50+ Weekly Training Thread (for week ending 23-jan-2011)

Yep, this was a tough week for training. Can it get any worse? I'll make 70 miles again this week. Just need 6 miles today...The week was again filled with character building runs. Wednesday evenings 12 got in the 6:40's, Saturdays 14+ was just getting thru it. WC was -8 and lot's of new snow...

Drills? Truthfully, never done anything, never really thought about doing any of them. They seem to week for Pete though I'm sure he would be a pretty darn good runner without them! I think my days are filled with plenty of cross-training. I work in construction so I'm working out & drilling all day long. May not be running specific but I'm not sitting behind a desk all day....

Looking forward to the big game at 3:00. The chili is already on the stove simmering!

Bear Down, Chicago Bears!

Dave

Chili ? !!!

well, this wasn't a favorable week for me. four more ART sessions, which helped, but not enough. yesterday morning i warmed up in barton to see if there was any chance i'd be able to run the hartshorne masters mile, but every step hurt even at the sluggish pace i was traveling, i could feel and hear my left foot going scuff-scuff-scuff, and at least four friends told me i was limping. so i held one end of the finish line tape instead of breaking it myself as i had hoped to. my friend and fellow finger lakes club member, suzy myette, ran a very smart 50+ women's race, following the two leaders through six laps and, feeling frustrated with the slow pace (not due to any fault of the rabbit, i should note), made a boldly decisive move with a full 400 m to go, and held on in style for 5:48 (i ran 5:43 two weeks ago before getting hurt, so i was sorry/frustrated not to have been able give it a go). as announcer pete taylor duly noted, suzy stole the show. the other races were also exciting, of course, and i always find joy in watching alisa harvey's serene style -- too bad she couldn't have found one more second to shave off in her last lap; likewise for nolan shaheed. both were shooting for records (their own, i'm pretty sure), and both came up just shy. next year's 50+ men's race will be something to behold if all goes well. rumor is that socal pete is eyeing the world record and thinks a trip from LA to ithaca in january sounds like just the way to do it (note to pete: it's going to be -10F tonight!). tom and rick put on a great event, so if they ask any of you to come run, just say yes :-)

today i'll set up my bike on the trainer and gaze across the snow-covered hayfield across the street as i start a regimen of pedaling away to nowhere and keep working with my ART guy to get my butt back to functioning the way it should. i'm still holding out hope -- but not holding my breath -- to run a 50K in southern cal in four weeks.

drills? no, not really, although i do core and balance exercises and also am being more diligent about gentle stretching.

hope everyone who encounters it manages to deal well with the cold and has a great week of running.

Sorry about your bad luck,NLS. Sounds like there was a spate of injuries in the lead-up to the meet.

For those that want to see the results from the meet, they are posted on masterstrack:

http://masterstrack.com/2011/01/17268/#more-17268

NLS, I sympathize! That must have been tough. While I would love to race in Barton again (GO BIG RED!), I could never justify flying out there when I'd only finish in the middle of the pack. Maybe if my youngest goes to Cornell (he's in 8th grade). Still, it was fun to see several old teammates were out running - Paige and Boyadijis!

I had an adjustment on Friday and my leg felt a little better. Still working on the Egoscue e-cises. I truly could use the drills again - I did them for a little while and felt they were beneficial. I particularly like Pete's suggestion to do a stride after every one to "incorporate" the drill - makes sense to me.

Still building mileage this week and I am feeling stronger and a tiny bit leaner.

Mid-60 miles this week, with 1 hard workout, a xc race and a long run interspersed with easy runs of an hour or so.

I misread the hard workout and instead of doing a track workout, I did 3 x 15 min. @ tempo pace, with 1 min. recovery on grass, then 3x200 strides on the dirt track.

Saturday, I ran a xc race and ran just about the same damn time I've run every OTHER 5k xc race in the last 5 months, varying only 3 seconds in all 4 races. Too much of a wuss to go for the win over a 25 year old, settled for 2nd 6 seconds back.

Sunday, longest run I've done in about a year - 16 miles on gravel road and trails. It used to be my "bread and butter" long run, but was scared away from it by a "stalker" guy and now my usual route is much hillier and all on trails and I rarely get past 14 miles on it. But today, I headed out with a friend for the first 5 miles (and, of course, saw stalker guy) and did the whole thing. It was LONG, but I probably do need to get back to that length of a long run.

Tentatively planning on the xc race in two weeks - but main goal is to do mileage, mileage, and strength stuff all spring/summer and hopefully get fit in the process.

Sorry, the above message is from Muddy Girl - it has the wrong handle on it!

Got to hand it to you Racerdb. Working construction and putting in 70 miles a week. That's the kind of stuff that filled my 20's thru 50's. I bowed out to farm, in 2000. Life is still fairly physical, but the days are not as long, as a rule.

Anyway, the time and effort at this form of work is crosstraining, and not to be overlooked.

nls, Best of luck with the ART and other recovery activties. Recuperation hinges on that static balance between making haste slowly, and continued proactive stimulation of the injured area.

Ran but 3 days this week. Short slow runs at -20F on a snowmobile trail. Serene and therapeutic needs to be the byline, until the strength zapped out me by the flu, returns.

I'll admit to being a fairweather fan, but I can't resist saying : GO PACK,GO!!

43 miles in 7 days of running. Just a good building week, another step up the mileage ladder. I’m just gonna plug away, escalate the mileage, pull back, press again, repeat.

I have friends into drills and I love to pick on them as being “fancy schmancy newfangled hopscotch”. But this is only because I really have little knowledge of them. I can guarantee you if I had some kind of difficulty and one of these drills could help it: I’d be the first to sign up. I’m a pragmatist, what the heck ever works, I’ll do it.

But a caveat; there are so many people in the “fitness business” you know they have to sell you something, so not all of it can possibly be good. I’d listen to anyone here though, that’s good enough for me.

I managed to squeeze out another 50 this week, although it got more challenging late in the week. Through Thursday I was feeling pretty good, but I was running low on energy for the last 3 runs of the week. I'm sorry to see that Nolan Shaheed is again running so well in the early season, since I never escape from his age group. Actually, I find his running very inspirational. I irrationally believe that If I can just improve my training, then I can run that fast :>)

As for drills, when I was in a coached program I used to do them regularly, but then my coach retired 5 years ago and I have been running on my own since then. I consistently do strides at the end of workouts, and stretching after that, but I don't do any specific drills any more.

Tough week weatherwise.

73 miles in 12 runs, much of it on tm.

Raced 3k in 9:32, 10sec slower than 3 weeks ago.

Legs were good, but breathing too hard too early,

so probably a bit tired.

Now out for the am 4 miler in a cheerful zero degrees.

No drills. No stretching. No weights. Just running.

56 miles in 6 days. Ran a 5 Mile tempo as part of Saturday's long run. Last year this time I was peaked for Melbourne, just getting started this year, :30/mile slower in the 5, ouch. I'll peak in early May so that's where I'm at now.

Drills and conditioning, daily. My training partner went to Chiba, Japan with Greg McMillan last November and brought back some good ones, including crawling forward and backwards, great core stuff.

My Team Nebraska Brooks mate Angee Henry will run the W800 at the 104th Millrose Games this coming weekend, be sure to cheer for the Red & White!

classic ski: 36 km (3 sessions)

skate ski: 32km (3 short sessions, incl 10K race)

Run: 13 mi (1 hill run [1:08] at -14F) and 2 short runs

Sorry about the injury NLS. (my inbox is flooded with HNAC accounts of the race! Good race for Casey!).

Kind of meh, bleh, brr week for training, but the race turned out okay, give it a B+

The deep freeze returned to central Alaska, which put a big damper on training through Friday. Frostbit my nose, cheek and ear, I think on two or three different workouts no less. Great. Not severe, but peeling skin and feeling raw. Felt unrecovered from 20K (2 weeks ago) throughout the week, but the 10K race yesterday seemed to blow that out of my system.

The good news: took 5 junior skiers to Junior Olympics qualifiers on the Kenai (south Alaska) peninsula, where temps were mild (20s and mid teens). Kids did great, with two J2s (15-16 yr olds) placing top 6 in both races, so they sit 4th and 5th in the state now, and a clinch for Junior Olympics (sort of skiing's equivalent to Footlocker). My younger son took 4th in his J3 races (13-14) and is ranked 5th in his division (no JOs for the younger skiers). Older son got sick, so he didn't have good races, but ranked 16th for his age. Solid and he can improve if he sets his mind to it.

After coaching I jumped int the 10K freestyle open/masters race. Placed 3rd masters, but only 3rd in 50+. The first guy is a Norwegian phenom, probably the best 50+ skier in North America (2.5 min ahead...like running against Sammy Ngatia), and 2nd was 30 sec up, and he's won several world masters medals and has some US titles...so considering where I was just 3 months ago with the injury (unable to skate at all), yeah I'll take it. Tough course, all up and down, with only short rests. Like doing 30-30s (or 45-15s) at 3K-5K pace for 30 min.

Drills--not in the ice. I try to incorporate drills once a week during summer. Short 40 to 50 m bursts, skipping hopping, high knees etc. Haven't these done since knee injury.

With skiing, we do something fast work every day, even on recovery and distance days. Learning fast tempo.

I think runners could do more on recovery days. Just a few pick ups at race pace with full recovery.

My son's XC team spends boatloads of time on drills. They might only run 6 to 10 miles on any given day, but their practices are 2 to 2.5 hr, a lot of drills and dynamic stretching. I think that's overkill, but they did stay healthy last year and had a successful season.

Boy, I had the impression that it was very common that people are doing drills, I guess I was wrong on that. Several of you, I'll give a pass on, because you have a pretty active job. I also think that if you train a lot on trails, the uneven footing goes a long way towards building stability. So drills would, maybe, of reduced benefit (just a conjecture). But for me, I spend a lot of time either at my computer, at a desk grading, or just standing lecturing. As such, I think I fall perfectly into the category to which Coach Magill speaks. Glad to see there are at least a few that are doing drills.

AK-52 wrote:

but they did stay healthy last year and had a successful season.

This part says a lot to me.