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

mike fanelli wrote:

Charlie,

Thanks for the stats verification...so he was "only" 50 then in 1980 when he ran 2:22 to my age 24 and 2:25... apparently, since that time this South African cat exceeded Piet's awesome age 50 time...honestly, the 1980 Nike OTC race by Piet was so mind boggling to me and I seriously wonder about the age/distance by the guy in Durban...that white haired guy flew past me as though I was standing still near the 7-11?? in Springfield that day and I never saw him again until the results booklet was mailed out a couple of months later...have a resource for those '80 Nike OTC results for us???

MF

Hi Mike,

Googled around a bit and came up with nada on the 80 OTC race.Never had heard of Piet either until this thread.Amazing string of performances.

Charlie

When I was younger I figured sub3 was easy (of course I never actually tried it) but now in my mid30s I'm really impressed with a sub3. At age 50, sub3 is quite an accomplishment and best of luck to all you on here trying to do it.

actually, 45 M runners over age 50 broke 3hrs at Boston this year.

43 were 50-59 and 2 in the 60+. No women this year over 50 broke 3 this year....the most obvious woman that could ran the day before.

more than that!!! wrote:

actually, 45 M runners over age 50 broke 3hrs at Boston this year.

43 were 50-59 and 2 in the 60+. No women this year over 50 broke 3 this year....the most obvious woman that could ran the day before.

45 over 50 under 3, That's sick. You must mean 43 @ 55-59? Only 2 60+. What a drop off! And to think a 60 yo needs a 2:48:10 for age graded world class

asterick wrote:

When I was younger I figured sub3 was easy (of course I never actually tried it) but now in my mid30s I'm really impressed with a sub3. At age 50, sub3 is quite an accomplishment and best of luck to all you on here trying to do it.

When I was in my 30's a sub 2:50 was not a problem, in my 40's I could most, but not all times get under 3, now at 57 I am fighting to stay under 4. Last year 3:45, this year 3:51....but I'm still trying! Thing is, at 57 I can get under 20 for 5K, but still cannot do a marathon at a decent pace. Frustrating...

While we're talking possibilities. Derek Turnbull ran a 2:41.57 in London in 1992 at age 65. Not bad for someone who never had a coach and never used a stopwatch.

AK-50 wrote:

2:54 on a certified course that had 8 miles of gravel road and a 700' hill midway.

17:19

60-70 mpw for 6 weeks

also 3:09 on a course that had 3,300' of elevation gain & loss

again 60-70 mpw

Excellent! What were your bread & butter workouts? Long run? Tempos? Intervals?

According to marathonguide.com, 1.7% broke 3 hours in 2007, so I guess it's not too bad if you can do it after 50. I've done it 2x, once at 50 (2:59) on a hilly Okinawa course, and once at 54 (2:56) in Vancouver. I am doing Seattle next week and training much harder than I have in years. last week.

Sat- 20 miles

Sun- Bike

Mon- 4 miles, then 4 mile tempo in 23:38

Tues- easy hour plus a bike

Wed- 14 mile good tempo

Thurs- easy hour plus a bike

Fri- 6 x 800 uner 3:00 with a min rest

Sat- 13 miles of tempo plus 2 miles

PS- I am totally sold on those Yasso 800s, only I shorten the recovery to 60-90 sec.

Thomas Powers fall of 2000 he ran 6 marathons between the dates of 10-01-00 & 11-19-00 at an average of 2:55:31 over the 7 weeks plus 1day.

Tom was 51 years old at the time of this string;

10-01 wineglass 2.59.58

10-08 steamtown 2.55.27

10-15 mohawk hudson 2.53.23

10-29 columbus 2.49.41

11-05 nycity 2.56.42

11-19 philly 2.57.53

My key workouts were long runs and tempos. Lots of tempos. But I did not do as many Marathon-Pace workouts as I should have. (I had a 2:48 in NY @ 50.) I've hovered just above 17:30 for 5K for a while, but I can get sub-5 for a mile.

Jzs wrote:

Thomas Powers fall of 2000 he ran 6 marathons between the dates of 10-01-00 & 11-19-00 at an average of 2:55:31 over the 7 weeks plus 1day.

Tom was 51 years old at the time of this string;

10-01 wineglass 2.59.58

10-08 steamtown 2.55.27

10-15 mohawk hudson 2.53.23

10-29 columbus 2.49.41

11-05 nycity 2.56.42

11-19 philly 2.57.53

One good one and a bunch of slower jogs. What was the point? Two hours plus your age impresses me, he did it only once.

elgerdh wrote:

According to marathonguide.com, 1.7% broke 3 hours in 2007, so I guess it's not too bad if you can do it after 50. I've done it 2x, once at 50 (2:59) on a hilly Okinawa course, and once at 54 (2:56) in Vancouver. I am doing Seattle next week and training much harder than I have in years. last week.

Sat- 20 miles

Sun- Bike

Mon- 4 miles, then 4 mile tempo in 23:38

Tues- easy hour plus a bike

Wed- 14 mile good tempo

Thurs- easy hour plus a bike

Fri- 6 x 800 uner 3:00 with a min rest

Sat- 13 miles of tempo plus 2 miles

PS- I am totally sold on those Yasso 800s, only I shorten the recovery to 60-90 sec.

That was not a tempo run.

dnixon - you might want to check out an interview with Tom Ryan - one of the faster 50+ masters runners in the country. I don't think Tom runs marathons but he might have some interesting training tips anyway. Just google Tom Ryan + interview + runtowin. Good luck.

Will check out the interview.

Thanks to everyone for the input so far. Very helpful. It's obvious to me that to pull this off …

(1) I need to lower my 5k time

(2) I need do longer, marathon pace runs

(3) I need to do tempo runs more often

(4) I need to have better recovery days

(5) I need EPO + testosterone supplements ;-)

_______

I think we need to start a new thread for 50+ runners who are going to attempt sub 3:00 in, say, the fall of 2009 — a mutual encouragement society for the next several months. I'm still weighing my commitment to go for it again, so getting a more realistic picture of the training involved is helpful. We've got some fast older dudes out there.

I haven't run a road marathon since 2000 when I was a young 40yo. That was 2.57 off about 50kms per week I ran 37.18 for 10k in the lead up. I ran a number of longer mtn events in subsequent years that had me thinking I would have run 2.52/53 on the roads. An injury sidelined me for a time but I've been pottering around the last few years just running 19/39 for 5s and 10s (tough courses). I turn 50 next year and have started thinking about running another road marathon.

I expect with some reasonable training I can knock a minute off the 5 and 2 minutes off the 10. If that's the case then sub 3 would seem a reasonable goal.

I currently have my running back up to 4 days per week and around 60-65kms. Basically just 3 days of rolling along trails for 80mins and one day where I do some striding work on the golf course or horse track, lots of mtn biking also. In a few weeks I'll start doing some track racing (it's summer here).

In winter I think I'll pretty much stick with what I've been doing except for racing xc/trails on the weekend -often on both sat and sun.

At the end of our winter season I'd just build in a longer weekend run of 2-2.5 hrs for 2 months then the marathon. Nothing fancy but if I'm in sub 38 10k shape I'd be pretty confident.

mopak you run very good times. Particularly

considering your age and very low volume.

dnixon wrote:

Thanks to everyone for the input so far. Very helpful. It's obvious to me that to pull this off …

(1) I need to lower my 5k time

(2) I need do longer, marathon pace runs

(3) I need to do tempo runs more often

(4) I need to have better recovery days

(5) I need EPO + testosterone supplements ;-)

I only disagree with the 5k time concern. I'm not sure what it would serve at this point and think you'd be better off spending the time on marathon pace, recovery and turn over.

erik

I think we need to start a new thread for 50+ runners who are going to attempt sub 3:00 in, say, the fall of 2009 — a mutual encouragement society for the next several months. I'm still weighing my commitment to go for it again, so getting a more realistic picture of the training involved is helpful. We've got some fast older dudes out there.

+++++++

agree and this would be great.

I have found this thread very inspirational--I will not turn 50 till next year but would like to get up to HM in 09 at a time which suggests sub 3 might be doable in 2010. guess that would be around 1:25....

uh-huh wrote:

I think we need to start a new thread for 50+ runners who are going to attempt sub 3:00 in, say, the fall of 2009 — a mutual encouragement society for the next several months. I'm still weighing my commitment to go for it again, so getting a more realistic picture of the training involved is helpful. We've got some fast older dudes out there.

+++++++

agree and this would be great.

I have found this thread very inspirational--I will not turn 50 till next year but would like to get up to HM in 09 at a time which suggests sub 3 might be doable in 2010. guess that would be around 1:25....

Count me in! I'll be 50 in Dec and am on a sub-3 mission. Sub-3 old timers unite!