50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

MF,

Jim Hunt coached some masters runners in Reno nearly two decades ago. Among them several that migrated to Boise. We did several of his drill routine in the early 2000s. Good stuff.

Igy

Jim Hunt also was my daughter-in-law's coach for the two years she ran at UC Davis, when he came back as an assistant coach for several years before his retirement. She always speaks very highly of him.

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

The basics of training comes to enough effort/ enough recovery. What`s enough both to effort and recovery is

individual. What`s often not taken into account is that rest time is at least as important as the effort time.

Nothing new there. I and others have been emphasizing the importance of proper recovery on this thread for a long time.

Coach X wrote:

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

The basics of training comes to enough effort/ enough recovery. What`s enough both to effort and recovery is

individual. What`s often not taken into account is that rest time is at least as important as the effort time.

Nothing new there. I and others have been emphasizing the importance of proper recovery on this thread for a long time.

Okey, and how do you execute that proper recovery ? What are your frames of reference?

Interesting old guy II. One of my running buddies here in Boise is one of the UC Davis greats, known then as Patti Gray. In fact we ran together this morning until I couldn’t keep up.

I made a lot of progress this week. This weekend I accomplished the feat of jogging a full 5K, twice. Each took about 33 minutes; for context, I ran 24:19 in my last 5K race 23 months ago. But hey, it’s a start. For the week, 19 miles of running, 125 miles on the bike, and one day of indoor aerobic exercise as the season’s first real rainstorm arrived.

Mon: 2.2 mile jog, 24 mile bike, gym

Tues: 2.6 mile jog, 16 mile bike, gym

Weds: 2.6 mile jog, 20 mile bike

Thurs: 2.9 mile jog, 20 mile bike, gym

Fri: 2.9 mile jog, 13 mile bike (truncated by rain), gym

Sat: 3.1 mile jog, 32 mile bike, gym

Sun: 3.1 mile jog, 40 minutes on bike trainer; will go to gym later

I should have ridden the bike outdoors today but the forecast was for heavy rain, which so far has stayed north of us. Tomorrow I'll probably be running in a downpour.

Good health and good running to all!

Good morning. Another week in the log book following the same pattern. Modest improvement in volume and intensity.

Sunday: 60:00 spin

Monday: 2 miles easy; 6 x 400m repetition pace @ 1:49 / 200m easy; mile easy; core exercise; 2 sets weights

Tuesday: 60:00 spin

Wednesday: 2 miles easy; 6 x 800m tempo pace @ 4:27 / 2:00 rest; mile easy; core exercise; 2 sets of weight

Thursday: AM- 60:00 spin; PM- 3 mile walk

Friday: 2,000 yards swimming

Saturday: 9 mile long run thru neighborhoods, irrigation canals, and Boise Greenbelt; relatively flat @ 11:47 / mile; finished with 1.25 mile walk = 10.25 miles

Have a good week.

Igy

Great news amkelley. We are getting rain here as well. Rain, plus moderately lower temperatures makes for tough run dressing decisions.

Greetings, fellow 50+ers! And happy Food Day! I trust you will all celebrate appropriately.

This turned out to be a very good week for me with great running weather and no scheduling conflicts. I was even able to get in some “speed” work and a pair of “long” runs. In the end, I came up a tad shy of 23 miles of actual running. 🏅

The upcoming week’s forecast includes a multi-day storm which could put a dent in my running plans. At the very least, I expect to be getting wet. We’ll see how it goes.

Mon: 57’ CR w/ utility pole fartlek (6 x 2 on/off); body wt ex + med ball routine

Tues: off

Wed: 62’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Thu: off

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

Sat: off

Sun: 63’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Best to most!

66 years old...

43 miles .. 2 fartleks and one two mile race effort, strides, weight lifting twice.

Had to take Tuesday completely off because I was just trashed.

Ran first workouts before dawn.

Forgot one road had speed bumps, was running along half asleep and was stunned to find myself face first ( well I got my arms up to cover my face) in the asphalt

You gotta watch those things.

No hope to beat the turkey anymore at my favorite race coming up..a 10k

I always enjoyed getting that “ I beat the Turkey” piece of paper from one of those volunteer Boy Scouts at the finish line.

Now, I see them laying on the ground as I cross the finish line , where the volunteers dropped them and feel.........sad

Ha

Totally wiped everything off my calendar for this week.. should be a Lindgrenesque week ha

Greetings from Greenville SC! Sitting on a sidewalk bench while everyone else shops. Running usually isn't a priority while vacationing here but I managed a solid 10 yesterday and an ez 4.5 this morning. Happy to report I've hit 40+ miles for 19 consecutive weeks. My daily pace seems to be dropping as I'm getting back to fit. Normal runs have been 7:40ish pace. Ran a One Year Anniversary of my Achilles Tenex Op mile last week. Hit 5:41.6 which I'm ok with, but thought I could be a bit faster. I'm running a local 5k this Saturday. Hoping to get that sub 19 monkey off my back...

Looks like we're moving on to the next store so that's about it from here.

Oh yeah and... The weather is perfect here!

Have a good run,

Dave

Greetings all, and congratulations AMK on the progress. I again had a somewhat inconsistent training week. In thinking about trying to put it into context I pulled out several past years of logs and realized that through the last several age groups my training has followed a similar pattern on an annual basis. I've been at it long enough to know that my training sweet spot for maximum fitness with minimum injury risk is 50-60 mpw with a fairly standard approach in the cycle of base building and progressively adding in more threshold, VO2 max and speed work as my race season (Aug-Dec) approaches. Starting in late Aug I race 5k to 8k XC races about every two weeks throughout the season. About two races into the season, as I start struggling with being fully recovered for the next race, my training rapidly devolves into about 30mpw of doing whatever I feel like on any given day which can vary from a 3mi walk to a solid 10mi threshold effort. Since my race efforts have been consistently good, I have decided to not stress about the mileage drop off and lack of "plan" in my training plan, and embrace the "do what feels right on the day" process for the season until it stops working.

Good running to all!

great news! hope it continues to go in a good direction for you.

fun week of training for me in excellent Fall weather:

M 40:00

Tu 2:20 double with 1:00 at marathon pace

W 1:35 double

Th 2:00 double with 16 X 1:30 hard (1:00 jog) -- intended as 400m repeats, but women's soccer practice closed the track (one of their athletes is in one of my classes, but I guess revenge grading would not be "best practices")

F 1:45

Sa 1:40 + 1:00 x-t

Su 3:05

have a great week,

Dave

Nice week AMK!

Nice mile RDB!

Nice plan OG2!

Making the doughnuts

Encouraging to read about everyone's progress this week. My week has been somwhat curtailed by work.

Mon - 40min

Tues - Club road session 5x1200m untimed

Wed - no running

Thurs - track session 2x400/2x600/2x800/1x600/2x400 - we are promised next week will be simpler!

Fri - 35min

Sat - training was cancelled today so I had an unplanned parkrun - 10th in19:07 - well pleased

Sun - 85min

Total 59km/37miles

Good running to all

Greetings!

Amkelly: glad to hear you are really getting better!

RacerDB: wish you get well under 19 next Sat and then proceed further to under 17 as you did before the injury.

ATP: as usual, very impressed with your results!

The running season is coming to the end here as it’s getting colder and colder quite rapidly because of a continental climate. Also, mix of rain and snow and strong wind demotivate until you get used to this grey late autumn. And finally, all my goals for this season have been over fulfilled. So I am following my usual template to slow down in the end Oct. or early Nov. and then train low profile until the (XC) ski season starts. And with age it’s even more important to heal the injuries than just to rest mentally. Helas, my Achilles, synovitis and metatarsal problems are not gone totally and the last two months I was just living/running with them.

Thus, this week was quite easy except for Sat. Yesterday I had to visit my work and could not resist a temptation to stop for an hour and run a parkrun as I was driving along the park. I knew I was already losing the form and decided to make an experiment on defining the rate of this decline vs time. The plan was to run at the same effort as a week ago (when I set my season’s best 5K/18:53) and see when "the bubble blows up". The experiment was not “clean” though because the course yesterday was a bit hilly. Had 3:46 at the first 1 km, then 9:28 at 2.5 km and continued OK until the 4 km mark that I passed at 15:12 (3:48/km on average and some 3:50). But then I clearly “felt the wall” even before the final climb and understood that was unable to maintain the same speed unless there was a gun put against my head. Also, I should not have been tired expecting a very busy working day and switched two gears down and dragged the final km at 4:05 with the finish time of 19:17. So, roughly 80% of the speed endurance are left and 20% are gone in a week.

The summary of the week looks quite poor:

Mon - off

Tue – 5 miles with 2 x 4:40 @ 5k race pace in the middle.

Wed – 5 miles easy

Thu – off

Fri – 5 miles with 2 short 2:20 intervals @ 5k race pace.

Sat – 8 miles with 5k race in the middle.

Sun – 4 miles easy.

Subtotal – 27 miles.

Nice week to all!

good to hear about health improvements.

Mo 8.5 miles easy

Tu 30 min jumps and drills uphill, 8x40m uphill, 2x150m uphill

We 7 miles easy, 5x100m with jog back, flue shot afterwards

Th off, not messing up the jab

Fr 7 miles easy, 3x100m with jog back, stopped the striders because legs were still stiff from the vaccine

Sa WU, 3x(3x40s with 20-30 sec rest), 5 min walk after series, CD, legs fully ok again

Su 90 min easy hills

Have fun...

Nice consistency and good mile TT effort there rdb. That's great improvement after a big repair surgery like that. Very encouraging.

Been hitting high 50 to high 60 mpw over the past month or so and feeling pretty good. Ran 1:23 half here at altitude (330 ft drop), and at 88% AG. Best race at elevation in >two years and basically equal to the 12K last month, which was at sea level. This was going to be the final race of the year, and I was going to taper for it, but I kind of ran through it and will keep it going for a bit more with some 5Ks in Nov., Dec. is undecided.

Good week for me:

M 8M (middle 6@MP)

T 12M@70%HR

W 5M@70%HR

Th 10M (8(800@MP/400)

F 5.5M@70%HR

S 10M Race in 1:33 - remember those great local road races between 1972 - 1986 when you paid $10-20 for a cotton t-shirt in exchange for a rural run that had major uphills in every mile, sometimes more than one? Afterwards, you were given a ribbon or small medal if you placed? Only, you ran that 10-miler in under an hour. It was fun then and it’s fun now. Just a helluva lot slower. And more ponytails in front of me.

Enjoy the week ahead.

M62, 5'11", 180 lbs

Race calendar:

Nov 25, 2021: 4.4-mile

Feb 12, 2022: 10-mile

April 24, 2022: Half marathon

May 29, 2022: Marathon

OCT 18-24, 2021

Mon - Off

Tues - 4.0 miles (10:11, 9:38, 9:22, 7:58).

Wed - Off

Thur - 4.0 miles (9:58, 9:16, 8:54, 7:55)

Fri -- Off

Sat - Off

Sun - 4.0 miles (8:49, 8:19, 8:04, 7:30)

TOTAL: 12.0 MILES

Happy to maintain double-digit weekly mileage. Knee pain interrupted sleep most nights, but remains manageable.

amkelly: Great to see the continued progress.

Igy: impressive consistency.

Racerdb: Wow, well on your way back!

MagicShoes: Yeah, I remember those days. I didn't note it last month, but Sept 12 was the 40th anniversary of my first marathon. Montreal 1981.

Be well.