stepups, better height today because not tired from sprints before, walking lunges 3x8/2x10kg kettlebells, single leg extensions 3x8e, single leg curls, 3x8e, single leg rdls 2x4kg dumbells, rdls 2x8/60kgs, and 2 sets of walking push sleds (heels on ground).
60 seconds rest between sets.
2.6km warm down
This post was edited 10 minutes after it was posted.
After a flurry of top-end PRs the previous week, I came down to Earth with an intense lactate tolerance session of 200 repeats with my club group. I have done no such pure 800 pace sessions since last year, so I knew I was in for some real trial by fire.
My goal pace was 40.0 for a straight ladder of ten reps with 2 min recovery. I managed 39.x for the first five, but knew I needed a set break to have hope of ten total(and maybe not even then...the hurt was real!).
So after a ten minute set break, I managed my fastest rep of 39.0 but the wheels started coming off. The last two were not pretty in 42.x.. Overall 41.0 for the session, which I am fine with at this early point in the season, especially as I am shifting emphasis to the 400 over the 800.
I still had residual fatigue 3 days later for my speed session in my new Dragonflies. 50,100,200 at max were 8.5,16.6 and a disappointing 36.9. Allergies may have played a role as well. Today is a 100% recovery day, zero running or cross training.
Today I’m sucked into a small tennis tourney, which will be my next few hours. Hadn’t planned on it but a guy on a friend’s team got injured. The only fun match will be singles against a guy 30 yrs my junior. I will use it as a workout, with the NOTHING GETS PAST ME mentality. The club made it first to 3 sets, because it’s hot outside and full sun.
Should be good! Hopefully the body survives the pounding. I will try to be smart about it, will be a good agility and groin session.
yes, we have a lot of bike paths in this regional town, so i rarely go on roads.
Bought my first ever smart watch. I agree it is not as accurate as heart rate monitors, but pretty good especially for cycling.
I think for long zone 2 and zone 3 efforts, wrist HR option will be fine, although i am not sure about how accurate it will be for the sprints.
I bought five smartwatches and sent them all back because they weren't reliable HR tracking. I gave up and got the Amazfit GTR 4 because it can pair with my Polar H10 chest strap. Even then, sometimes the watch doesn't sync with the chest strap.
When I want reliable HR readings, I use one of my old Timex Ironman HRMs with a chest strap.
Today is going to be hard. I have to do nothing. It's a dedicated zero effort day. I HATE these recovery days.
Eventful week starting with hamstring injury scare and ended with a triumphant hill interval session at mile race effort... my best set of such intervals in the last decade. The key has been consistency in high animal protein diet and 9 hours sleep/rest per day. Normally such a good long hill session (8x85 sec hill with jog down on 5 minutes rotation) would come after months of mileage at 30 to 50. This time it is off months of Feed the Cats style speed work with around 10 mpw and top speed with long recoveries. Yet my stamina was great through the final reps. The first 200m of each rep felt amazing.
Key today was doing the session with my reliable training partner. Such partners are invaluable in pushing the limits. Soundtrack was the 80s album "Love" by The Cult. A Hollow Man reached Nirvana lol.
Unfortunately the all comers series I wanted to race has the 400 and 800 late evening which would derail my sleep schedule. Instead I will run time trials on weekends.
I'm not exactly sure where this all leads but man it is so fun and feels amazing.
Looking for tips from sprinters aged 50+ based on their methods and experiences.
I look forward to the rest of my 60s to see what i can run (and pentathlon if body holds up), but sadly with much less leg power these days, my prospects are limited given my standing long is now down to 2.1m NFL style. I am still able to single leg hopping over 20m for training, but worry about my right knee which had a third of the lateral cartilage cut out in 1999. Any tips about how best to regain some of my lost leg power, and what do you masters sprinters over 50 years do for training the sprints.
Previous experience with sprints
I have run 14.5 this year at training at 61 years of age.
After giving up little athletics at age 12, I ran 12.2, 25, and 54.5 for three sprints at age 19 after a year of hard training. 11 years later, I ran 11.2, 22.5 and 50.4 for sprints, based on 200m and 300m reps and hopping stairs twice to three times per week. Did no weights that year, but had worked hard on strength for previous ten years getting my standing long up from 2.53m to 3m.
Looking for tips from sprinters aged 50+ based on their methods and experiences.
I look forward to the rest of my 60s to see what i can run (and pentathlon if body holds up), but sadly with much less leg power these days, my prospects are limited given my standing long is now down to 2.1m NFL style. I am still able to single leg hopping over 20m for training, but worry about my right knee which had a third of the lateral cartilage cut out in 1999. Any tips about how best to regain some of my lost leg power, and what do you masters sprinters over 50 years do for training the sprints.
Previous experience with sprints
I have run 14.5 this year at training at 61 years of age.
After giving up little athletics at age 12, I ran 12.2, 25, and 54.5 for three sprints at age 19 after a year of hard training. 11 years later, I ran 11.2, 22.5 and 50.4 for sprints, based on 200m and 300m reps and hopping stairs twice to three times per week. Did no weights that year, but had worked hard on strength for previous ten years getting my standing long up from 2.53m to 3m.
What is your race ?
it will be 200m-400m. that is what i was best at thirty years ago. And they are the events i enjoy. Not interested in block practice.
Also pentathlon, but lack of numbers and a certain state medal for my age does not really excite me.
This post was edited 6 minutes after it was posted.
Today was a 200m-specific workout. Warm up drills with some jogging in between for a total of a mile super slow. Then 2x50m progressive in 8.9 and 7.9.
I switch to spikes and ran two all-out 150m in 23.53 and 23.20 with ten minutes between reps. Both reps felt like I could have held pace for 200m but no farther. I'd like to do these under 22.5 by July.
I took thirty minutes recovery, including moving to another field and setting up my 35lb tow rig with 25 and 10 lb plates. I did 4x sprint tows of 30m in 8.59, 8.45. 7.76, and 7.33. Recovery was three minutes including a slow backwards tow back to the start line.
I finished with a 60m sprint tow of 25lbs w/30m splits in 7.13 and 5.88 for 13.01. The grass was short, dry, and brown so the times can't be compared with previous workouts.
I walked barefoot on the grass and it was an interesting sensation... hot, crunchy, and dry. It was quite different than barefoot on cool, damp green grass, but it was pleasant. After the workout, I realized that the dust from the grass was causing some sinus issues so I"ll move to one of the greener fields next week for this workout.
jog 1km then 10x200m 12.4kmh with 100m 8.2kmh between, last rep 300m, then 1km warmdown
according to heart rate data, spent 13m44 in zone 4 and 3m40 zone 5.
even though i also do 5x100m@90% Mondays and 5x200m on Fridays, i calculated that only 7-8% of my training in terms of time spent training each week is zone 4 and 5 for week. over 90% zone 2 and 3, including weights sessions. Only leg weights gets my heart rate up.
Even my 90% 100m reps do not get into zone 5.
This post was edited 5 minutes after it was posted.
The 300+100 was a little slow, but I was tieing up with 40m to go in the 300 and 20m to go in the 100 so it was an excellent training workout. I need to run 1:13.56 in two weeks to break the M75 state record.
Afterwards I did four weighted sprint tows of 30m getting progressively faster with each tow. The dryness of the grass makes week to week time comparisons unreliable. but I went from 35 lbs last week to 65 lbs this week. My times were 13.3 down to 10.5 on the last one.
Watching videos of elite masters runners, I noticed that they took longer steps out of the blocks than I did. When I focused on making my first few steps longer, I got faster.
Oh, and I towed the weights backwards between each rep.
I put on compression socks afterwards to see if they make a difference in recovery. We'll see.
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Added a point.
The 300+100 was a little slow, but I was tieing up with 40m to go in the 300 and 20m to go in the 100 so it was an excellent training workout. I need to run 1:13.56 in two weeks to break the M75 state record.
Afterwards I did four weighted sprint tows of 30m getting progressively faster with each tow. The dryness of the grass makes week to week time comparisons unreliable. but I went from 35 lbs last week to 65 lbs this week. My times were 13.3 down to 10.5 on the last one.
Watching videos of elite masters runners, I noticed that they took longer steps out of the blocks than I did. When I focused on making my first few steps longer, I got faster.
Oh, and I towed the weights backwards between each rep.
I put on compression socks afterwards to see if they make a difference in recovery. We'll see.
6x33.3m progressive. Last two all out in 5.5 and 5.1
4x150m 25.5 25.4 23.7 DNS
I was running with a friend and two young guys joined us for rep #3. They pushed us to our best times, but I was too wiped out to line up for rep #4. After the workout, I was coughing badly. AQI was 68 when I checked at 7am, but either it got worse in a hurry or I'm just more susceptible than my training partner.
I'm racing the 400m two weeks from today. The state record in my age group is 1:13.5. I think I'm in 1:12 shape We'll see.