Masters Weekend Races and Runs

Congrats to all the masters at nationals. Some stellar performances. Well, it's snowing again. Was supposed to be 1 inch and they justed changed it to 4-5 inches. Luckily I got in a 10.5 mile run yesterday, my longest in 6 months so today I probably will just do some weights and stretching. Going to the Badgers-Spartans game at noon and then coming back home to get ready for the big game. I used to really be into these games. After Green Bay lost to Denver in 1997 I got pretty upset and then I realized it wasn't worth getting so worked up about. I'll tell you though there is Packer fever everywhere. There are going to be alot of extremely happy or unhappy in Wisconsin tonight.My training is unorganized and self analyzed and it shows. I have good intentions to change it. I seriously plan on doing much,much more hill training starting this spring. Have a good week all. TC

I was in a masters mile this weekend that the winner won in 4:19.

I was next to last. Just happy I didn't get lapped!

Wish I was in SD to compete. Looked like it was almost perfect wether to race. It's hard for me to imagine Pete winning once again. He is truly the ageless wonder. One day, I'll be telling people I knew him back when he was dominating things.

Running for me is pretty non-existent still. 4 runs of 30 minutes at about 10:00 per mile. That's an improvement over last week so I'll take it.

Overdoing it? I do it all the time as I exercise twice daily. I mix things up a lot between bikes, a pool, a XC ski machine, racquetball, a rowing machine, etc. That keeps me fairly healthy but I'm always on the brink of an injury it seems. I guess I like it that way or otherwise I would change....

I had a great week of training. 53 miles at 3% incline. Three days of hard 60:00 progression runs and 3 days of easy 60:00 runs. Yesterday was another 60:00 including 16-30 second pickups at mile effort.

I set up my own workouts and I have adopted some rules I follow to try and not overdo it. Intensity usually gets me before too many miles though as I like to race too much.

Greetings from Oregon! I am home on leave for two weeks. It has been an adjustment getting used to the altitude, cold and hills but I am loving it.

Overdoing it, that's me, there are no hills where I am at in Iraq and in the last week I have ran hills every day at home. So needless to say my hips and back are killing me.

it is good to be home, even if it is just a short visit, Tim

The weather in SD was perfect for hanging out on the beach but a little warm for racing. A happy medium between that and the mid-west weather would have been nice. But we race with what we get. After missing the fall XC season due to injury, I had some good mileage through the holidays, but not much true speed work and only one race. So I felt the rust and lack of racing. It seems to be true that the best preparation for racing is more racing.

Skinnbones - Do you remember the last time I won the USA XC meet? ... Uh huh, that was when you and me duked it out over the snow (while it was snowing) in Indy ... 7 years ago!

Sheesh, where did the years go?

In any case, the weather in San Diego was certainly an improvement over what we faced in Indy. I remember us going straight from the finish line to the warming tent, where everyone huddled around the burners. One guy's warm-up jacket caught on fire when he stayed too long too close to the heater. In contrast, I did most of my "warm-up" in shorts and singlet yesterday.

The course, although technically the same, was harder this year than 3 years ago. The grass was much damper and softer - so much so that I decided to warm-up on the nearby street rather than on the course itself. Didn't want to wear out my legs before the thing even began.

Then had another lucky day during the race. My fitness wasn't luck, that was the result of some good training over the past few months. But I was very lucky to have everything working just right on race day. We masters know that's always a crapshoot.

For the record, SoCal Cush was once again the fittest, fastest runner in the race, just like at Club XC a couple months ago. Given that he can run a sub-31 10K and can outkick every single one of the rest of us, the day he learns not to lead these races - and spend so much extra energy doing so - will be the day the rest of us see nothing but his behind over the last stretch of the race. In the meantime, I'll play the wise, old man and sit-and-kick, sit-and-kick, sit-and.... ;-)

Hope everyone has a great week of running and life!

Nice warm running by the old brigade! Well represented by ALL of the usual suspects. Congrats Pete and Compex Team - dominating performance in your back yard. Good interviews with great advice. By "feel."

Hoped to run a two mile outdoor track race yesterday but achilles is just a little achy and I think wise enough to skip putting on spikes for a cold, wet Feb time trial. The dogs got in an extra long walk though!

Heading out for what should be a quagmire two hour run in the woods with some mates, eat my weight in food breakfast, nap and then off to the Annual Super Bowl gathering where about 15 couples bring their homemade beers, soups, and snacks and cheer on the commercials (i mean game!). Good times.

Mon - Indoor 3x 1k, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 - plyos

to the question of going too hard ~ yes at this age it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to do what I did as a youth (or even a 40 yr old). Constantly do reality checks to gauge the effort. With that said - I try to go hard on fast days and push it a bit, and nice and easy taking in the sites on my resting run days.

Always a juggle - cheers

ty

I enjoyed watching the XC race live via the USATF link, very fun to watch. Having run that course last time, I could 'feel' the effort. That one cambered section along the water was always a bit odd. Well done Pete, Muddy Girl, and all you others for getting out there.

My week was upstate Minnesota, getting some outdoor runs in on packed snow, packed by snowmachine traffic. It was great. Driving up on Tuesday, the rental car's outside temperature gage dropped from 8 degrees to -6, which is not factoring in wind chill. Great fun, glad to be home and enjoyed a bbq yesterday with the family.

Have a good week!

Congratulations to all who put up such great races in San Diego. It was fun watching online -- made me think Spring is around the corner.

84-mile week to finish up winter base training incl. 23 with a 3-mile segment at (not as fast as...) marathon pace Friday. I feel pretty stale now and am pleased to be starting 10-week speed development phase trying to peak for Pike's Peek 10k in mid-april.

happy Super Sunday!

Dave

I was fortunately to be able to watch at least some of most of the races yesterday. Sure beat anything that was on TV!

My roller-coaster ride continues, with a head cold making my workouts less than comfortable. But my leg is feeling good except for a little nagging pain in my piriformis that fortunately seems to be abating. My long runs is only 10 miles, but they feel really comfortable, and my 3.5 mile tempo and 5x800 workouts went as planned.

As far as not overdoing it, I don't have the time to overload on miles, but I think one of the keys to my success last year was scaling back the tempo runs a little and putting more energy into races and speedwork. I know several local runners who do their long runs at close to their HM PR pace, and they can't seem to correlate that to lathargic performances at races.

Congrats to all the fit old crappers at SD yesterday. I wish I was there.

Welcome home RunInTheSun!

I benefit from a coach/friend coaching me in my masters years. I like to run hard so the best takeaway is FINALLY learning to run slow on all the other days. Still plenty to learn though. I remember Clingan telling me "hey KP just wait until you turn 50. Everything changes". I agree except for one thing - it seems my body turned 50 at 48 and 2 yeas later I've learned to train like a 50 year old.

KP

Congrats to all who competed in SD. I missed not going to XC for the first time in four years. Our Navy men's open team did pretty well. Just needed to be better in the fourth spot and we could have won it all like we did in SD three years ago.

I completed a grand total of 16 miles this week in three runs. My first running at all since late Dec. Some slow going and a little soreness afterwards, but my fitness is not so bad since I've been swimming and cycling.

Still don't know what I'm going to do for racing in 2011. Very busy in this command tour, but I'd like to do a couple triathlons before getting back into full time running. The Navy may move me this summer instead of 2012. Waiting to hear on that before committing to anything else at this point.

Have a great week!

NM

Just checking in long enough to say congrats on the San Diego performances.

Congrats to all the runners in SD. Wish my internet speed was good enough to watch the race/interviews! Looking forward to next year when I will be able to run.

An absolutely beautiful day here in Iraq (come on Tim...you miss it!...haha!) Ran 18 miles faster than my 17 last week....largely due to the presence of the sun. A good 50 mile week for me.

Speaking of running by feel, on Sat I cut my 7 mile to 2 miles due to pain in my knee...obviously worked since the long run on Sun turned out awesome. I do most of my running by feel...although sometimes I have to sort out true tiredness from laziness...which I easily confuse.

Hello-

I turn 40 pretty soon and I would like some info on races that I should be looking to do as a master. I ran a 2:21 at 39, nothing spectacular but not bad. Of course I would have liked to have run faster but don't we all...

If any of you can point me in the right direction as far as what I should thinking about as I turn 40 that would be great.

thanks.

snow storm here but I was able to watch all the XC races live.

Billie, Nice Job on your long run. I am excited for your training and what results it will bring. Tim

Dang Joe , pretty fast time huh ? its only a mile !

RUN, welcome home my brother ! have a good time while home.