50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Greetings!

I had some work travel and had an unscheduled rest day due to challenging logistics surrounding my daughter's XC race, but still managed 33 miles running and 27 biking. The bike was a single ride with my wife and my longest ever, only a few hours after a 10 mile run - longest one of the year. I was a bit sore yesterday, but an easy 5 followed by some strength training got me back on track.

My strength training is really plyometric-driven and stretches and strengthens my glutes, hip flexors and hamstrings. I have to thank Jay Johnson for making his videos available on-line. They were a key for getting my 1500m times faster when I was 45-46 and for running reasonably well at age 50:

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2011/11/eight-week-general-strength-progression/

Scott

amkelley - I had the same problem with the sock that you described so I put a flip flop inside the sock (similar to an orthotic) and then I slip my foot inside the flip flop. Having the tension spread over all of my toes makes it tolerable for me and doesn't reduce the effectiveness.

I experienced some track rage last night when a 220lb football mom decided to sit and watch the football game from lane 1 of the track while I was doing my workout.

Too bad I wasn't running a 5k, but my repeats were considerably faster than goal pace when she sat her fat a** down.

Ok, I'm done. Thanks for listening.

Wow, just spectacular weather in Minnesota today. Woke up and it was 57'. Ran at 63'. Breezy wind.

Highlight of the week was today's run. 2x3 miles with 10 minute recovery mile in between on an old rail line trail so pretty flat. First 5k averaged 8:04 with the first half mile dragging the average. 2nd 5k averaged 7:35 with the last mile 7:10. If I had raced today I might have PR'd. I think it's time to start racing and see what I've got. Till now I didn't have very much confidence in my fitness.

Still struggling to drop below 170lbs consistently. Eating habits have improved but there has only been a slight impact.

Other highlight was a running evaluation. Got on the treadmill and a kinesiology Ph.D. And former d1 runner evaluated my form. Lots of problems with my left side from big toe to arch to left knee and left hip made me quit running at 20. So, in slow motion I can see how I'm 'stacking' (her term) over my left side to protect the hip and pushing off with the outside of my left foot to protect the big toe metatarsal. We also did some exercises where she showed me I was running entirely with my quads and my glutes are not doing any work ... And are subsequently very weak.

I've got some exercises to do and I'm to try to increase my cadence by up to 10 steps and get more forward lean. Not sure if that's possible but on today and yesterday's run I increased it by 5 to 182 average. Takes a tremendous amount of concentration. After 9 miles if this my back and glutes are very sore.

Overall it's very interesting to see how my running form is trying to compensate and protect my body. I'm not overly confident that I can be fixed at this age but I'll do the exercises and give it a try.

Can you really change your cadence? Or is it always going to require a supreme mental effort to overcome my natural cadence?

Of course at our age it is more difficult to change your natural cadence so it takes super attentive awareness but it can be done.

Labor Day 5K 2nd place 60-69 very slow time of 24:30, no apologies

Tues- bike

Wed-5 miles

Thurs-5miles road 9 min pace

Fri-5 miles run walk

Sat- bike

tomorrow long run

yes finally the weather has broke which is why I switched my long run to sunday. the heat/humidity is gone. yes yes yes.

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Week 275

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Salutations, 50+ers! September 11---let us not forget. Perspective allows me to remember that I'm grateful for the privileged life I lead, and that any and all of my running woes, while annoying, are trivial by comparison.

In that spirit, it was not a great week of running. I only managed 21.4 miles on 4 runs and I was feeling pretty run down by Saturday and just couldn't finish up the week. With the added workload, I've just had fewer hours to get other things done, and I've not been getting enough sleep, either. Log reads as such:

Sun: 0.0 (Anniversary took precedent)

Mon: 7.0 easy (8:13 pace)

Tues: 5.2 on the track w/12x200m surges (Hot!)

Wed: 4.0 easy (8:17 pace)

Thur: Off (hot and humid and tired)

Fri: 5.2 easy (8:02 pace)

Sat: Off (hip, stomach, and head were not into it)

It was hot (90-ish) for Tuesday's Track workout...again. We chose to do 3-miles in which we would surge for 200m every lap, and drop back to normal pace between surges (some of my buddies went further). The surges were in the 41s-45s range, which meant the average pace for the 3-miles of undulating pace was 6:51/mi. That was the only highlight for the week. I had hoped to get a nice 10-miler in Saturday to get over 30, but it just wasn't happening. I couldn't get going in the morning, and then we had other plans for much of the day. The hot winds picked up (20+ mph steady winds w/gusts) and then the storms came by evening, which nixed a possible late day run. On top of that, my hip was bugging me quite a bit, which contributed to my general malaise. I'm hoping that the cooler temps that arrived with the storm front will help my current disposition.

Didn't follow up on the thread this week. Thanks for the B-day and Anniversary wishes. And No, I haven't modified my diet to counter any effects of osteoarthritis. On the other hand, I don't eat a lot of sweets anyways, though I do like bread (whole grain, of course.)

Welcome amkelley! You seem to be going through some of the issues many of us have been facing. Hope that you're getting some useful advice.

@Reboot Runner-I think that you can change your cadence or foot-strike (or any other biomechanical change) to some degree, but it takes a concerted effort and won't feel natural for quite a while---adaptations take months before becoming habits. Inre-your track rant. It's why I avoid the track if there is something going on in the infield. Not worth the aggravation.

@Brankart Billy (aka Co58): Thanks for the update. You were rolling before that accident! Hope you heal quickly.

OK, that's my less than enthusiastic post for the week. Here's to fall running! What's happening in your world? Hope it's been a better week than mine! Looking forward to hearing about racerdb's 5-miler.

Cheers!

appreciate your thoughts on 9/11. very grateful to still have my brother, who was working in the Pentagon that day, around.

I marked the occasion by course marshaling a half-marathon and explaining to mostly gracious, in a few cases irate, motorists that the cones placed all the way across the road indeed meant the road was closed.

fun week of training on my end incl.

Monday 9

tues 21 with 3 + 3+ 1 at marathon pace (total 7 miles in 46:51, 3:00 recoveries)

weds. 8

thurs. 12 (double)

fri 11 with 20:00 track tempo (13 laps just about exactly) [hot/humid]

sat. 11

sun. 10

cooler and breezy this morning-- maybe the start of NFL regular season means Fall is on the way after all. Have a great week,

Dave

Still somewhat hobbled by the Achilles tendinitis. I did ride 18 holes on Thursday and was none the worse for wear (other than my score). I'm thinking about lacing them up and going for a short test jog as soon as tomorrow.

I did my first 40 mile week since my knee injury back in April, so I am pretty pleased even though I did make my knee somewhat sore yesterday, but it seems to be settling down this morning.

M - 7 with 16 x :30 hard/ :30 easy in the middle

T - 5 walking

W - rest

Th - 6 with 2 by hard mile/ easy mile (hard miles were 7:14, 7:02)

F - 5 walking

S - 12 with 2 w.u. 2 x 5 miles (1st 5 at 7:23 ave, 2nd 5 at 8:05 ave)

Su- 5 walking

It's difficult for me to believe 9/11 was 15 years ago. In some ways it seems like a long time and in other ways it seems like yesterday.

I had a good week of workouts capped by a fun XC race at Furman where I wore spikes for the first time and got to cheer on some of my students in the college races. I thought my Achilles would hurt from wearing the spikes but it actually feels much better. Maybe I need to race in spikes more often.

Mon: 5.4 E

Tue: 7.0 Track (5x800 3:45-3:48)

Wed: 5.3 E

Thu: XT 1:00 biking (2min hard/2min easy)

Fri: Rest

Sat: 6 5k - 1st female - fun but slow

Sun: 9 E - legs tired!

Total: 32.7 miles + 1hr biking

I'm slowly getting back in shape and looking forward to racing more. I've got a 2 miler on the BMW test track on Friday and then a 5k XC race in Atlanta the following week. It's still in the 90s here with high humidity so these will be challenging races.

dhaaga - Impressive miles! I'll be running the 8k in Richmond - I'll cheer for you after I finish.

Reboot - Do you run to music? Look for tunes with 180 bpm to increase your cadence and shorten your stride.

Happy running everyone!

Yes, I have an embarrassingly large collection of Britney fitness remixes. Lol.

I've just never concentrated on running to the beat before now.

Pretty good week for me. Although I realize I'm not in BQ (3:30:00) shape yet.

Mon 3 easy

Tues 8 easy

Wed 4 easy

Thurs 5 mile with 1 warm up then 7:50, 7:40, 7:30 1 warm down. This was hard for me. It takes me 5 miles to warm up so going hard early is difficult without having my HR spike up

Fri off

Saturday 8 supposed to be 8:00 pace, could only muster 8:15 without HR getting out of control (trying to maintain 166-170 bpm during pace runs). Could have been that I had too much Tequila Friday night!

Sun 16 real easy first 5 easy last 11. The good thing about this was my time got faster the longer I ran at the same 150 HR, last mile was 8:50. Again it's how long it takes to warm up.

Total 44

32 miles and a race today.

Nowdays, I stress the volunteering more than the racing.

I showed up today at 4:45am to unload the trucks, set up the registration and start/finish line area.

Was beat by the time the race started but still ran an 8 minute pace for a 10k on a warm morning.

Afterwards, the RD asked me to walk the course and pick up the direction tape in the road and pick up some of the cones.

Some of the cones and mile markers were tossed over the fence into the canal.

Bikers.

There is some on-going problem between bikers in a park and runners.

The club I volunteer for puts on most of their races in city parks along canal and bike/jogging/walking paths.

All 5 or 6 races this summer and today their has been problems with bikers.

Comments while you go by each other, bikers raising heck with the RD's and park officials during the race.

I don't know how many races are held in the city parks over the course of a year but it can't mean more than 50 or 60 out of 365 days.

Coming from another state as I did (almost everyone here is from somewhere else) I was not aware of the war between bikers and runners.

It exists here.

Signs are put out the day before announcing a race would be held along the paths and everything.

Anyway, the club I volunteer for lost some cones and mile markers in the canal today.

May I join the conversation? I just rediscovered the Letsrun forums. I competed in high school and college and in my early 20s, then returned to racing in my early 40s. Now, at 57, I started training regularly again this year, and have a marathon planned four weeks from today.

It will be my first marathon since age 43. That was 2:56. My PR marathon was 2:40 at age 23. My goal this year is 3:30.

That may be overly optimistic, as my weekly running mileage has been only 20 to 25 miles, plus some bicycling. I never run on two consecutive days.

But over the past couple months I have successfully included five long runs:

15 miles @ 8:29/mi (July 27)

18 miles @ 8:38/mi (Aug 15)

20 miles @ 8:18/mi (Aug 23)

15 miles @ 7:42/mi (Aug 29)

23 miles @ 8:48/mi (Sept 8) warm and humid

In my younger days, my long runs were usually at 8-minute miles ... I felt it important to run for the TIME duration of a marathon (2:40s), so 20 miles was usually my longest run. (Although ... my PR marathon was my third marathon in less than four months, so I actually had TWO 26-mile long runs before that one!)

Now, though, I need a training run of three-and-a-half hours to do replicate the time duration of a marathon! I'm not sure if that remains a wise strategy, although I came close to that this past week with the 23-miler ... so we will see how that works.

I may do a couple more 15-mile runs before the marathon, with a very easy week before the race. But training at this age is a new experience for me. I've been looking over some of the recent posts and getting a sense of what folks are experiencing in their late 50s ... interesting stuff!

Week 275: 7 hours 6 minutes in 8 runs

Mon - 45 min easy

Tue - 1 hr hard

Wed - 45 min easy

Thu - 1 hr easy

Fri - 1 hr easy

Sat AM - 5K unofficial in 20:57 unofficial

Sat PM - 45 min easy

Sun - 1 hr 30 min long run

A fallback week, but everywhere in this part of Maine is hills, so I am a little tired right now.

Tuesday I ran hard up the steepest hill in 11 minutes, jogged around on the top, then ran hard back down in 8 minutes. (Thursday my quads were very sore.)

Saturday's 5K was small and low-key; and may not have been 5K. I was only able to scope out the first km and the last 1/2-km. Somewhere after the second km I was leading briefly, but missed a turn in terra incognita -- because the course marshall for that turn was sitting on a shady veranda well off the course. (All the other course marshals were women, were actually out on the course, and did a stellar job.) One of the local competitors yelled quite persistently to get my attention. So I gave up two spots there. I thanked the local guy as I passed him back (thanked him again at the finish), and in the spirit of things I later offered the leader directions for a late turn. Finished second overall out of 35, and might have finished second anyway; the winner looked pretty strong and was going away at the end. No results online as of yet, and there may never be. At least I wore a watch. The winner did not, and left without a time from the RD.

Today's long run was quite draining: the storm front came through this morning; I ran in the afternoon; on the way back I had to run 15 minutes uphill into a vicious headwind.

I have another week in the hills, a big one. I fully expect to feel very bad running this week. :)

Greetings!

35 miles on 6 days of running for me, with one track workout and my first XC race since December, 2014. Wanted to do a bike ride on Friday, but was thwarted by thunderstorms.

Track workout: 10x400m in 78-80, with 200m recovery job. Dropped a few seconds from the last time we did this in August and am glad to see the speed is coming back. Not giving up on my goal of a 5:00 mile at age 50.

XC race: 5k in 19:13, for 5th in the 50-59 age group and same among the GVH runners who ran. Course was fun, two loops with some single-track paths through wooded areas and some soft spots from recent rains. First mile in 6:03 felt decent, then started to relax a little until a couple of people passed me and I remembered I was in a race. Nice having my daugher watching and telling me to drop my hands just like I do occasionally during her high school XC races.

I'm quite happy with the race, and while I have some work to do, it's solid enough to justify heading to FL for the Masters 5k XC race and maybe Club Nats.

Scott

Allen1959 wrote:

... I felt it important to run for the TIME duration of a marathon (2:40s), so 20 miles was usually my longest run. ...

Now, though, I need a training run of three-and-a-half hours to replicate the time duration of a marathon! I'm not sure if that remains a wise strategy, ...

Yes, it will be interesting to see if your plan works. The time-on-feet theory is widely held, but it's a different kettle of fish for us slow runners. Long long runs and short midweek miles is how our group's plans are structured; some do okay, many struggle to finish. I think if you make your 3:30 goal it will be because of your previous background and not because of your recent training.

Hello All:

Down week for me:

M 4 miles easy in new shoes

T Rest/drive to Ottawa (13 hours in car)

W Rest

R 5 miles medium-ish

F Rest/return from Ottawa (14 hours in car)

S 10 miles easy @8:26/mile. Great run except for terrible gas/dump problems

Sun Rest/some skating at all-day hockey clinic

19 miles on what was planned to be a recovery week. This is progress, since a few months ago 19 miles was likely an average to high-volume week for me.

Sept 1 my dad died; the funeral was Sept 8. He was 86. In his late 40s--in the late 1970s--he started to think about his health and started running, which got me into running. He ran the Skylon Marathon, from Buffalo, NY to Niagara Falls, ON, in 1978, when he was 48. Then the National Capital Marathon, in Ottawa, in '79 and '80. He ran 3:34 in '79, which I think was his PR. I haven't been able to find his 1980 time.

I'm running the Columbus half on October 16 but I'm starting to consider training for a marathon.

Another 32 mile week for me, and a 9.5 mile long run yesterday, just 7 days after my 9.25 mile run. Had hoped to get to 10 to 11 miles, but was at home by then. Had planned to run this with a finish at a local HS track, and do some 800 or 1 repeats, but Lacrosse had invaded the track, and balls were everywhere. Thus, my wife bailed out, and we ran a hilly route around the HS and then on to home. All that, and the hills, I averaged 10:13 pace, not bad for the climbs. She went 7, very good for her, and we hope to do some speedwork on Tuesday instead. At least the heat/humidity has dropped.

My "long" runs above leave me less than confident for the Des Moines 1/2 marathon next month, but I love that course/race/experience in my home state. Will be there anyhow for my brother's birthday and really don't want to just run the 5 km. If I can run it at 9 minute pace, would be probably in the top 10 in 65-69, though I always want better. If recovery went well, could run one of two 1/2's here in the KC area the next month. Also have an 8 km, 8 days before DM. Just do not want to get greedy with all this, and stay healthy and running.

We might do a 5 km this Saturday, since the heat has lessened.

As to the hoped for 3:30 marathon, on 3-4 days/week running, stay relaxed and behind pace for at least 1/2 way, too many risks to blowing up by feeling spunky in the early miles. Remember, times are only a number, finishing strong is still the desire for most of us, and not being humbled by a DNF from poor pacing. Just my viewpoint, for what it's worth.