50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Thanks Charlie. Enjoyed the You Tube video. Keep it up, good running too.

Squatty Old Runner wrote:

...maybe you'll at least get an accurate diagnosis of what's going with your knee.

My experience with sports injury specialists has been nothing short of worthless.

We shall see. This is a strange injury. The pain is exactly like runner's knee, but it didn't respond to the rehab protocol I successfully followed last year. The pain also doesn't happen during prolonged periods of sitting, which is typical for runner's knee, and which I still get with the other knee. After I fell hard on it last fall, I continued with 50-mile weeks for a month or so until I could no longer tolerate the pain. Will be interesting to hear what they say tomorrow morning.

Seems to be a lot of new posters and informative training discussions this week. Always enjoy the thread. Watched Charlies podcast. Agreed, acceptance of less than desirable times is still tough to handle.

My race didn't go as well as planned. Underperformed? Maybe. Not as fast I think I should be? Maybe. But I'm not going to whine about it. I sulked for a bit and I'm done. I'll just stay the course and keep on keepin' on....

Ended up 18:18. It was cold 28 deg and windy. I felt ok just didn't have the go in me. My head gave up too easily. Went out in 5:51 which didn't feel too bad. Took the lead about 1/2 mile in. A pretty good local girl passed me strongly about a mile later. Then two younger guys. Kept them fairly close and in my sights the rest of the way in with thoughts of running them down. Got the girl with about 1/2 to go. Hit 3 in 17:30. Didn't get the guys. Course was a tad long. Age grades ok... AG 86.74% / 14:52. Still a long way to go.

Logged 50 miles with a solid workout on Wed. Next race probably won't be until early April. Weather is finally breaking around here. Really windy but haven't had any snow in a while. There's talk of some 60's later this week.

Have a good week,

Dave

Well shucks, was in the midst of my post this AM but we had to bolt to meet some family for a XC ski outing. So have to start up again.

Good long run amkelly, hope it all works out in three weeks. Congrats on the 5Ks dhagga and rdb, those are good times!

As usual my training and personality this week are less than impressive but I'll throw it out there for posterity. Did about 9 hours worth (6 days running 1 day skiing), some reps on the treadmill Wednesday (unhealthy air quality outside), 7X 3:20-3:30, ratcheting down the pace from 6:20 on the first one and about 5:50 on the last one. Saturday was 4X 2K tempo effort @~6:20-6:22. So par, I guess.

Skied 1:45 today, classic, up at 9400'. My wax sucked. It got warm so I was slipping a lot by the end.

Got some races coming up. Will talk about it later.

A short report today. This week was a recovery week. My resting HR was still up so I tried to dial down the intensity on my effort days. Today was supposed to be a longer run, but I don't want to not get caught up in trying to put big numbers in the log for the sake of big numbers rather than what I should do to improve. So, rest day today and 45 miles for the week.

M- 8 hills 8:55 ave

T- 7 walk with strides every 1/2 mi

W- 8 hills 8:24 ave

Th- 7 walk with strides every 1/2 mi

F- 8 hills 8:01 ave

S- 7 walk with strides every 1/2 mi

Su- rest day

Allen1959 wrote:

KCgeezer wrote:

I calculate harder effort as a percentage of time on my feet.

Doesn't that make the hard efforts an even smaller percentage?

That's one way to look at it. Since good cross-training develops aerobic fitness, usually by taking the place of a double or recovery run, it should factor into the whole week's training, since fitness is a goal of training.

Here's one of many articles in which Matt explains the science behind it. The book 80/20 Training is well worth a read.

Since ND doesn't do cross training and I will never not do cross-training, we are probably conducting separate experiments here.

Another first this week. I haven't run 20 miles in a 12-hour stretch until last night's 8 miles on treadmill, followed by a long run on a glorious Sunday morning, my first outdoor run in a fortnight. Amazing how good the road feels after that much time on a belt. I finished this one with two miles at tempo pace, which included a 100-foot ascent in the last three-quarters of a mile. My legs were like tubes of sand by then but Garmin assures me I was tempo-ey. A little stiff as usual tonight, otherwise good.

I envy Dave H the time he can commit to training. I don't know if I can steal even another hour. I guess I missed my calling, judging by all the academics on this thread!

Amkelley, I tried fueling at the turnaround mark with one of my cereal bars and it was a mess. I didn't even have a wrapper to undo and I could barely get the thing in my mouth. Plus it felt like chewing on sawdust, and I love these things when I'm not running. So gels it is.

46+ miles thusly:

M - 4x8 mins at T (Hy-Vee Arena indoor track), paces were 612 609 607 604 god I love that track

Tu - 3.5 miles

W - 8 miles

Th - TM hill reps: 4x5 mins at 5deg to simulate 530 pace

F - ahhhhh rest

Sa - 8 miles

Su - 11.77 miles, last 2 @ T

Next Saturday, the Westport 4-miler will be another first, the first race I've run twice. It's on a jogging route I use a lot near my house, so failure is not an option ...

Lastly, I highly recommend Peter Sagal's new book, which I just finished. It's a memoir about the '70s running boom, male body image, and the life-changing magic of running faster.

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2019/03/01/peter-sagal-npr-running-body-image

M. 1 hour kayak.

T. 2 hour mountain bike ride.

W. 15.5 km mountain run, 580 metres elevation gain. 1 hr 40 min.

T. 1 hour kayak.

F. Hilly road ride, 42 km 650 metres elevation gain 1hr 45 min.

S. 16 km hilly run 420 metres elevation gain. 1 hr 35 min.

S. 25 min mountain bike ride into the forest, changed shoes, 5 km hilly trail run, 22.40, 30 min mountain bike ride home.

Belated congrats to SC.

Amkelly, yourtraining seems to be in the mode of the great Derek Clayton. Long sustained top end aerobic range runs. Worked for Derek, the first man to break 2.12, 2.11, 2.10, 2.09.

This was my second consecutive week of racing so my coaches kept my training load low with good results; I was 73rd OA at the Parris Island Triathlon on Saturday and won my by AG by 10 minutes. PI is a sprint tri with a 500m pool swim, 10.96mi bike and 5k run. I've been working hard to improve my biking this year. My mile pace was 3 minutes faster than last year and I rode clipped-in for the whole race so I'm really happy with the results. I'm still not a great biker but at least I'm not panic-stricken when I'm riding. Now I need to get in some higher mileage to prepare for a 20,000m track record attempt at the end of March.

Sun: 6.5 mi Masters Indoor Champs with 6 mi run before meet, weight throw, 4 x 400

Mon: 6 mi Easy

Tue: off

Weds: 5.9mi Track: 2mi w/u, 10min tempo @10k pace, 3 x 300 @ mile pace/100 jog + 2 min, c/d

Thu: 1:00 biking, 1500yd swim

Fri: 2.0mi Shake out run

Sat: Parris Island Tri: 10:33swim, 36:36 bike, 25:22 run (1/2 trail)

KC - Like you, I view XT as a way of doubling without increasing the probability of injury. Thanks too for the book recommendation.

Kudzurunner - Good to have you back. I agree with you on the Garmin during races. I wear mine to record splits but I never look at it during a race and I don't wear one at all during triathlons. I like running by feel and focusing on racing the person ahead of me instead of being constrained by what my watch says .

KC Runner, the St Pat's Westport 4 miler might be long or change course this year, the city is putting in new plumbing (sewer?) along Linwood by Costco as of yesterday (Sunday), so the roads are narrowed to one lane each way (where do runners go?). My wife and I both plan to run it, as we always do.

Third week in a row of mid 20's of running mileage over 6 days (27, 26, 24) plus one day of cross training each week. Yesterday did not feel up to a long run (10 or 11 miles?) but did try to help my wife run 300's on a road near us (0.19 miles). She averaged 7:01 per mile pace for 8, I averaged 8:01 per mile, so not too sharp. Hope to run long tomorrow. Roads are clear, we are healthy, things are good. Nothing great for miles but at least consistently out the door!

Ever since about age 50, my wife has encouraged us (me!) to do weights twice weekly. Good that I did, it's the only way I have been able to reasonably maintain upper body muscle at all, and so able to still open those darned jars of spagetti sauce successfully at age 67!

Thanks to all of the responders for their insights regarding whether or not to include walking in one’s weekly mileage total. There were strong and valid arguments on both sides.

For those of you who do include your walking miles in your weekly mileage total, I’d like to follow up with a couple more queries. I assume (perhaps erroneously) that at one time your weekly mileage number was exclusively running/jogging mileage. At what point (age) did you start to include walking mileage in your weekly totals? Also, what prompted you to make that change?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses.

Plus it's not a bad thing to have decent looking biceps when wearing those tank tops in the summer. ?

KCgeezer wrote:

Another first this week. I haven't run 20 miles in a 12-hour stretch until last night's 8 miles on treadmill, followed by a long run on a glorious Sunday morning

(...)

46+ miles

Very odd, I had nearly the same experience! (44 miles total, also close to a record distance).

All is well in the north of Europe, I live in a valleytown so I saw the sun today for the first time in 5 months, 10 days.

Male 58

syracuse wrote:

Thanks to all of the responders for their insights regarding whether or not to include walking in one’s weekly mileage total. There were strong and valid arguments on both sides.

For those of you who do include your walking miles in your weekly mileage total, I’d like to follow up with a couple more queries. I assume (perhaps erroneously) that at one time your weekly mileage number was exclusively running/jogging mileage. At what point (age) did you start to include walking mileage in your weekly totals? Also, what prompted you to make that change?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses.

I could run doubles, log as much as 70 miles a week through age 58. At the time I weighed mid-150s and could still race 5:00 1500m and 18:30 5,000m. Within the next year I could certainly see a difference in what I could handle but this also coincided with aging parents and children transitioning to grad school and careers. Checking my log books I started counting equivalent miles the middle of the year I turned 59 after a hamstring injury. During that time I added swimming and spin biking for easy days. I trained most days with no specific goal and rarely raced 2012-2016. I began posting here and getting serious again about racing in mid-2016. That year I started substituting walking and a combination of walking/running on easy days. My belief is that walking is more closely correlated to running since it is weight bearing. My fitness seemed to improve and at age 67 my weight was now 165 or about 20 lbs less and my 1500m was at 6:00 and 5,000m at 22:30. After a hiccup in 2018 I plan to increase my overall volume while increasing the running portion of the run/walk mix. For example on November 12th I had a morning session of 6.75 miles where about 5 miles was running, this morning I completed a 7 mile session all running at faster paces. So I see the walking as a tool of progression.

Igy

SprintTriathlon wrote:

All is well in the north of Europe, I live in a valleytown so I saw the sun today for the first time in 5 months, 10 days.

Male 58

Speaking of the north, I'm angling to get into the Edinburgh Half, since we're going to be on that side of the ocean in May.

I have to say this has been the best daylight savings time changeover in years.

SCgal wrote:

KC - Like you, I view XT as a way of doubling without increasing the probability of injury. Thanks too for the book recommendation.

Since you are kickass in tri, you should probably check out the 80/20 book Matt did just for that:

Charlie wrote:

Allen keep the faith you shall return!

Perhaps not likely. Today's diagnosis was patellar osteophyte at quadriceps tendon; calcification within the quadriceps tendon; quadriceps tendinitis; patellar tendinitis.

Removing the spur would be major surgery, requiring cutting and reattaching the quadriceps tendon.

Strengthening, stretching and range-of-motion exercises -- and ibuprofen -- might help. That's pretty much what I did to overcome Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome , and what I tried again for this. But I guess it will take more time and diligence to see any results.

I'll head back to my PT to check whether there are any specific exercises beyond what I did before.

Best on that Allen1959; keep us posted.

syracuse wrote:

Thanks to all of the responders for their insights regarding whether or not to include walking in one’s weekly mileage total. There were strong and valid arguments on both sides.

For those of you who do include your walking miles in your weekly mileage total, I’d like to follow up with a couple more queries. I assume (perhaps erroneously) that at one time your weekly mileage number was exclusively running/jogging mileage. At what point (age) did you start to include walking mileage in your weekly totals? Also, what prompted you to make that change?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses.

I didn't see this post earlier. I started including walking mileage at age 63. I had a good training year prior to turning 60 and ran 18:46 for 5k and 38:48 for 10K when I was 60. I continued to run reasonably well at 61 and 62. I strained my calf while 62 and tried to train through it. That started a multi-year chain of overuse injuries to age 67. Due to injuries (calf, ITB, achilles, patella and pirifomis/upper hamstring) I had to stop running several times and go to walking and walk/runs for training. Also, at age 66 I got a Garmin 235 with HR function and it became clear that my slow recovery running was so inefficient that I still was generating too high an HR to be a good recovery effort.