Any > 50 year olds under 3:00 for the marathon?

Going back to 1970's, 1980's Minnesota's Alex Ratelle was running in the 2:30's consistently in his mid 50's.(RW, July 1979).

The article doesn't say much about his training. Local rumor held that he was relatively low with mileage, but subbed in a lot of high intensity cross training.

Dermot Kerr, Armagh AC ran 2.32 at the Dublin Marathon last month, aged 52 I believe, deff >50

Sub-3 at 60 was my dream goal when I started making a training push just before I turned 59. Now, almost 4 years later, my race times have finally come down enough to where I have a realistic chance. Since beginning of Oct I’ve run half marathons in 1:24:09, 1:24:36, and a 30k in 2:04:33. Each of them was run on a certified, record eligible loop. However my sub-3 attempt will be made at CIM on Dec 7, a course that is not record eligible. It’s the only one that would fit with the busy Pac schedule I’ve been trying to keep up with this year. If I can make good on this one I hope to make another try on a certified loop sometime next year.

For most of the past 3 years I’ve been using Tinman’s “big workout” approach. It usually combines quality and distance into a single workout rather than split out into separate workouts. Bread and butter have been:

1600’s on the track at 10k-HM pace with short recoveries, and long warmups-cooldowns

Long runs with quality mixed in (tempo, faster segments, progression, or fast finish)

Hill reps, usually following a few miles at tempo

Slow-easy runs on all but 2 days, usually 8:10-8:40 pace on the grass, sometimes with strides.

Regular racing—31 starts YTD.

Avg mileage has been in mid 60’s with a few weeks in low 70’s. Ed Whitlock has been, and continues to be, a great source of inspiration and motivation since I first started reading about him several years ago.

I know a woman who ran 3:08 at age 50. She was about 18:45 at the time in the 5K and ran about 70 miles a week, lots of tempo and 2KM repeats.

Jim,

1:24:09 half marathon at your age is fantastic. There is no way you shouldn't be able to go sub 3:00. Good luck!

Check out Ermes Luppi on athlinks.com

2:39.53 at NYC at 62 years of age

Check out wejos thread on age group cheats. Luppi never ran NYCM this year.

beentheredone that wrote:

Check out Ermes Luppi on athlinks.com

2:39.53 at NYC at 62 years of age

My eyes popped out when I saw that, but he has since been discovered that man ran with his number. Ermes was very up front about it as soon as he was contacted. He said that he wasn't even at the race. Do a search and you will probably find the articles. That said, the WR for 60+ is 2:38:15 by Luciano Acquarone, another Italian.

Laker wrote:

[quote]Jim in SJ wrote:

Jim,

1:24:09 half marathon at your age is fantastic. There is no way you shouldn't be able to go sub 3:00. Good luck!

Hey Laker,

Long time, no talk. I saw that you ran great at Boston. You were always good at picking your spots and making them count.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm hoping for good weather and that I haven't it overdone it with the racing these past few weeks. I wish I had your patience.

How's your training been going? Any big ones on the horizon?

Jim

Jim in SJ wrote:

Laker wrote:

[quote]Jim in SJ wrote:

Jim,

1:24:09 half marathon at your age is fantastic. There is no way you shouldn't be able to go sub 3:00. Good luck!

Hey Laker,

Long time, no talk. I saw that you ran great at Boston. You were always good at picking your spots and making them count.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm hoping for good weather and that I haven't it overdone it with the racing these past few weeks. I wish I had your patience.

How's your training been going? Any big ones on the horizon?

Jim

Just trying to hang in there and get a good feeling back, won't run another marathon before Boston. I did three in 4 1/2 months last Dec.- Apr. They went pretty well but I'm feeling my age now. Amazing to me that you are running so well, I can't see being anywhere near your level when I get to sixty. You continue to be a great inspiration!

OCD wrote:

On the other hand, I do many M-pace (6:50 pace) runs on the treadmill for the same reason - to control pace and to minimize impact. I have rethought this because it seems that treadmill running is easier than road running and perhaps I am not in as good shape as I thought I was!

(Any comments on this last point?)

I use the t-mill for my m-pace runs. I rarely go below 1.5% grade though, and switch the grade every half mile or so throughout a run. I got the 1.5% grade to road equivalent from Daniels as well.

Dotato,

Thanks for that.

Aside from daniels recommendation, have you found that 1.5 % grade at M-pace is equivalent effort to M-pace on the road?

Do you also do threshold runs on the tmill?

dotato wrote:

I use the t-mill for my m-pace runs. I rarely go below 1.5% grade though, and switch the grade every half mile or so throughout a run. I got the 1.5% grade to road equivalent from Daniels as well.

How did you get up to running that long on a treadmill. I've just gotten one, and I'm finding it difficult to get over 30 minutes. Not physically but mentally.

OCD wrote:

Dotato,

Thanks for that.

Aside from daniels recommendation, have you found that 1.5 % grade at M-pace is equivalent effort to M-pace on the road?

Do you also do threshold runs on the tmill?

yes, and, in some ways harder. on the road, you can make variations over the course of the mile to average a speed. on the mill, you're at speed, period. I used to set it at one speed and just run, but anymore, I'll mix it up equally with the incline. Over the course of a mile, I'll go from 1.5 to 3.0% grade and from 10.4 to 10.8 mph, for instance. I'll run a quarter mile at that and then do something different. It's what helps the miles go by. I usually always finish up mp runs with the last quarter to half as fast as i can go. I made the mistake of just hitting the up button on a t-mill once until it stopped and it was some ridiculous number like 14 or 15 mph. I almost got thrown off the back.

The thing I do is check HR v. equivalent road pace on the mill. for instance, after a mile or two at 5:40 pace on the road, I know my HR should be between 142 and 145. To compensate for t-mills that may not be properly calibrated, I run by time and HR instead of the readout.

I don't make it a practice to do threshold on tmill, but I do do them. For those, same thing. mix up the pace with what are essentially surges throughout a run and then slipping back into target pace.

as far as how do i manage spending two hours plus on a t-mill...i listen to music, watch football, listen to mp3 sermons, after a while though, I usually end up taking ear buds out for last third of runs, they become distracting and shrill no matter what's playing. one year i did a 35k mp run while the chicago marathon was live on the tv.

Jim in SJ wrote:

beentheredone that wrote:

Check out Ermes Luppi on athlinks.com

2:39.53 at NYC at 62 years of age

My eyes popped out when I saw that, but he has since been discovered that man ran with his number. Ermes was very up front about it as soon as he was contacted. He said that he wasn't even at the race. Do a search and you will probably find the articles. That said, the WR for 60+ is 2:38:15 by Luciano Acquarone, another Italian.

I wouldn't want anybody to infer that Luciano's performance was not legitimate. This performance is in line with other races he ran about that time. I had a ouuple of good track races against him in 2001.

Ed Whitlock wrote:

I wouldn't want anybody to infer that Luciano's performance was not legitimate. This performance is in line with other races he ran about that time. I had a ouuple of good track races against him in 2001.

Ed,

I sure wasn't try to infer that his performance wasn't legit. Not only has his marathon record stood since 1991, but he also set the WR at 10k (34:15) that same year. I've seen his name on some other great race lists too, although I can't say exactly where at this moment. Yeah, this guy was for real. As for the other guy, Ermes, I didn't get impression that he was trying to pull anything, although he didn't use great judgment in allowing his friend to use that bib.

And while I have you here I just want to tell you that the 2:54:48 you ran at age 73 is, in my opinion, one of the 3 or 4 greatest races ever run at any age. I said that when I first heard about it and I haven't changed my mind one bit even though there have been some remarkable performances since then.

As I said a few posts back, you have been a great source of inspiration and motivation since I first started reading about you several years ago. I sure hope you can solve that knee problem and get back out on the roads real soon. Have you been making any progress?

Just wanted to wish you luck. I'm closing in on 40 and fearing it. Posts like yours make the idea of it a lot easier. Let us know how you do!

i ran a 2:50 at NYC this year at 51. Averaged 70+ although I really tried to run some easy weeks in the low to mid 50's so i'm not sure what the average would be. Peaked at 95. Don't run 5K's usually but could probably do 17:45, something like that--have no speed to speak of.

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200s would be roughly 30-32 seconds and 400s would be 78 working down to 65. 200 repeats would be 8-10 and 400 repeats would be 8-12. 100m jog between each.

Another favorite workout is a ladder of 1 mile, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 200 all done progressively quicker. I start the mile at 5:05ish. The kicker is I do a mile between each repeat at six min. pace or lower, I tried it once at marathon pace and found I couldn't pick it up quite as much.

_______

And you're how old? Man, those times are a little out of my reach at the moment. I've heard that speed is the first thing to go as you age, and I've found that to be true, so as I'm slowly increasing my mileage again, I've been adding in some repeat 200s ("fast" and with good recovery) to help improve it. Did 8 a few weeks back, starting at 40 and working down roughly 1 second per 200. Finished the last one in 33 and felt like I was Usain Bolt. (Can't believe that back in college we'd do 16x200 at 28sec.) Three days ago I did 8x200 (200 jog recovery) in 37, then a 400 in 73, then 2x200 in 37. I work on form and relaxation. These workouts, though hard, have actually been a lot of fun because they're so different from the plodding I've tended to do. Hoping that they have some good dividends.

Thanks for the suggestions.