50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Allen53 wrote:

Do you think it is that you have inherently slowed so much or have you not been able to train as much?

It's hard to say. There was a thread not long ago where a lot of guys described the wheels suddenly and inexplicably falling off in their late 50s.

I'm hoping it's more the lack of training. And weight gain. I lost five or six months due to knee problems. But it's never taken me this long to bounce back. My training paces have been incredibly slow.

We'll see what I can do in a few weeks. Have fun Thursday. I've read some of Magill's stuff, and he seems to know what he's doing!

Exercise is essential if you want to prolong your functional health span.

Come back at 39 was EASY , 48 was a bit tougher, 56 was tougher but I still felt young . At 60 the come back was different. I responded slower I noticed my springs were saggy My heart rate was all screwed I just could not hammer without getting out of breath it was really my wake up call. I am hoping for some more good years but am grateful for being able to get back into good shape. I am much more cautious about workouts and racing all out which might be age related . In other ways running is better than ever as I do not stress as much over paces and races . If something hurts I dial it back until it feels better but try and run everyday even if it is at 12 minute miles it still feels good and seems to help in recovery.

No peaks no valleys just lots of little hills.

Science Yeah!

The wheels do fall off at 60 ,according to the following paper:

3 DISCUSSION

We find that humans endogenously activate a transcriptional program related to enhanced longevity in model organisms and this “switches off” in human muscle and brain around the sixth decade of life.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12970

Weekend update - had to wait for results to post to get the details right:

Saturday: 20K race in the CO foothills - start ~ 8200' highpoint 9500', guessing total ascent actually 1700-2000' due to multiple climbs/descents. Great trails, awesome for racing. With one catch - no course markings (broadcast in advance), but volunteers promised at every trail junction. Unfortunately this did not happen, and several of us missed a turn (me first, looks like I was 7th overall at the time), which cost perhaps 3 minutes, and one place. Final published results - winner at 1:30 + change, me 8th in 1:52:41 (for 20.2 or 3 K actually). Regardless, pretty decent for first race of season, things should fall into place as I get more dialed in (to loving the suffering instead of being fearful of it!)

Sunday - cut planned 20-miler to 19 due to weather and a little fatigue, but did get up to 11,700' or so with 2500' of climbing.

Monday - dead tired, but started 2/days nonetheless. Very slow.

Tuesday - dead tired on morning trot, but legs just ran by themselves on afternoon 10-miler (at 11000ish feet).

Onwards and upwards!

Man, I do not fancy running up to the Horse Camp. I drive up there and park at the camp and have run up to an hour and 45 with the Husky/Cattle Dog mix around the trails. She thinks I'm pathetic. Do you live in Florence or just visit?

I'm about 5 miles North of Herman Cape. Was getting fit, but got some more tendonitis in the ankle which is keeping me down to about four a day at the moment. I'd done an 8 miler at 7:20 and that upset it no end.

Jim... now I get it. My first 2 yrs 92-93 was great lunch runs with you, the folks you mentioned, plus Quinnie, Kevin from NZ, etc. BTW I was just with my mentor Hartge at Pickathon.

Full time Florence, moved from Portland 2 years ago. Amazing area but I like wind and rain;)

Charlie, I love all the thought-provoking articles you find and link to. Most of my masters life I was short on time for training but loved and thrived on a steady diet of classic mid-distance short, high intensity interval workouts; but somewhere around age 60 it seemed like my body started resisting that high intensity work and it has become much more of a mental chore to push to do it.

Allen1959 wrote:

Allen53 wrote:

Do you think it is that you have inherently slowed so much or have you not been able to train as much?

It's hard to say. There was a thread not long ago where a lot of guys described the wheels suddenly and inexplicably falling off in their late 50s.

I'm hoping it's more the lack of training. And weight gain. I lost five or six months due to knee problems. But it's never taken me this long to bounce back. My training paces have been incredibly slow.

We'll see what I can do in a few weeks. Have fun Thursday. I've read some of Magill's stuff, and he seems to know what he's doing!

Well, my wheels fell off starting in my early 50s. One month after my 50th B-day I sustained a grade-2 Achilles strain while racing the 1500 at an all-comers meet. That cost me 3 months of rehab and several years later now at age 59, it's a chronic case of tendinitis. But the real bad one was just a few years ago when I completely ruptured the PTT of my ankle while sprinting an uphill finish of a 5k. That was another arduous 3-4 months of rehab (non-surgical treatment). But what the MRI found was not encouraging: Arthritis on the talus and subcondral plate, medial column collapse and evidence of an old fracture to the fibula (which I was completely unaware of). Career ending type injury for a professional athlete. And I've also got a degenerative ACL tear and some mild arthritis on one hip to boot. Life is fun with all these injuries when you want to continue to run in your middle-age.

Granted, I'm not built for running at 5-6, 170 (was 195 when I played college football and competed in bodybuilding/power lifting before transitioning to running/dualathons in my early 30s). So, for me it may be the heavier, stocky body type (greater impact forcess) though I had a favorable injury history in my 30s & 40s with just occasionally bouts of tendonitis that easily cleared up with cross training while maintaining a year round consistent base of 40-50 mpw.

So, definitely things have fallen apart for me once I hit the half-century mark. And the studies I've reviewed seem to confirm the age-related degenerative changes of tendons & ligaments, particularly the Achilles, patellar, quads, ACL & MCL, starting in the late 40s/early 50s for most people.

What's perplexing is why it seems so many competitive runners in their 50s and beyond these days don't seem to be experiencing the acute trauma resulting from age-related degeneration of tendons & ligaments. I don't know if it's a surge of runners with exceptional anti-aging genetics that took up running late in life (less wear & tear?). Or if it's just very small & light body types that are competing these days (reducing the impact forces and reducing the risk of tendon/ligament tears). However, what is confusing about the small body type is that more than half the guys I trained with and competed against 20 yrs ago or so in our running club (numerous runners) are no longer running due to acute & chronic injuries. A lot of these guys were very lightweight - some going as low as 125 lbs! Most that I have stayed in touch with have transitioned to competitive cycling or RW while a few have thrown in the towel and given up.

But that was 20 yrs ago - runners now seem to be incredibly resilient to injuries performing exceptionally well in a structured race schedule. Just looking at this year's Boston, I counted 18 guys in 55-59 AG who ran 3:03 or better and 4 guys under 2:45! A 3:03 marathon is a 6:59 average pace - I can't even run a one mile at 6:59. Lol. How in the heck can guys 55-59 run 6:59 average pace for 26 consecutive miles on pavement...amazing! And to race a marathon you need very high mileage and consistent year round training - that alone should invite injuries.

Que Sera Sera.....

Interesting discussion as always. I agree that late 50s and early 60s is a physical turning point. It is also, I think more importantly, a psychological one. That is, being willing to adapt to stay in the game. How one accomplishes that is as varied as the postings.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Interesting discussion as always. I agree that late 50s and early 60s is a physical turning point. It is also, I think more importantly, a psychological one. That is, being willing to adapt to stay in the game. How one accomplishes that is as varied as the postings.

Nope Igy everybody needs to train just like me! LOL!

@Cavorty just repeated the HC Run 26:49 steady tempo from 101 to Dry Creek Camp then 8 more minutes up the road to the top of the clearing. I would run the trails but I do not have a cougar scaring doggy to run with maybe I should get one.

If you ever want to run this let me know.

@OGII glad you find my finds interesting;) Funny thing only 2 times since I restarted have I floored it. First time was my come back mile at Hayward racing some dude down the home stretch I was gassed rigged up. Second time was this June 5000 last lap I was running hard and it felt good but otherwise I tend to be a lot more cautious about going all out. Probably Noakes would say Central Governor gets more conservative with age. Truth is I like how LSD makes me feel toss in a little fast stuff and I get about as good as I would doing way more hard stuff.

@SOR sounds like you are more like Micky Mantle than Ed Whitlock thems the cards we get dealt. As far as older runners still doing well I am not so much in agreement with you. The ranks are thinning FASTER . I think there are fewer 60 plus runners today who still compete. There are more recreational type 60 plus runners which is nice but man back in my early 40s there were a ton of faster 60 plus runners at the masters meets not anymore.

@Allen53 IMO you need to crank up the volume and slow down the pace 9 to10 minute miles with say a weekly 7 minute per mile 3 mile and some striders here and there. After about 6 months add a mile to the tempo run when you can crank out 35 for 5 along with 40 easy miles you will be ready to crush a 5k just by adding 8 weeks of traditional 5k specific workouts alternating with the tempo like this 6x800, tempo,3x1200,tempo,2x 2400 , tempo Race a few times.

Sweet memories from2017 of getting gassed and beat 20 lbs overweight :

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/AoAEa647Q7ycy0wPj7HgB6w7FvOLagrGu24rwP--SpEbwR5syPnjZsf5gmVsjvq59j2EEOkm-oLpKe2mUmsVTQ=w1200-h2560

Charlie, I think your training is great. Missed a couple days training with a lost cat (found, rather returned). So today I did an old guy II walk/run with some nico nico.

Charlie wrote:

Full time Florence, moved from Portland 2 years ago. Amazing area but I like wind and rain;)

I'm here full time also. Not in great shape at the moment. Getting back from posterial tibial tendonitis, but I did manage a steady 4 miles at about 7:30 today.

If I can get a bit more in shape, maybe we can try the odd run.

Not much to look at, but I have managed to play the long game okay for the past 15 years.

@Allen53 IMO you need to crank up the volume and slow down the pace 9 to10 minute miles with say a weekly 7 minute per mile 3 mile and some striders here and there. After about 6 months add a mile to the tempo run when you can crank out 35 for 5 along with 40 easy miles you will be ready to crush a 5k just by adding 8 weeks of traditional 5k specific workouts alternating with the tempo like this 6x800, tempo,3x1200,tempo,2x 2400 , tempo Race a few times.

Charlie:

Thanks for the advice- I'll try it.

For the weekly 7 minute per 3 mile should an easy mile as a warm-up and a cool down be at either end of that run?

Frankly I'm not sure I've ever done a "proper" tempo run.

To be clear are these separate workouts? 6x800, tempo, 3x1200,tempo, 2x 2400- they are all at tempo pace correct?

Allen53 wrote:

@Allen53 IMO you need to crank up the volume and slow down the pace 9 to10 minute miles with say a weekly 7 minute per mile 3 mile and some striders here and there. After about 6 months add a mile to the tempo run when you can crank out 35 for 5 along with 40 easy miles you will be ready to crush a 5k just by adding 8 weeks of traditional 5k specific workouts alternating with the tempo like this 6x800, tempo,3x1200,tempo,2x 2400 , tempo Race a few times.

Charlie:

Thanks for the advice- I'll try it.

For the weekly 7 minute per 3 mile should an easy mile as a warm-up and a cool down be at either end of that run?

Frankly I'm not sure I've ever done a "proper" tempo run.

To be clear are these separate workouts? 6x800, tempo, 3x1200,tempo, 2x 2400- they are all at tempo pace correct?

The 7 pace is not written in stone it was a guesstimate but a tempo which should be slower than lactate threshold once you can run 7 pace for 3 miles comfortably then you are ready to add volume. Warmup is up to you but yea warm up as for cool down I like to walk my cool downs;) Read up on Tempos a very over used term you will also find CV pace which IMO in base is way too fast so slower than current 10k pace.

This is only doing 1 workout per week so 6 weeks you do 3 5k workouts, one every other week.The other 3 weeks tempo runs to keep lactate threshold up. Think spinning plates keeping them all spinning base, lactate threshold and vo2max.

The workouts 6x800 , 3.x1200 and 2 x 2400 are run at the same pace. That is your 5k race pace. The in between weeks you run a tempo run at 7 per mile to keep that system trained and let the 5k specific effort sink in. The recovery on race pace interval days should be jogging until you feel ready to go again. Hitting the pace is more important than the interval recovery because the time spent running at 5k pace is long. They will kick your butt. So 5k goal pace on the intervals and tempo pace on the tempos. After you finish this up next spring you can use your results as feed back to craft a program that suits you better. I noticed your ref to having more speed which is the boat I row so the above is close to what worked for me this past year.

Yeah, this is good advice:

"This is only doing 1 workout per week so 6 weeks you do 3 5k workouts, one every other week. The other 3 weeks tempo runs to keep lactate threshold up. Think spinning plates keeping them all spinning base, lactate threshold and vo2max."

A couple years ago, at age 57, I tried a 9-day cycle. Every nine days included a VO2max workout, an LT workout, a long run and a medium long run. The other five days were easy runs or rest days.

My improvement was dramatic. My 5K went from 20+ minutes to 18:58 in less than five months. From a 3:25 marathon, I improved to a 1:28 half marathon in six months, and a 3:07 marathon in 12 months.

In hindsight, though, it was probably too aggressive. I was injured quite a bit, until finally, I had to take a a couple months off completely, followed by rehab, elliptical machine training, and eventually a gradual return to the roads.

The previous training cycle (for the 3:25 marathon) was very low mileage -- averaged less than 20 mpw. Only two or three runs per week, plus usually a one-hour bike ride. So, arguably, any serious training plan after that, or even a bump in mileage, would have netted big gains.

Still, I credit the continuous "spinning of the plates" (both VO2max and LT work), as Charlie says.

Just wanted to add a bit more on my experience with BASE

If I do not put in and emphasize base BEFORE ANY really hard stuff I am screwed injuries and lack of endurance.

The base is the KEY getting the volume in terms of time running without regard to pace or miles is what worked for me. Running by time and not distance or pace means when I feel tired I slow down and the run gets ezr Heck I might slow down to 12 minute mile. If you are running for distance and slow down you end up running for too long or you gut out the pace either way too much stress and kaBoom. Now there are some runners who are very durable but they are the exceptions. Guess where I found this simple but profound idea ? That is how Ed Whitlock trained. He ran for time slowly and close enough so if something hurt he could just quit and walk home. Ed started his lsd career in his 60s sure he had some injuries but if you look at what he did over 25 years it was amazing and BASE was his secret to running well as a old fart. Some will say yeah but look at guys like Earl Fee ok but I am pretty sure most of us are built more like Ed Whitlock;)

Huh? 120 lbs or so and nothing but skin & bones?