50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

It was funny. But my ears are immaculately groomed, so he must be referring to the Troll. I even broke quarantine to get a trim.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I even broke quarantine to get a trim.

Why would you do that and then brag about it? That is very inconsiderate and selfish. It’s because of people like you that cases are spiking and people are dying. But at least you are well groomed! ?

##besttomoldeoldefarte

Friday, July 3, 2020:

Walking (2 miles), Strengthening (6 upper body exercises x 1 set; 5 lower body exercises x 1 set)

My running has been going really well, but it's so hot and sunny. I still haven't had enough time this summer to accomplish all of my track time goals though.

Has anyone here improved significantly with crossfit? Any pb's on the track and/or roads? I get that crossfit workouts make you stronger but wondering if it translates to improved running.

Mid Distance Master wrote:

Has anyone here improved significantly with crossfit? Any pb's on the track and/or roads? I get that crossfit workouts make you stronger but wondering if it translates to improved running.

I was reading a guy on Quora last month who said he had added three days a week of weightlifting to his running routine.

This guy was in his mid-thirties. He said after less than a year of lifting, he dropped his 5K time a full minute, from 17:XX to 16:XX from the weightlifting alone. No other changes in his routine.

My conclusion: improving your full-body strength is excellent for improving your running. Which is why I am lifting weights three days a week.

Saturday, July 4, 2020:

4 miles at the track, slow and untimed, 64 F. and 90% humidity.

Tough last 24 hours. Yesterday I had back spasms and was incapacitated for a while. Took Naproxen and my wife massaged my back with Icy-Hot and I struggled through my day. Then in the middle of the night last night, I had another back spasm. More Naproxen. More massaging and Icy-Hot from my very kind wife. Got up this morning, gingerly, had a long hot shower to loosen up my back. Then went to the track.

I tell you what, even though I am almost 62 and weak as a kitten and fragile as a glass flower, I have one huge advantage: I have run before.

I realized this was a huge advantage about halfway through my 4 mile run. It was very humid, I felt terrible for a variety of reasons, my body wanted to stop. Any normal person who was a new runner would have stopped. But there was no question I would keep going, because I have been there before and knew I could do it. You guys understand.

Anybody here training for a specific goal race?

Personally I find it hard to train and train every day with no goal in sight. I mean, I do like training, but the non-running parts like stretching and strengthening can get tedious.

No real races around here these days. It's pretty much all virtual, which doesn't excite me. Even if there were a real race nearby, I don't think I would participate any time soon, due to my family's health and my own.

Yesterday I just looked online and semi-randomly picked a 2021 New Year's day "hangover 5K" race as my goal race. Normally I wouldn't try to race in the winter, and I don't know where we will all be with the COVID-19 by next January 1. So maybe I won't even end up running in that race. But for now, it's my goal race.

Preliminary time goal: sub-30. Which is pathetic, since even at age 50 I could run sub-20, but you have to start somewhere. Right now I am probably running about 11:00 mile pace for my 4-mile runs on the track, so I think sub-30 is actually a reasonable goal for me.

It can be difficult planning for race goals since everthing is up in the air. I am training for a couple of races (12k) in September. If they don't happen then I still plan on running a 12k time trial. So right now I have specific workouts that I am doing. So just running those workouts keeps me motivated. Plus I enjoy training fairly hard. So the training itself is motivating to me. My specific workouts I did this past week included 5x mile on the track with 200 jog avg. 6:05 with no straining, followed by 4x200 39-40 sec. The other workout was a 13 miler avg. 6:45 again no straining. Those were fairly hard workouts but felt under control for most of it with my breathing rate fairly relaxed. Caught several salmon this past week. I get two more weeks here before I head back home.

Coureur des bois wrote:

My specific workouts I did this past week included 5x mile on the track with 200 jog avg. 6:05 with no straining, followed by 4x200 39-40 sec. The other workout was a 13 miler avg. 6:45 again no straining. Those were fairly hard workouts but felt under control for most of it with my breathing rate fairly relaxed. Caught several salmon this past week. I get two more weeks here before I head back home.

Coureur des bois,

Sounds like you are having some great workouts and some great fishing!

My wife caught a bag of frozen salmon at the grocery store this morning. We are having salmon for supper. She shops for food once a week, in the first hour after the store opens, when shopping is supposed to be restricted to people aged 60+.

Happy 4th of July to all!

That's funny. I didn't do a lot of 5ks when younger, but had a best of 15:22 on road (and age graded 14:5x), so I've got 3 minutes at 5k, but you are about 3 minutes quicker at a marathon! I think somewhere in the distant past I ran about 73:xx for a half, but the only way I could get through a marathon was to run about 1:30 per mile outside my 5k pace. Actually, even in a 5k I needed a breather between about 2 to 2 1/2 miles, before I pushed again!

Brittle Master 1958 wrote:

Mid Distance Master wrote:

Has anyone here improved significantly with crossfit? Any pb's on the track and/or roads? I get that crossfit workouts make you stronger but wondering if it translates to improved running.

I was reading a guy on Quora last month who said he had added three days a week of weightlifting to his running routine.

This guy was in his mid-thirties. He said after less than a year of lifting, he dropped his 5K time a full minute, from 17:XX to 16:XX from the weightlifting alone. No other changes in his routine.

My conclusion: improving your full-body strength is excellent for improving your running. Which is why I am lifting weights three days a week.

Thanks.

Anyone else have experience with Crossfit specifically?

Brittle Master 1958 - the way things are going, a 2021 New Year's day "hangover 5K" race seems like a relatively good pick for a goal race. Good luck. I hope we can all get on the same page and work to control this pandemic.

Me, I still want to run the Boston Marathon in 2021, but that assumes the event will actually happen! I remain optimistic.

And, as I'm 5.5 weeks into an injury, with close to zero running, my goal also assumes I can begin training again!

I ran 20 minutes slow on Monday just to check on things, it felt good but even though my left Achilles is still inflamed.

I thought I was making progress with heel drop exercises. Well, yesterday I was four minutes into running at 9-minute pace, and had to stop. I felt pain that made it hard to walk today. So I'm figuring at least another month off.

Not running is a bummer! BOO HOO! But at least my work is going well, I have two excellent graphic novel projects underway.

Best wishes for good running and good health to one and all.

*Week 474*

Greetings, 50+ers! Well, the Dog Days of Summer have hit hard this week! Hot and humid started mid-week and looks to stick around for the foreseeable future. With my current layers of insulation (euphemism alert), the heat really kills me, so I've not been running. ...just walking save the nice Run/Walk I did on Tuesday, which included run portions of 1.5,0.75, 0.45, and 0.2 mile sections and paces in the mid-8s down to mid-7s. Managed to make it about 28 miles total with activity ever day, but again, almost all just walking. If I could get out the door early, that would help, but I've been having a heck of a time waking up and feeling ready to go these days....not sure what's up with that. Had a physical/blood work done this week, looks like some numbers are a little off, so I'll probably be needing to make some adjustments.

Not much else to add this week. Keep up the good work, and stay safe out there!

All the Best![/quote]

lucKY: 28 miles is a good number. Hope the doc has some ideas on fixin the other numbers.

Mon = Mow grass (harder than it seems)

Tue = 4 miles with 8 X (1 min “on” 2 min “off) acceleration bursts

Wed = 3 X (9 exercises X 15 reps) with 15-pound dumbbells

Thr = 4 miles cemetery, easy

Fri = 3 X (9 exercises X 15 reps) with 15-pound dumbbells

Sat = 4 miles paved frying pan with 3@7:48 pace (7:40, 7:45, 7:58) 89 degrees (ground temp pushing 100). Waited too long to run. Good heat conditioning, though.

Sun = 4 miles easy, early to avoid heat

Just learned that we are a GO for a local 5K on 8/15/20!! Whoop whoop!!

I hit 45 years of running this week. Lots of good memories.

Have a good ‘ern…

I’ve been away from LRC for a few weeks mostly for personal reasons, but also due to a relapse of my calf/Achilles issue. I have not yet had a chance to catch up on the posts I have missed, but hopefully all has been well with my friends here. Now that my weekly running mileage has returned to a point north of 15 mpw (no fluff), I feel worthy of posting here again. After my previous rehab, I was able to get in back-to-back solid 50+’ runs. However I was unable to finish even 1 mile in my next run. So it was back to the ice/heat/massage therapy and a return to the high heels. I also removed the calf intensive exercises (heel drops, push ups, etc.) from my exercise repertoire. And this time I was much more conservative in my volume increases as I pushed toward normalcy. So now my routine is almost back to normal (knock on wood) as I’ve ditched the high heels in favor of low riders and reintroduced some of the exercises I had eschewed. I will continue this conservative approach for the upcoming week with the hope of being back to normal by mid-month. Here’s to hoping!

Sun: 40’ CR; swim

Mon: walk w/ the bride

Tues: 43’ CR; swim; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 46’ CR; swim

Fri: walk w/ the bride

Sat: 48’ CR; swim; body wt ex + med ball routine ??

Best to most!

Mon. 1 hour kayak in the lake after work finishing in the dark, getting dark here by 5.30.

Tue. 1 hr 15 min rugged trail running on the McIvor Range just 10.4 kms with 300 metres of rocky elevation gain.

Wed. Good strong 1 hr 48 min mountaib bike ride.

Thu. 1 hr 52 mins of fun running on Mt Alexander. 13.3 kms and 700 plus metres of eevation gain. A couple of off track extreme climbs inc a fair bit of scramble.

Fri. 1 hour kayak doing laps of little Hedleys Dam in the forest. Pretty cold by the end (in the dark) about 3 deg C.

Sat. A hard fast 1 hr 33 mins mountain bike ride, raining and a bit muddy.

Sun. 15 hilly kms in 1 hour 33 mins with 425 metres elevation. Then finished with a 2.5 km virtual club race in 10.50. The first uphill km in 4.53 then 5.57 for the last mostly downhill 1.5 kms.

A good week of fun stuff.

I trust everyone had a good Fourth of July. We had more fireworks in our neighborhood. I suppose we more people staying home. We hosted hamburgers and hot dogs for the family. Watched some old Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis movies. Wife claimed she made too much food, but looking in the refrigerator it seems mostly gone.

Covid 19 is more than just a headline in Idaho. Our cases have doubled in the past week, predominantly in the 18-29 cohort. Boise is now mandatory masks in public. I may make adjustments to my current routine for this reason, and to assist recovery for quality days. Saturday the legs were flat, not sure whether it was household chores or the previous quality day. Nevertheless, logged 38 Igy miles for the week. No rush on anything, it looks like fall for our first local race.

Monday: 2 miles easy ; 6 x 200m good speed / 100m easy; 400m easy; 6 x 350m good swing / 150m easy; 400m easy; 6 x 200m good speed / 100m easy; mile easy

Tuesday: 1,750 yards swimming

Wednesday: AM- 2 miles easy; 5 x 1,000m tempo @ 5:26, 5:24, 5:17, 5:22, 5:25 / 2:00 rest; mile easy; PM- 2 miles walking

Thursday: 1,750 yards swimming

Friday: 4 miles walking

Saturday: 2 miles easy; 4 x 100m repetition @ 24, 23, 22, 21 / 20m walk; 200m walk; 2,400m tempo @ 13:51 / 800m easy; 1,200m tempo @ 6:53 / 600m easy; 6 x 200m repetition @ 51, 49, 48, 47, 47, 44 / 200m walk; mile easy/walk

Sunday: Off

Have a good week.

Igy