plan just to manage to get to the starting line.

Pretty much sums it up. Well said, mid D guy!

Sorry, I completely disagree. You're obviously doing it wrong.[/quote]

Why do you disagree, uh huh? From my experience (64, 2:31, 5:55 at age 60) he's spot on.

hayward field wrote:

uh huh wrote:

Pretty much sums it up. Well said, mid D guy!

Sorry, I completely disagree. You're obviously doing it wrong.

Why do you disagree, uh huh? From my experience (64, 2:31, 5:55 at age 60) he's spot on.[/quote]

Build up gradually to avoid breaking down suddenly.

And it's good to take a break from running after your season's peak.

Uh huh,

Ah, but when one is competing in middle distances (800m/mile), not marathons, at age 60 injuries have a way of creeping up on you, even if you are training smartly . . . because of the speed work that's required. Both Steve Scott and John Walker attempted to break 4 when they turned 40. They failed due to injuries. I'm certain they trained smartly. I used Daniel's formula and low mileage--15-25 miles a week. And frequented Chris Whetstine--former Nike team massage therapist quite often. I also had access to the best PTs in Eugene and one of the best sports Chiropractors in the country. And still my final season was cut a month short due to achilles tendonitis.

hayward field wrote:

Uh huh,

Ah, but when one is competing in middle distances (800m/mile), not marathons, at age 60 injuries have a way of creeping up on you, even if you are training smartly . . . because of the speed work that's required. Both Steve Scott and John Walker attempted to break 4 when they turned 40. They failed due to injuries. I'm certain they trained smartly. I used Daniel's formula and low mileage--15-25 miles a week. And frequented Chris Whetstine--former Nike team massage therapist quite often. I also had access to the best PTs in Eugene and one of the best sports Chiropractors in the country. And still my final season was cut a month short due to achilles tendonitis.

What you are describing is muscle damage from overuse. You have to know when to stop. Don't try to run faster than a slow jog if you have any muscle soreness.

Also, your low mileage makes you more susceptible to injury than a runner with a bigger endurance base.

Ans relying on other people to fix your overuse injuries is not a good plan. It should be a last resort. You need to learn injury prevention.

Top of your list of training priorities should always be injury prevention. No ifs, no buts. Running Injuries are rarely accidental, usually self inflicted. Until you learn this, you're always putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

^Millennial tricked out with all the gear, but without a gear that counts. Lift his legs, but in slow motion. 😹

hayward field wrote:

lexel wrote:

J. Daniels in his book 'Running Formula ' 4th edition, has a table included which is called Vdot tables for runners aged 18-80, 1600m times. There are 10 levels (novice, intermediate, good and elite)

With 60yo male 1600m running, 5:16 is level 9 (elite) and 04:53 is level 10 (elite) and the highest ranking. At age 62yo 05:00 is level 10.

As the 1500m has a 80/20% (male) aerobic/anaerobic energy system contribution, the question is which proportion the training should have, because longer and slower aerobic running is easier and safer if we age.

Excellent book! That's what I used to run 5:55 at 60. Not super fast, but still top 25 in the US.

Nice!!!!! Congrats, that is awesome man!

Very good points, uh huh! I was always susceptible to injuries with higher mileage. So I tried to do what I could with low mileage. It was always a fine line.

I just started running (well, jogging) again--very, very slowly . . . thinking about the Masters All-American standard in the mile for 70+. Can this old body run 10:05? We'll see. But you're absolutely correct . . . avoiding injuries is paramount.

hayward field wrote:

lexel wrote:

J. Daniels in his book 'Running Formula ' 4th edition, has a table included which is called Vdot tables for runners aged 18-80, 1600m times. There are 10 levels (novice, intermediate, good and elite)

With 60yo male 1600m running, 5:16 is level 9 (elite) and 04:53 is level 10 (elite) and the highest ranking. At age 62yo 05:00 is level 10.

As the 1500m has a 80/20% (male) aerobic/anaerobic energy system contribution, the question is which proportion the training should have, because longer and slower aerobic running is easier and safer if we age.

Excellent book! That's what I used to run 5:55 at 60. Not super fast, but still top 25 in the US.

Nice job on that performance. But again, way way off. A 5:55 at age 60 might put you in Top 250 in the U.S. so off by a factor of 10. This thread has gone off on all sorts of tangents. To kind of bring it back to the subject at hand. A sub 5 over the age of 60 is incredibly rare. Figure there are about 500,000,000 men over the age of 60 in the world. I'll go out on a limb and say there are 10 who could run a 4:59 or faster. Tommy Hughes most likely one of them, King as mentioned also..... So thats one in 50 million. Of course I'm playing a bit loose with the #s but you get the gist.

kmaclam wrote:

hayward field wrote:

Excellent book! That's what I used to run 5:55 at 60. Not super fast, but still top 25 in the US.

Nice job on that performance. But again, way way off. A 5:55 at age 60 might put you in Top 250 in the U.S. so off by a factor of 10. This thread has gone off on all sorts of tangents. To kind of bring it back to the subject at hand. A sub 5 over the age of 60 is incredibly rare. Figure there are about 500,000,000 men over the age of 60 in the world. I'll go out on a limb and say there are 10 who could run a 4:59 or faster. Tommy Hughes most likely one of them, King as mentioned also..... So thats one in 50 million. Of course I'm playing a bit loose with the #s but you get the gist.

Actually, it was the 7th best time in the US in 2011. The 1500m equivalent (run more often) would have been about 20th in the US. In 2019, a 5:55 mile, age 60 would have been 13th in the US and 56th in the world. Sure, there were other runners who could have run faster, but you have to actually do it.

Where are you getting this data?

uh huh wrote:

hayward field wrote:

Sorry, I completely disagree. You're obviously doing it wrong.

Why do you disagree, uh huh? From my experience (64, 2:31, 5:55 at age 60) he's spot on.

Build up gradually to avoid breaking down suddenly.

And it's good to take a break from running after your season's peak.[/quote]

That is all good suggestions, but it is not enough. Apparently, the vast majority of the old runners are doing it wrong, because I know very very few runners that are able to handle the middle-distance training after 50 and most of them had been running for 30-40 years, so they know what they are doing.

I think that the few that succeed at an old age, beside training smart, have also won the genetic lottery. For example, they may have a smaller frame or particularly strong achilles tendons or whatever.

In my case, I have been lucky enough that I can hope to be breaking 5 for a few more years, but it is becoming more and more difficult to train at the speed required to run a fast mile or half mile. Basically, now I need about 10 days to fully recover from a fast interval session, while 10 years ago I could do two in a week. As much as I can cross train and lift (3-4 times a week), this obviously limits my ability to run fast. I can only peak once a year and have to choose my races wisely, whole just a few years ago I could race a fast mile pretty much whenever I wanted. Aging sucks.

seikosha wrote:

hayward field wrote:

Actually, it was the 7th best time in the US in 2011. The 1500m equivalent (run more often) would have been about 20th in the US. In 2019, a 5:55 mile, age 60 would have been 13th in the US and 56th in the world. Sure, there were other runners who could have run faster, but you have to actually do it.

Where are you getting this data?

hayward field wrote:

Where are you getting this data?

https://mastersrankings.com/rankings/

Ohhh…you know that’s a horribly incomplete list right? It doesn’t really represent anything.

mid D guy wrote:

uh huh wrote:

Why do you disagree, uh huh? From my experience (64, 2:31, 5:55 at age 60) he's spot on.

Build up gradually to avoid breaking down suddenly.

And it's good to take a break from running after your season's peak.

That is all good suggestions, but it is not enough. Apparently, the vast majority of the old runners are doing it wrong, because I know very very few runners that are able to handle the middle-distance training after 50 and most of them had been running for 30-40 years, so they know what they are doing.

I think that the few that succeed at an old age, beside training smart, have also won the genetic lottery. For example, they may have a smaller frame or particularly strong achilles tendons or whatever.

In my case, I have been lucky enough that I can hope to be breaking 5 for a few more years, but it is becoming more and more difficult to train at the speed required to run a fast mile or half mile. Basically, now I need about 10 days to fully recover from a fast interval session, while 10 years ago I could do two in a week. As much as I can cross train and lift (3-4 times a week), this obviously limits my ability to run fast. I can only peak once a year and have to choose my races wisely, whole just a few years ago I could race a fast mile pretty much whenever I wanted. Aging sucks.[/quote]

Again, spot on mid D guy! Who are you? As a master runner competing (400, 800, mile) in Eugene, I realized--we all realized-- that we were fortunate just to get to the starting line

seikosha wrote:

hayward field wrote:

Where are you getting this data?

https://mastersrankings.com/rankings/

Ohhh…you know that’s a horribly incomplete list right? It doesn’t really represent anything.

So, pray tell, where might one find the complete list?

hayward field wrote:

seikosha wrote:

Ohhh…you know that’s a horribly incomplete list right? It doesn’t really represent anything.

So, pray tell, where might one find the complete list?

I don’t believe there is anyone out there web crawling for all the masters tack events across the world. That’s just a money grab site where people can self report times for I guess personal glory. Looking at it for 30 seconds, I know at least half a dozen local masters runners who could be top 5’s in various events but they aren’t listed.

seikosha wrote:

hayward field wrote:

So, pray tell, where might one find the complete list?

I don’t believe there is anyone out there web crawling for all the masters tack events across the world. That’s just a money grab site where people can self report times for I guess personal glory. Looking at it for 30 seconds, I know at least half a dozen local masters runners who could be top 5’s in various events but they aren’t listed.

Can you provide a link to meet results for those other runners? I'm always interested to see what other older runners have been able to do.