50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Thank you for the TV tip. Unfortunately, I cannot watch because I live in Germany.

Crazy lifetime milage :)

Take care and good running

dhaaga wrote:.

Lots of pluses to the format -- no politician making lengthy remarks before the start (just me expressing gratitude for having been invited); my name was pronounced correctly by the finish line announcer; start time was when i walked over to the rock creek trail mile 5.5 sign, etc.

Boy it would be great to get in on something like that by the fall. I know a lot of livelihoods in Kansas City turn on running, and the emails I get suggest there’s a lot of cogitating about how to get some races in. If not, then maybe the Bikala race will “go the distancing” and I can run that. Of course, NIH has to be open for customers by then.

Absolutely nothing has changed here. We are locked down. We go out once a day to run in a park at an hour when almost no one is using it, which still astounds me. (No wonder they haven’t closed the parks.) We don’t set foot in a store, if Etsy or Instacart or Amazon can’t get it to my door, it can wait. Sunday is my footloose day. This morning I ran down to Cliff Drive, a beautiful park closed to car traffic on weekends, 54F and beautiful. I wanted to do this run for time, not effort, and took it easy.

At 1:35 I suddenly felt horrible. Heartburn meets fatigue. And then, five minutes later, I felt fine. Finished strong. Was that my body shifting from the glycogen tank to the fat tank? No idea, but it was strange. Stay safe all!

MikeF wrote:

IF you are historically inclined, NBC Sports Channel is airing their epic 1964 Olympics

film this evening...a MUST see track nut cult classic...7:30 PM out here on the Left Coast...

Wow, thanks for the tip! I've pretty much given up on TV with all the sporting events cancelled. (Although I note live horse racing is still going on in Florida, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.)

dhaaga, great job on the solo marathon. It must be really tough to do that on your own.

dhaaga - congrats on the excellent marathon run! Quite a winning combo of fitness and intent at work there.

Happily, I was able to run on my "creek trail" this week without a mask. Still rebuilding volume and got up to 46 miles (included 3 ten-milers).

A note on "immunity", I am an enthusiast of cordyceps mushroom tea or supplements. Some endurance athletes feel it gives a boost, and others claim it enhances immune response. The only face I can cite is that I haven't had a cold or flu in the 11 months I've been trying cordyceps along with some other mushroom products, Lions Mane and Turkey Tail. What can I say, I've been sort of a hippy vegetarian for decades, even though I've disguised myself as an entrepreneur/business owner type...

Also addressed my achilles issue by buying another pair of Brooks PureFlow7 at Amazon... this is the shoe that solved the same prob for me 3 years back. They'd been discontinued but there is still some stock out there.

Best wishes to all in these unusual times.

am, good luck healing up and feeling better!

Prednisone can help out pretty quickly on the one hand, but it is a fairly heavy duty medication.

Dhaaga: A 3:17 solo full - wow just wow!

I did 10 miler at 3:35 pace on Thusday and was sort of plodding along near the end. Can't wrap my head around a 3:17 solo right now. In six months, under ideal race conditions, maybe just maybe.

Upside is that this is my fourth week of 60mpw of base building with an even 15% of hard effort miles. ( I did not count the 10 miler as hard miles - rather more as steady tempo).

If the 'new normal' allows for some racing by July or even August, I hope to be in decent racing shape. Today was day 40 of solo running. I do miss going a couple times a week with younger faster folks.

Always good to hear how others are doing and coping. Stay safe everyone.

Changed things up a bit this week.

Mon. 45 min kayak and a 3 km run in 16 mins.

Tue. 45 min mtn bike and a 4 km run in 22 mins.

Wed. Pretty solid effort run of 7.7 kms on some decent hills in 43 mins then a 20 min kayak.

Thu. 50 mins on the road bike cranking it the last half. Then a 30 min/4km steep rough trail run.

Fri. 45 min kayak and a 4.3 km run in 24 mins.

Sat. 2 hr 43 min mtn bike ride.

Sun 15.7 km hilly trail run in 90 mins.

About my normal weekly volume in all 3 activities but kept things short and sweet during the week. Just a bit of a freshen up

I got to "frock up" in the covid ppe gear at work on Wednesday. We all knew it was not a covid case (just bog standard pneumonia) but it was good to remind myself of good barrier techniques.

We are running out of cases here in Vic. Just one positive yesterday from 3500 tests. We had a bunch of positives the day before re testing quarantined repats from an Antarctic cruise. The day before just one positive, two and three in the previous days. We had one death here last week (15 total). Only 20 or so left in hospital about half of those in ICU beds. Over 90% recovered.

Australia wide things are mostly going well. A handful of infections and a couple of deaths in a nursing home in Sydney. I think most other States have had either none or one positive. 71 deaths Australia wide, a third of those were returning cruie ship passengers.

We will remain in the "Stayhome unless..." mode at least until May 11. Things are still moving along with stacks of construction/infrastructure work going on.

Most of our local businesses are still operating in some form. Cafes bakeries restaurants all doing take away. We have 2 pubs in town. One was already closed pre covid for significant renovation. The other is just operating it's usual drive thru bottle shop. The owner was planning to retire at the end of the year so I doubt she is worried.

I limit my kayak sessions to small local waterholes. I did 7 kms tonight paddling the 270 metre lap in Hedleys Dam,

a firefighting dam in the nearby forest. A few sections of forest have closed signs on access roads. These went up for Easter to prevent camping. I still have thousands of hectares of forest to run and ride in. We are permitted to travel "reasonable" distance by car to exercise.

syracuse wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

OK, got it covered now.

https://imgur.com/a/p3VxftZ

That may work, if you have the proper cartridge in there and it is not past it’s expiration date.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Actually I do have the proper cartridges, but not installed for this simulation. I’ll stick with the bandanna and latex gloves for my weekly store outing, and cross my fingers.

Knowing that you live in Idaho, I am not surprised.

Well, the furlough continues for my wife and I. Did 55 miles last week, 21 of that were of running, the rest walking, just doing 10 pound weights and push ups for for any upper body work, plus stretching. Missing not being able to watch Boston Marathon today, but watching replays of earlier ones! Might watch the 1964 Olympic film, too!

Grateful that we are healthy, wearing masks at local grocers (Hy-Vee, Natural Grocers, Costco) and hand-washing afterwards. Cannot believe that people are demanding their "freedom" to congregate, go to work, church, etc. and put their, and other's. lives at risk. I am in no hurry to be someone's statistic.

nice job dave on a solo marathon--i'm still well on my way to achieving my lifelong dream of never running a marathon.

the closest i'll get to boston: i was part of a 13 person relay team for an event organized by the BAA masters team (ryan davenport spearheading the effort)--gave me a reason to get up early this monday morning (virtual race started at 7am for me--10am eastern time--it's been weeks since i set an alarm) and put on racing flats for the first time in a while. recovery from an injury that sidelined me for over two weeks in march, plus being in no hurry to recover (running only around 30 mpw), has left my fitness a little sub-par, but managed a painful two mile road time trial in 10:52.

like lucKY, i'm also tired of google "meets" video conferencing and skype/zoom stuff; strange that it was new to me just a month ago, and it's already old. maybe i do have a little millennial/flavor of the minute/ephemeralism in me... i've taken to making youtube videos for my students--although they're in h.s., many have never been read to (mostly second language students, and unfamiliar with even the most famous fairytales), so i started having fairytale fridays where i'd read an old or new "fairytale"--no real assignment, just a good ol' storytime for about 10 minutes on fridays. now, what used to take me 10 minutes is taking me hours to prepare as i've learned little by little the inner-workings of imovie and other technology. i'll admit to having fun with these videos, but it's still not what i signed up for. here's a link, if you're interested in a dr. seuss classic, to my reading/production of "oh, the places you'll go":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJQ78RvtJ7Q

other stories on my channel: "the cat and the sick chicken" (my real cat serendipitously steals the show!), "eeyore has a birthday," and this past friday's "the waste land (pts. 1&2)" by t.s. eliot--pts 3-5 should be ready by this coming friday. view, or don't view, at your leisure...

speaking of youtube, that tokyo '64 can be found in its entirety on youtube as well if you missed it on sunday (and it is worthwhile viewing--i had just watched it a couple of weeks ago):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHt0eAdCCns&t=2s

i'll apologize in advance for the minutes of your life you will never get back if you watch any of my videos ;)--carpe crepusculum,

cush

KPdx wrote:

Our city park tracks are still open so today it just felt right to do a 3-mile tempo to check fitness meter after 7 days off due to borderline Morton's neuroma then 7 days back on just jogging mostly. Although that felt like I had been off 70 days. Know what I mean?

Happier with 6:46pace for 3-mile tempo than ever before. Fingers crossed everyone else has a mental booster in their past week or the next one.

KP

Man you were primed for a nice peak to finish off the fifties. Enjoy following your workouts and races. Fact is I would like to see more workout type posts along with the races as they are insite filled.

At some point I noticed one day off is one too many so jogging or slogging some not matter what helps me from losing fitness as well as recovering .

Refreshing to moved down to mid d. Felt like doing something on the track today.

Spencer Brown posted a youtube of him doing 30/40 for 3200. He is in 4 shape so I figured why not adjust and try this.

Optimistically calculated 40/50 for a nice 12 flat but have not done any workouts comparable since June 2019.

Did a 400 pace sync / warmup of 48/43 ok go time

4:30 first 3 laps at 50/40 but I was breathing pretty hard

1:35 53/42 on the 4th so I decided to breakup the second 1600 into 2x800 full recovery

2x800s went well R 5 minutes , HR 190+ first time in a long time my HR above 180

2:58 50/40 , 49/39

2:58 50/40 , 50/38

12:02

Based on this I think I will take a shot at 5 for 1500 or 5:20 mile in August all comers out at Lane CC. All my thoughts tend to be optimistic;)

Links

Spencers 30/40:

Spencers sub 4 story part 1

Thanks for mentioning "Unbreakable", that was a great video and an even greater race. What a race to capture and what a come-from-behind win. Never saw that coming. I cannot imagine how Trason could win 14 WS's, such a storied career, and not her only wins, of course.

Charlie,

I like your posts.

As well as your efforts.

Doing something new is adventure.

Concerning HR I would not stick to conventional statistic.

At the age of 45 I was easily able to push my HR to 210 or above if doing fast runs such as hill repeats. Actually, difficult to count by old school method at this rate. never saw a reduction in HR max. Maybe I should check again at 49 now.

Keeps safe and healthy!

*Week 462*

Greetings, 50+ers!

The lock-down continues and yet I am so far behind on grading and other administrative duties just trying to keep my classes afloat with meaningful content and exercises. I did force myself to get out the door a couple more times, so I got out for 5 walks and about 20 miles...very little running, lower back still gets pretty stiff. I was happy with yesterday's 5-mile walk at an average pace of 14:10/mi. Oh, and the yard still needs a ton of work...intermittent rain has been keeping me from mowing.

It's all so surreal. And now that my allergies are starting to flare up, I don't know if it's even safe for me to go out, lest I get the evil eye. Glad to see that some of you are using this time to be more creative--really like your videos, Cush.

That's all I've got. Be Well; Stay Safe! Hope you're getting some healthy exercise in; let us know how/what you are up to.

All the Best!

Here I continue to face the dual challenges of the coronavirus quarantine and the weather. Fortunately I am not ill and still able to get out for my runs, but there is more snow, rain, and wind in the forecast which will likely shake up my schedule. Anyway this past week was another good one with nearly 21 miles of actual running (no fluff) which is where I typically hope to be. The minor hamstring issue continues to show up occasionally, so I’ve backed off the toe touches and lunges for now. As usual, there are a few other little niggles, but nothing to write home about. Quality of runs has been naturally improving and I’m hopeful of progressing to some fartlek in the near future as the hammy allows. Life is good!

Sun: 52’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Mon: walk w/ the bride

Tues: 51’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 54’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Fri: walk w/ the bride

Sat: 51’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Best to most!

Mon. 70 min kayak

Tue. 90 min mtn bike ride with a new best time by 4 secs of 11.14 on the Mt Ida summit strava segment. Felt strong, the track up is deteriorating so I was pretty happy.

Wed. 77 min 13 km trail and hilly paddock run.

Thu. 60 min kayak with 8 x 100 metre sprints.

Fri. 47 km hilly road bike in 105 min

Sat. 12 kms of running. First 7 kms up Roo Hill and some rocky trails in 46 mins. Then a 2 km progressive uphill run in 10.30. Turned and ran back down fast 8.26 then a slow km shuffle.

Sun. 10 kms of running with a fast 5 km in the middle (bit of a virtual race thing with clubmates) 22.40 in a torrential downpour.

Pretty typical sort of week for me. The kayak sessions are hard work mentally in the small dam. Heavy rain today should have topped it up a bit more.

The weather has turned. Winter is coming!!!

Covid wise. Occassional small localised clusters in health care facilities. A nursing home in Sydney where a number have died. A psych facility in Melbourne had a cluster of 16 positives. The virus appears to have all but disappeared from the general community for the moment.

We have just over 20 covid cases in hospitals although quite a few are in ICUs.

3 deaths in the last 2 weeks, 17 total, but I know a number of those ICU patients are thought to be high risk.We have several 4000 unused ventilators in our State hopefully they stay gathering dust.

Hoping May 11 we drop back from stage 3 to stage 2 restrictions.

48 year old here. I was running between 50-60 mpw, but I am now barely doing 5-10 a week due to proximal / high hamstring tendinopathy and various other tweaks and pains in my hip area.

Has anyone managed to get past this. I have thrown all manner of strength work to try and resolve and it won't budge. All I get from physios is prescriptions to do more strength work, but I can easily do 100+ single leg bridges etc (not bragging, that's just how much work I have put in to try and rid myself of this godforsaken condition).

This was a holding pattern week as I try to figure out what is causing the persistent and severe hip/back/neck/shoulder stiffness and pain I’ve been fighting for the past month plus. I had a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday, but she called in sick that morning. So I took an appointment with a nurse practitioner, the kind of kid who struggles to get a C in my general chemistry course. I was unable to convince him that there’s really anything wrong with me, although he was frantic to get me to schedule a colonoscopy. I did finally manage to get him to order the blood tests for polymyalgia rheumatica and now I’m awaiting the results. I started back on naproxen and it’s actually helping a fair amount now. I’m still “running”, although my hips are too stiff to let me lift my knees and all I can do is shuffle along at a 10-min/mile jog. Still hoping I may be able to crawl out of this on my own, without resorting to more serious drugs. My week:

M, 10.4 miles

T, prednisone from previous week has all worn off, very stiff. 10.1 miles didn’t feel good.

W, very sore, 5.7 miles before heading to the lab to get blood drawn.

R, 9.2 miles, feeling better after starting naproxen.

F, 10.2 miles, clearly better.

S, 11.7 miles, even better.

U, no run, planning to take dogs and husband for a long walk in the mountains.

57 slow jogging miles for the week.

There is no indication of when stay at home restrictions will be lifted in California. We have a relatively low number of cases and deaths per capita because we shut down so early, but that just prolongs the whole thing. I don’t know how much longer people are going to tolerate this, particularly those who are out of work. The weather turned warm this week and even the people getting paid to work at home are getting mighty antsy.

Take care.

Mopac: Awesome week!

amkelley: Hoping you can get over it on your own. So frustrating to be treated by baby-docs. I think, due to our experience, we catch the obvious blunders and poor diagnostic thinking that most miss. I find I’m very impatient with stupidity now a days and just a little bit alarmed that I missed so much when I was younger.

Covid number keep increasing steadily with no reduction in rate AT ALL in Virginia. Numbers are still low in my semi-rural area.

Mon = 17 minutes elliptical

Tue = 4 miles w 3@8:26 pace, 48 mph wind gusts

Wed = 18 minutes elliptical

Thr = 4 miles easy

Fri = 19 minutes elliptical

Sat = 4 miles w 3@7:32 pace

Sun = 4 miles easy rails-to-trails gravel

A great running week. Sat I had the best workout I’ve had in almost a year. I found a big, pancake-flat parking lot to an abandoned mall and made an 800 meter “track” out of it. I had more lift in my legs and the push-off phase of my stride is clearly stronger. That has to be the elliptical. This crazy contraption just might make me a real runner one of these days!

Don’t forget to duck!