50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Greetings, fellow 50+ers!

When I last posted in January, I was about to embark on a two week cruise. During that time, I got in a couple of brief runs on the treadmills in the ship’s fitness center and another short one on the outside walking track. Upon my return earlier this month, I almost immediately tested positive for Covid. It was a mostly mild case with some fatigue and slight cold symptoms, but it was almost two weeks before I had the requisite two negative tests in 48 hours.

So now I am trying to regain some fitness. I had a modest goal on Tuesday of doing 2 miles, which I was able to do though I almost threw up when I finished. Anyway, I’m trying to keep at it every 2nd or 3rd day and adding about a half mile to each subsequent run. So far, so good. Here’s hoping I’ll be back to a reasonable fitness spot in a week to 10 days. 🤞

Mon: off

Tue: 24’ CR

Wed: off

Thu: 31’ CR; body wt ex

Fri-Sat: off

Sun: 37’ CR; body wt ex + free wts

All the best!

congratulations! sounds like you executed the plan beautifully at marathon. Hope your recovery goes smoothly.

good week for me ending in a good race:

M 1:00 with 20:00 at half-marathon effort (distance covered unknown)

Tu 1:50 double

W 2:45 with hard mile in the middle (6:56) and harder one at the end (track 1600 6:40) -- hadn't done it in a while but I love ending long run on a track -- supports Olympic marathon daydreaming

Th 1:30

F 1:25 double

Sa 55:00

Su 1:40 incl. hilly 10-mile race 67:25 + 1:00 x-t cooldown (165th of 656 OA, 13th of 152 men over 50)

Race is a "club challenge" and the team divisions are only open, masters, grandmasters, so no 60-64 specifically. Lots of fast 50-year olds out there.

have a great week,

Dave

Congrats to Coyote and dhaaga on a couple of fine races. Big Red, good luck on your upcoming marathon. Is that the Napa Valley marathon?

I have been pretty much stuck in place for the past few months. I developed a tendonitis in my ankle after my 2-mile turkey trot in late November and it took a month or so to resolve. Then, most of January and February my hips have been too sore from the RA for me to rum much, although there's the occasional day when I can get in a few miles of jogging. I ran about 3.5 miles on Friday and another 2 miles today and everything felt good, so I decided to enter another 2-mile race next Sunday. Hopefully if I dope up on naproxen the night before, I'll be able to finish that one.

But the swimming is going better...

Hi runner,

happy running here. Last week had to sit out a cold for a few days. Back to running 55 miles this week. All miles before dawn. Very easy runs with some strides and two workouts: 8x200m and 4x1500m subthreshold. hope to keep this mileage and eventually top out at 60 miles in March or April. Then resume one workout on the track.. All for fun only, no ambition to race.

Have fun, BR

Hi all

I am making progress back to fitness. A little further distance and more intensity with the workouts.

Mon - 45 min steady

Tues - am - 30min easy - pm - 30min track session including 8x300m average 66 secs

Wed - 30min fartlek

Thur - rain - 30min stationary bike

Fri - 50min easy

Sat - 50min track session including 4x1000m average 3:58

I was aiming for 5 reps at a slightly reduced pace, but it seems I need to work on my pacing.

Sun - 60min steady

May all you runs be good.

Congrats to CM and DHaaga on great results!

CM, do you plan to break 3 hrs in the marathon this year, or switch to shorter distances?

Dave, it looks like you did not have any tapering before the race. Do you think it could be 2-3 min faster if the course was not hilly and you tapered?

Good luck to all who are getting back to fitness!

Thought I would post here as it looks like a good supportive group. Trying to gradually crank up some harder effort runs as I am trying to get over a high hamstring injury from 2023 / this AM felt good

2 easy / 3 at 6:15 / 1 easy

55 year old male. I have not ran a race in 9 years but still enjoy training daily. Who knows, maybe I will run a race in 2024. Keep up the good work all and good luck to the March racers

Mike

49ers: I am 64 and have not raced since 1978, but will race a 10 k this October.
Good luck to you if you end up racing also!

Wow, that's planning ahead for a 10K! At my age I don't even buy green bananas.

Orient, the answer is yes to both. I plan on a fall marathon where the hope is to go under 3 (which would be about 41.5 years between first and last sub 3), but in the meantime I'll be racing shorter distances.

thanks! 3 min probably a stretch. 2 might be possible. Didn't taper b/c entered in a March 24 marathon and wanted to keep mileage up. It's variable by person and year (weather), but on average i believe the course I raced Sunday is about 90 seconds slower than cherry blossom 10-miler, a fast, almost completely flat local (DC) course. --Dave

Recovered from one marathon, training for the next one. Camille Heron and some others don't believe in long runs too much, and do more runs, but keep them shorter. I've gone a little in that direction myself, planning a little more of that for this marathon, even though it's not that far out. I did 3 runs of about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes in the last 2 days. I will still probably do 2 long runs around 20 miles because I always do. Some of you runners out there can still win a race overall sometimes, but a lot of us look more at age groups. Not a lot of races do this, but some list age group course records. I like to see that. Carmel marathon and some local races list them. Bix-7 even goes 5 deep. A running friend has his name up there 4 times, pretty good for a race of that size.

Mid D Guy - best advice: the more patient you are, the quicker the result.
no more than one fast day at first. Enjoy the easy days.
My last week:

M: 15M - slow and stupid. Achilles not happy

T: treadmill @ 11:40 pace

W: 8M @ 10:40 pace. Achilles happier.
Th: treadmill @ 11:10 pace

F: treadmill @ 11:35 pace

Sat: 11M @ 10:25 pace. time to reconsider what I’m doing with my running.
Enjoy the week

Sprint triathlon - are you running the 10K or racing it? Good luck

amkelley, hey it is good that you are able to swim, and do at least a little bit of running. Were you able to do your 2-mile race this weekend?

Today, I ran the Napa Valley Marathon. Wanted to break 4:00, ran 4:06:36.

Went out in 1:57, slowed down quite a bit at 21 miles. I started with 3:55 pace group, but soon realized the pace leader was running 3:40 pace, so I fell off the back of that pack.
But I take full responsibility, I've known since I was 17 that I do my best racing with a small negative split. I should have gone out at 4:00 pace, straight up.

So now I've run two marathons in the past 5 months a bit over 4 hours, on a volume of 40+ per week. Long runs up to 17-18 miles. If I want a faster marathon, I'll need more VOLUME/miles. As Homer Simpson might say, D'OH! (pretty obvious, Homer!)

Happy & Healthy running to one and all.

Big Red, too bad your group pacer messed up, but props for hanging in there for a decent finish. Yes, more mileage would likely help, as long as--always the big "if"--you can stay healthy!

My "2-mile" race yesterday turned out to be just about 3 miles! The event had 2, 5, and 10-mile options, all straight out-and-back on the same road. When the race director gave her final instructions at the start, and told us where the 2-milers would turn around, I knew we were in trouble because I knew it was well over one mile to that junction. We passed the 1-mile mark chalked on the road, and at that point the turn-around was not in sight, nor were the returning lead runners yet in sight. But I was able to hang in there on a course that was rolling but mostly uphill on the way out, and I felt I was running OK on the way back. I finished in 31:20 for what I measured to be about 3 miles, which seemed OK on a not-flat course. I don't seem to have injured anything, and I jogged a couple miles this morning.

I wanted to run the 5K associated with the Modesto Marathon in 3 weeks, but the entry fee is $80! As a matter of principle, I'm not paying that much for a routine 5K. Instead I found a 4-mile St. Patrick's Day run in Fresno in 2 weeks for half the price, and will try stretching out the distance a bit.

Greetings, fellow 50+ers and Happy Meteorological Spring! 🌷

February was not a great running month for me, as I explained last week. It looks like I nearly got to 22 miles of actual running for the month. Ouch! Anyway, my comeback tour continued this week with about 15 miles of actual running, so things are looking up. Fingers crossed that my health woes are behind me for the moment and I can get back into a good rhythm. 🤞

Sun: 37’ CR; body wt ex + free wts

Mon: off

Tues: 41’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 48’ running (3); 16 oz curls

Fri: off

Sat: 48’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

All the best!

Greetings!

Two weeks of good training here, within weather constraints. It is still winter with temps well below the freezing point, but as the snow stopped falling the roads became “runnable”.

So, made the first run this season on March 2. Just carefully checked how “the engine performs at various rpm numbers”. The result was quite similar to what was a year ago: 120 bpm at the 8 min/mi pace, 126-127 @ 7:30 min/mi. Then tried LT and above-LT paces: 500 m @ 1:57 (144 bpm and 108 bpm 1 min after), and 1 km @ 3:54 (149 bpm and 112 bpm 1 min after). Legs were a bit uncoordinated, but not dramatically.

The second run was one week later (March 8). Tried a “moderate” interval session. A mix of 500, 1000 and 1500 segments (5K in total) with 2 min jog (nearly walk) in between. The pace was between 3:55 and 4:00 per km. Felt OK. Again, the numbers were quite similar to those a year ago.

All the rest of training consisted of xc skiing and gym (arc, elliptical, a little bit of treadmill). About 8 hours a week.

Happy spring and injury-free running to all!

wow. I know a lot of courses are inaccurate, but that's a big miss. I hope the St. Patrick's Day race goes well.

Pretty good 2 weeks for me since 10-mile race. Highlights a 30-min tempo, a 4 X 4:00 hard, 3:00 long run with some pickups to maybe marathon pace this past Tuesday, and 6 X 1:30 hills friday.

Two weeks to marathon now, one week to completing my annually terrible NCAA tournament bracket

have a great week,

Dave