I am a 40+ year old guy that was once very serious about running in high school and then have just kind of dabbled with running off and on throughout the years. Usually I find myself taking almost 6 months off of training per year. I am trying to become a little more serious about running. I have heard some suggest that I may have actually saved my legs and may have an advantage on others as I get older? Is that rubbage.. or is there truth to that/
No there is no truth to that. Time to get busy, you've got a lot of catching up to do.Next question?
Getting Back To Running wrote:
I am a 40+ year old guy that was once very serious about running in high school and then have just kind of dabbled with running off and on throughout the years. Usually I find myself taking almost 6 months off of training per year. I am trying to become a little more serious about running. I have heard some suggest that I may have actually saved my legs and may have an advantage on others as I get older? Is that rubbage.. or is there truth to that/
I disagree with what the spanish boss stated above. I think that a lot of serious runners who have run for years and years will deal with overuse injuries sooner or later. Perhaps even mental burnout. So- yes I think that you will have an advantage in that context.
Yep, some truth to that.
But, it won't mean anything unless you get that lard butt of yours out there and start running!
Take it from me, you're going to need more recovery than you used to need. Don't expect to go out and hammer out 30 mile weeks all at once. You might even need to start off running every other day.
And don't forget to get in some type of speed. You lose that quickly.
I suspect there may be some truth to this. Some of the most competitive masters I know took up (or returned) to running in their mid to late thirties. Meanwhile, the masters that have been racing non-stop since high school are battling chronic injuries and/or burnout and have slowed WAY down. Think of them as high-mileage vehicles.
I know, I know, there are numerous exceptions to this, so save yourself the time pointing them out.
The secret is to avoiding marathons at all costs. If you kept your mileage lowish, rarely raced over 10km, raced infrequently, took summers OR winters off....then you can maintain quality efforts well into your fifties.
If you have raced more than 10 marathons, you are pretty much washed up.
I don't think anyone can argue with that logic.
I'm 53 amd wracked up. Go alternate days.
Have you considered taking up cycling?
Although I ran seriously through my 20s, I was not a high-mileage guy, nor a marathoner. I had up-and-down periods in my 30s and early 40s. At 51, I think those breaks are allowing me to run better, on an age-group basis, than I would otherwise have. And I am definitely more competitive on the marathon-front for having run only one as a youngster.
How often/far/fast you can now run is a personal thing. I do six days a week, but others do alternate days.
Check out the weekly Masters Runners thread.
I don't agree at all. I think a lifetime of thoughtful, quality training builds resilience rather than breaks you down.
your vast experience tells you this?
marijuologist wrote:
I don't agree at all. I think a lifetime of thoughtful, quality training builds resilience rather than breaks you down.
... and how old are you kid?
marijuologist wrote:
I don't agree at all. I think a lifetime of thoughtful, quality training builds resilience rather than breaks you down.
There does seem to be a group of 2nd career guys doing better than those who never took a break.
My own 20 years away from training and racing have netted me an extra 20 #s that seems to have no intention of leaving. My times are still substantially slower than WAVA tables indicate should be doable based on early career PR's. (i.e. 18 min.off pace in the Marathon)
For the most part I'm injury free and healthy but have lost so much natural speed and stamina.
Refer to Sheehan's experiment of one philosophy, and get to work.
heay SILLY OLD FOSSIL....ever heard of Ed Whitlock?
First of all we are all very different. Some have an excess of slow twitch muscles and the faster guys don't. A good number of runners who ran big mileage and marathons for many years do have leg and back problems. But there is another problem that is not uncommon that may surprise some. A number of my friends from the 60s and 70s have had to have cardioversions due to atrial flutter or atrial fibrulation. It seems that massive amounts of running over a long period of time may not be as good for the heart for some of us as we thought although the doctors will not admit that the problem is due to running. As with many medical problems, they say that there have been no studies done. So I just continue to jog/run every second day as I can and let the doctors take care of my heart by seeing them every 3 or 4 months. It is very important that we listen to our bodies. Maybe some day I will be able to run in a race or two again.
Less mileage may be better but will the runner run to his maximum marathon ability without the long run?
There's one theory that says, essentially, that we all have a certain number of running miles and when you reach the total that's it.
Haven't made up my mind on this. As it seems way oversimplified. Yet there could be some truth.
My own running was nipped in the bud at 19 as i contracted chondramalacia. And from then on decided i would just run for fun and to be healthy. And to learn how to go the distance. And it's never too late to learn a good thing.
My recent (5 years) barefoot running experiments have "evolved" my pleasure&health-driven approach to include amateur competition and conventional training methods. When you experiment with anything, it is a good idea to have some reference points and competition and racing defenitely offer some.
But the most interesting area of this experimentation has to do with re-generation: of tissue and will alike.
The soles of our feet regenerate with recovery. The souls of our minds need to do the same. Old shoes wear down and that's it. They are thrown away and you have to buy new ones. But we can recover.
My feeling is performance-driven obligation leads to injury. Pleasure&Health-driven competition leads to well-being and healing.
So far so good and improvement continues against the aging curve. But the Olympics and Masters championships podiums are still out of sight. The podiums, but not getting to the starting line...
Old Guy Like You wrote:
Yep, some truth to that.
But, it won't mean anything unless you get that lard butt of yours out there and start running!
Take it from me, you're going to need more recovery than you used to need. Don't expect to go out and hammer out 30 mile weeks all at once. You might even need to start off running every other day.
And don't forget to get in some type of speed. You lose that quickly.
The most to the point reply yet. Thanks. I needed someone to kick me in the rump. : ) I have lost a ton..and I mean a ton of speed. A few weeks ago I ran a time trial for the mile.. just to see what I could do. It was around 5:50! Holy cow that is slooooowwww. I can still hold an ok pace over the long hall(70 min for 10 miles a few weeks ago) but that speed stuff is a killer. I doubt I could beat a 5th grade girl in a 100m sprint. I am currently up to close to 40 miles per week. Starting to feel good again. That's the best part.
the point could be wrote:
The soles of our feet regenerate with recovery. The souls of our minds need to do the same. Old shoes wear down and that's it. They are thrown away and you have to buy new ones. But we can recover.
That was a beautiful poem.
feeling warm and fuzzy inside?When you are done, get some good stompers on, like Doc Martens, and kick the op in the arse. That'll get him going.But if you want another poem i'll write one for ya...
Living in the Past wrote:
the point could be wrote:The soles of our feet regenerate with recovery. The souls of our minds need to do the same. Old shoes wear down and that's it. They are thrown away and you have to buy new ones. But we can recover.
That was a beautiful poem.
I remember that as Bill Rodgers was in his late thirties he talked a lot about staying in form and bettering Jack Foster's over 40 record for the marathon which was 2:11 something. He never got close and by the time he'd reached his forties had switched to talking about beating Barry Brown's US over forty record of 2:15. He never got that either and said later that he thought that "new" masters runners, Jack Foster was thirty three when he started, had a huge advantage because they didn't have decades of wear on their legs. Later, John Campbell did what BR couldn't do and bettered Foster's over 40 time, probably adding support to Rodgers' idea because even though Campbell had run as a teen and throughout the intervening years, he had a very off and on career with gaps of many years between his "running" years.
But Barry Brown had run since high school and very seriously for all of that time yet managed to run a marathon time past forty that Rodgers couldn't. Maybe it was because Bill had been a serious marathon runner and Brown had concentrated on track and cross country. But Ron Hill also managed a faster over forty marathon time than Rodgers and his marathon career started even sooner and lasted longer.
What I think is that you can keep going for as long as you have the mental drive to do it. For a lot of us who were serious in our younger years I think it's very discouraging to finish a 5 km at a pace that is comparable to what your marathon pace once was. Jack Foster ran 2:20 at age fifty and pretty much left the sport saying, "Once you've run 2:12 it's no fun running 2:20 especially when the 2:20 is harder."
But someone who doesn't feel that way, someone who can appreciate the age group PR and the good feeling that follows an all-out effort probably can remain competitive with his peers.