50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Kpdx, it looks like your fitness is coming back nicely. I had a very good training week with a strong 8 mile hill run on Tuesday and an excellent 5 x mile on Thursday. 54 miles for the week -

M- 7mi walk with strides

T- 8mi hills 8:10/mi ave

W- 7mi walk with strides

Th- 9.5 mi 7:55/mi ave for the total run with 2mi w.u. and 5 x 1mi. with easy 800 recoveries (7:22, 7:15, 7:12, 7:10, 7:02)

F- 7mi walk with strides

S- 7 mi technical trails with my son 9:15/mi

Su- 8mi hills easy recovery pace

Good running to all!

Marathon in one week. Feeling relaxed and confident, settling into taper without getting too jumpy.

I'll run about 25 – 28 miles relaxed/easy over the next six days.

Last pre-race workout comes on Tuesday, probably 1 mile easy, 5K buildup (not too fast), 1 mile easy.

41 Miles this week

M – 6 relaxed 50:36

T – 4.1 relaxed 35:50

W – 9.1 neg split buildup, out relaxed 38:16. Back 33:16. Total 1:11:32

Th – 6 easy/relaxed 51:54

F – 6.3 relaxed/some hills 54:18

S – rest

Su – 9.5 easy/relaxed untimed

SCgal good luck with the injury and have fun in Atlanta. Mindboggling, all those bottles!

Igy congrats on the good medical report!

Kpdx amazing workout, and Raysharp I am envious of the 10K. I couldn't even breat 40 when I was 50!

And a nice strong week for old guy II.

lucKY2b keep at it, you are on the road to where you want to be.

I'm looking forward to the trials. Can't wait to see how Walmsley does!

Congratulations! not sure I've ever heard "marvelous" before in relation to a scan, so you might have set the record.

On a less momentous note, my past two weeks of training:

M 2:30 with 30:00 at marathon pace (around 7:05/mile)

Tu 1:30 X-t

W 2:10 double

Th 1:10 with hill repeats

F 1:15 + 1:00 x-t

Sa 1:05

Su 1:10 with hill repeats starting about 1:30 am so i could make our flight to Tucson via San

Diego

M 1:45

Tu 1:15

W 2:45 w/40:00 at marathon pace effort (unmarked Tucson bike path so distance?)

Th 35:00 + 1:00 x-t before return flight

F 1:30

Sa 1:10

Su 1:30 incl. hilly 10-mile race 64:42 + 1:00 x-t cooldown

Race this morning was 3:50 faster than last year, when I was semi-injured and ran cautiously, but 43 seconds slower than 2 years ago on same course. I therefore conclude that altitude training is overrated -- my heroic 4-day stint at 2300 feet should have been enough to more than offset two years of aging! [kidding].

have a great week,

Dave

This Week:

2/17- Indoors- 6 miles- 44 minutes

2/18- Snowy/windy/hills- 4 miles- 31 minutes

2/19- Indoors- 6 Miles- 3 mile tempo; 1.5 M warm-up @12:30- 3 mile tempo @ 19:42- 1.5 mile cool down @ 13:30

2/20- 5 Miles- 39 minutes- hills

2/21- 7.2 miles- 59 minutes- hills

2/22- Rest

2/23- 6.4 miles- 46 minutes

Total= 34.6 miles

lucKY: Great to see you getting back at it.

Socal: So, I heard you got carbon plates put in your feet at birth. That’s just not fair!

RaySharp: NICE! Even though it’s a small town, I’m sure it still feels good. The plan is to outlast ‘em all!

CM: Running on one leg at 5300 feet you still got 82%. I’d say you didn’t lose much fitness.

TU, TH, SA 1 mile easy then 3 @ ~9 min pace. SU: 4 easy at 3960 feet. I have a totally flat 200 meter loop right on top of a mountain. And no one knows it’s there but me and the black bears...who are mostly OK with it….

A nice relaxing week. My next scheduled race is April 25. I plan to keep it at maintenance pace through Feb and most of March, then add back TU hills and SA track the last week of March.

Have a great week everyone!

Coyote, 82% age grade at your elevation sounds very promising! It’s taken a lot of patience but you do seem to be coming back well.

Rtype, good job on the 5K last week. 17 degrees is cold for racing, especially a short race where you have to go hard, even if the footing is dry so you don’t have to worry about slipping. That’s a good omen of things to come this year.

Raysharp001, that’s a fine time for a 10K at age 60 but I agree, you don’t really expect to be the overall winner with that. Too bad the top local woman wasn’t there…it would have been fun to see a 60-year-old guy and a woman duking it out for the overall win…

lucky2B, you’re getting there slowly but surely—keep it up!

Igy, great news on your medical check. That must be a huge relief.

dhaaga, that’s a really solid 10-mile race. Congrats!

This was a comparatively low-mileage week for me, at least in the middle of marathon training, including a short race. Just under 70 miles for the week.

Mon: 11.9 miles on Presidents’ Day holiday.

Tues: 10.9 miles

Weds: 10.4 miles

Thurs: 10.4 miles

Fri: 6.5 miles easy

Sat: About 6 miles including 8K race in 39:56 (8:02/mile pace). Met my “B” goal of sub-40, but nowhere near my “A” goal of sub-39, which may not be realistic during marathon training. I just felt sluggish the whole way. After the race I enjoyed chatting with a couple of geezers, the winner of M60+ (43 seconds ahead of me) and the winner of M70+ (2:40 behind me).

Sun: 13.4 miles, feeling just fine after yesterday’s race.

Interested to hear the discussion of the Vaporfly. Until I can get my hands (feet?) on a pair to check them out in person, I’m not going to drop $250 on something I may not be able to wear because of my various foot issues. I’m a hard-core forefoot striker too, even at very slow paces.

I was happy to discover that the Olympic marathon trials race starts just after 9 am Pacific time. I have a long run planned for next Saturday and I should finish it just in time to collapse on the couch and watch the race. SCgal, I’m sorry to hear you’re injured again but kind of jealous of your view of the Trials race…

Best wishes to Big Red in the marathon the day after the Trials race. I also have a couple of local friends who are running there.

Coyote Montane wrote:

Testing baseline fitness and out for some 5K jollies. Four months after my injury, finally able to run without issues.

Yea I did a little baseline test too. Probably not as good as yours though! I just started back last week with some very easy jogs...8:00-10:00 pace. Three months off with zero running sure will do a number on ones fitness! Ran a mile Thursday about as hard as I could go to see where I'm at. Did a 6:26.7. Man, do I ever have a long way to go...

The achilles is mostly good these days. The pain, if you could call it that, is minimal. It feels 100% most of the time but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel it at times. It was a bit sore after a 3 mile run yesterday which is kind of concerning. I've got an indoor bike trainer I do 2-3 times/week. Happy with my consistency I've kept up with my weight training, stretching, hot/cold packs and heel dips.

I'll keep up the rehab along with 2-3 easy runs each week and occasional test mile just to see. Maybe someday I'll be report the achilles is 100% all of the time.

Have a good run,

Dave

amkelley wrote:

Mopac, I continue to be amazed and impressed at your multisport activities, particularly in crazy weather of one sort or another.

I am not sure my efforts should be impressing someone with your dedication, persistance and work ethic Amkelly but thank you.

I suspect my getting it done in all conditions bit me on the arse the previous weekend. A long hot humid kayak then a hot humid bike ride might have flattened me. I was worried I was coming down with something but felt great on Monday.

So back into my regulation fluffy week.

Mon. 64 mins of very cruisy kayak work on the river (lots of shade under the magical river gums. Felt 100%.

Jogged a gentle 3 kms in 18 mins afterwards.

Tue. Drove to Mt Macedon for a planned couple of efforts on the Beast. A thunder storm and a huge downpour just before I got there. The climb up the Beast was super greasy and required all fours on the steeper section. I was hoping to run a couple of sub 19s on it but could only manage 21. I didn't fancy trying to descend the 30% greasy gradient so headed off in a different direction.

All up 11 km with 600 metres of elevation gain in 90 minutes.

Wed. A hilly and windy 90 min bike ride.

Weary from night shift so just getting it done.

Thu. Another weary getting it done effort after night shift. 70 mins of bouncing around the lake in the kayak in big winds.

Fri. Did I mention being weary from night shift...

100 mins of hilly riding in huge winds.

Sat. 11 km run. After warming up I did 2 solid laps around the sketchy 2.6 km Red Edge Winery loop (a steep hill on each lap). I then rolled through a steady km before pushing the last 2 kms in 4.27 and 4.28.

Sun. 11 km run with 2 efforts up the tough km of Staffords Lane (180 metre elev. gain in the km) all up 530 metres elevation gain 84 mins of running.

Night shift this week then I get my life back lol.

Pretty happy with where I am at. 36 kms of running WOW!! But I am progressing along well ahead of where I was this time last year. I still have plenty of aces to play but my main concern at the moment is to keep the legs in one piece.

Interested to see the 60+ winning time at your race Amkelly.

Last year (age 59) I ran back to back (sat. afternoon, sun. morning) 8km trail races in 36 flat. Probably worth around 35 on flat roads. I felt that was pretty uncompetitive but maybe I was being too harsh on myself.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

The radiation oncologist described my 18 month check-up as “marvelous scan, excellent labs, remarkable report.” I have decided to keep my chemo-port through the 24 month check-up.

Igy, you're living life with that port?? I hadn't realized. That's a big deal, good on you for maintaining it and staying out of trouble. You had different treatment than I did, but I couldn't bear to have a port in for even the three months it was in my arm.

My long runs are up to 15 miles now, and they're the hardest pace-wise of the week. Last week it was in western Kansas, flat dirt roads. This morning it was city streets and lots of hills (804 ft elevation gain), resulting in a decidedly geriatric gait the rest of the day.

As I was powering through the last few miles of my run, I thought of this guy I saw this week in a wildly compelling race video. It is amazing pursuit steadicam. Anyway, you'll notice toward the end that Miller begins violently huffing and puffing. I'm sure he's below his ventilatory threshold, so what's going on? I think he's using a breathing routine to keep his legs going. I tried the same thing today. Not sure it worked. Still figuring out this endurance thing....

Coyote Montane wrote:

Hey Raysharp001, good to see you posting here. Congrats on the Win! M is in Wenatchee this weekend as well but did not race. RS

Thanks luckKY, in the old days I'd be AK-62 or CO-62 now. Have fun working the OTs SCgal. ATC is going all out and all-in for this effort.

Hey Coyote,

M would have crushed me any day, but especially since I ran a 100 mile trail race 2 weeks ago. So, I'm going into Boston training now, hoping for top 3 or 5 M60.

Well, Hi, I'd like to start following this thread and posting weekly or so, having posted for the first time today and seeing my old friend CM respond! My brief intro: I retired a year ago, ran 2:58:28 in a net downhill marathon in Leavenworth, WA in October, turned 60 in November, ran 3:03:23 at CIM for 4th AG, and finished my first trail 100 2 weeks ago. Hoping for a good showing, sub 3, at Boston. I won 2 golds and a silver in the WMA race walks in Malaga in 2018, but I'm skipping Toronto 2020, going to try to improve at running marathons and ultras instead. 8 weeks til Boston! I ran 2900 miles last year, topping out at about 80 a week, mostly aerobic (8:00 to 10:00 per mile) with occasional tempos at MP, and frequent racing. I'm planning to introduce some faster 800s or mile reps on a bike trail this spring, like 6:00 pace, then aim for 6:45 average at Boston (2:57) if the weather's good. Cheers!

Raysharp001 wrote:

I won 2 golds and a silver in the WMA race walks in Malaga in 2018,

Hi Ray,

Hey, I think I know that name - we met each other at several RW nationals races way back in the late 1970s early 1980s. Maybe at the Olympic Development Camp in Colorado Springs in summer of 1981 ??? (I went to Saginaw Valley back when it was still NAIA). Anyway, glad to see you are still moving along well!

My weekly summary:

Decent week all the way around. Just got home from a little vacation to Columbia South Carolina. Went to run the Governor's Cup road mile Friday night and planned to race the 5Km that was a RRCA regional championship on Saturday morning. Plans changed a touch - see below.

The weather was unseasonably cold. And breezy to boot...

38 degrees for the race Friday evening and projected 25-27 degrees at the start of the 5K yesterday morning. I ran the frigid mile Friday in 6:01 high and placed okay - not where I hoped to be but works out to about a 4:42 or about 78.8% age graded. It is still early in the season so I am good with that.

When I saw the forecast for Saturday a.m. I switched up to the half marathon from the 5km, because it seemed just too cold to try and go all out and race hard when it was that cold.

My substitute plan to run a good up-tempo half marathon in spite of it being a described as challenging course (read hilly - I think I counted at least four 100 ft gains and drops), because I thought needed the miles. I hadn't run anything over 10 miles since last October so it was really supposed to be a workout. Ran by feel and didn't start my watch to check my splits in starting at mile five.

When I realized I was clipping off 7:10s so just tried to keep it even for the rest of the way. Wound up at 1:34 which age grades to 1:14 high for 63 y/o. I am good with that effort as well as it to is 78% age graded. I am pretty sure I never ran a 1:14 :45 in my 20s or 30s, so that was pleasant surprise.

As a bonus, the S.C. RRCA was holding their state championship for the half and they said I had 'won' the grand-masters division (60+) and would send me an engraved medal to our home. That was quite a surprise for a no pressure unplanned race. My quads were protesting on Sunday morning, but I managed a super easy seven to keep my 50 mpw streak alive.

Glad to see so many others also having good weeks and others back on the road to recovery.

Until next time, Ward

KCGeezer,

As I mentioned I coached at Barton County Community College 1979-1982. Many of my runners came from western Kansas: Hays, Dighton, Russell, Garden City, Hill City, etc. I still keep in touch with several of them.

On the port, mine is on my upper right chest by the clavicle, with a line running to my jugular vein. Gotten use to it really. In my disease the risk of relapse is about 20%, which would mean another cocktail of chemotherapy. Hopefully I get it yanked in August.

Keep up the good health and running.

Igy

Note Done Just Yet, nice work on the HM, that is moving along at a smart clip.

Raysharp great to see your posts, I'm inspired by your race performances.

AM, hey that is a good 8K in the midst of marathon training. Your “comparatively low-mileage week” of just under 70 is of course longer than the highest mileage week (66) of my marathon build.

Thanks for the good wishes for the Napa Valley race next week.

I have a good race plan and I'm hanging loose!

amkelley wrote:

I've never quite understood why many marathon training plans for the non-elite have the long runs topping out at 18 or 20 miles. It seems to me that you'd want to do a couple of training runs that take at least as long in duration as the planned marathon. Back when I was young and a good marathoner, I ran up to 23-24 miles in training. Of course, back then I was running marathons well under 3 hours and now I'm hoping to just get under 4. Perhaps one shouldn't run for close to 4 hours in training? But ultramarathoners do it...

20 is a nice round number. In the rest of the world, non-elites do their 30km long run.

More rational reasons for limiting the long run come from two fronts.

1. Your longest run of the week should not be more than 2.5-3 hrs in duration.

2. Your longest run of the week should not be more than 25-30% of your weekly total.

#1 comes from the theory that the marginal return on the longer duration substantially diminishes after 2.5-3 hrs. Many people think of training intensity as a function of distance. But we should think of it as a function of duration in time. Ultrarunners run longer than 3 hrs, because they are training to run at much lower intensity that relies in burning fat. They are also probably training to refuel themselves while running.

#2 comes from the need to recover for the next run. If a low mileage runner runs too long in a single run, it will take too much time to recover. It's better to be conservative with your long run, and remain consistent for the rest of the week than exhausting yourself in one run, and feeling sluggish for the rest of the week.

So if you are recovering well enough within 48 hrs of long runs, you don't have to change anything. You are also running enough mileage to clear the 25-30% rule. But most recreational runners run lower mileage.

My week.

M: off.

T-F: 7 miles.

SA: 8,8 miles on bike trail.

SU: 7 miles.

The weather forecast for Sunday was rain. So I decided to do my Vaporfly "test run" on Saturday instead. Out and back trail in 35:40-34:20 for 1:10 flat. This is probably 90-120 seconds faster than what I would have run in my NB shoes. They are not the most comfortable shoes. (Toe boxes are a bit narrower, although they are the same 8.5D as in my NB Shoes.) But the bouncing effect is undeniable. The biggest difference is probably running uphill, which felt really effortless. So I will run my half in these shoes and see how it goes.

BTW, 4% are now $187 on Nike.com.

Anyone wish to offer advice for training during final week leading into a 5K race. Been averaging 30 miles a week for the past two months with one rigorous training day/week. Will go for about 28 miles this week with one day of training and next week plan to taper before race on Saturday. Should there be one day of speed work in there next week? If so which day and what workout. I am committed to full day of rest before race day to try that out.

Monday: 2 miles easy; 3 x 1,000m interval pace / 600m easy; mile easy

Tuesday: 40:00 easy

Wednesday: 2 miles easy; 1,200m tempo pace; 400m easy; 800m interval pace; 400m easy; 400m repetition pace; mile easy

Thursday: off (not Friday; day before off can leave one sluggish)

Friday: 1.5 miles easy; 8 x 100m alternate 2 easy, 2 race pace

Saturday: 2 miles easy; 4 x strides; 10 minutes rest; race

Igy

I like a few reps of 2-3 minutes on the Tuesday before a Saturday race. Usually about 10-12 minutes worth, at CV or V02 type effort, followed by a couple of pick ups or 30 sec reps at mile pace or so. If it's not a big race I'll run on Thursday and do a few 1:00 to 1:20 reps at mile pace with equal distance jog recovery. If it's a bigger race then I take Thursday off completely and do an easy run on Friday, with 4X 20 second pick ups

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Monday: 2 miles easy; 3 x 1,000m interval pace / 600m easy; mile easy

Tuesday: 40:00 easy

Wednesday: 2 miles easy; 1,200m tempo pace; 400m easy; 800m interval pace; 400m easy; 400m repetition pace; mile easy

Thursday: off (not Friday; day before off can leave one sluggish)

Friday: 1.5 miles easy; 8 x 100m alternate 2 easy, 2 race pace

Saturday: 2 miles easy; 4 x strides; 10 minutes rest; race

Igy

Thanks for that. Think I will give that a try. Biggest challenge here is balancing the training and rest days with work schedule as my work is quite physical.