Nearing 50 and my legs are trashed

I am 57.

I have surfed the age groups since mid 40's. 2 years hard &

3 years easy. Never stopped, 2 days/week maintains fitness.

NO marathons.

Have you been videotaped lately?????

Bad form, "Arthur's" sitting in the box creeps in for older runners.

Good luck

oh, another thing you can try that helps a lot

1st half mile stop and walk..... and then jog..... about six times different times before running without stopping, this type of warm helps out a lot...try it!

Uh, running since 1990 is not "lots of years". Call me when you get to at least twice that.

Running regularly for 22 years isn't a lot? Okay. My running started to decline when just getting out of bed was difficult and all I had done was run a lot of miles the day before. Somehow got into rowing, which led to crossfit and other forms of exercise. Now a few years older and feel many years younger. Done with distance running, no interest in something that makes my legs feel terrible and erodes more muscle. Need to build muscle at our age, not atrophy even more.

In addition to the salient advice given here, there's one more thing you might consider to help restore your legs' mojo - trampoline.

I'm a female and about 12 years younger than you but often feel like I'm 50 (constant injuries). I don't know if you'd ever try this, but I've started doing yoga and it's helped with my overall fatigue/soreness (and if you'd feel too "gay" going to a class, you can always buy a DVD and do it at home). Also, Greg MacMillan has a DVD called Drills for Distance Runners that you can do before workouts to help loosen up and improve your range of motion. I've also heard from lots of guys your age that weekly hills sprints have helped them avoid injuries. I really want to try those but I keep getting injured myself.

I know that it must be tough to be running so much slower/less mileage than you used to, but seriously your 5k from June would be a dream for most (99% ) of us, including the guys on LR who act like it's not that fast. I hope things get better for you soon :)

Old guy runner wrote:

The problem is I don't think i could possibly run more than this without total muscle breakdown.

I am in a constant state of muscle soreness. By Tuesday they feel slightly better than say mid-day Sunday.

This sounds like a bit more than typical old-runner aches and pains. The advice from several posters to do some work on strength is useful, in my experience. This does not have to be weights - consider form drills and dynamics, etc. I do a series of buttkicks and high knees after weekly tempo runs, focusing on the quickest footplant I can get. Also do one leg 'sinks', standing on one foot about 12 inches from the wall and lowering yourself until your butt hits the wall, keeping hips level and not sticking your ass out. Also 100 one-legged calf raises on each foot. All of this seems to help keep injuries to a constant dull roar, allowing about 10 sessions/week, with two hard sessions (one tempo and one interval or race) and one long. Other sessions easier and often a bit shorter than I would have done when younger. My emphasis is on hitting the key workouts.

I didn't pay much attention to stretching but now find it helps noticeably to stretch for at least 3-5 minutes before and maybe after running.

Despite all this, I can't maintain the same quantity and volume as 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago (now age 50).

Good luck! No jogging!

I hate to break the bad news to you Oldrunnerguy but your 17:42 would win most of the races in your age group unless it was very competitive. Any over 50 running 17 minutes is going to be one of the top runners in any state. We all know there are elites running in the 15s at that age, but they are very very few.

I am getting closer to 50 and everytime I get in great shape, I'm about 2 weeks out from an injury. Age just makes the recovery very difficult. Running more miles at a slower pace isn't the answer either. Your times won't be any faster. At some point, you have to realize that you can only do so much training and run so fast and you either have to be happy with that or do something else that interests you more.

Since I love to race so much, I'm happy giving away 10-15 seconds per mile, having a good time, and staying mostly injury free. Of course at the end of fall, I'll try to hammer out a few workouts and races because I'll have the whole winter to recover if I overdue it.

So, yeah,....

Have none of you really heard of Testosterone replacement therapy?

You all have these terrible, TERRIBLE old guy work out programs, but, it's really simple.

You.

Are.

Old.

Stop fighting it, with all this, " I feel tired " bs, yeah you feel tired, you're 60!

Your body is declining, enjoy the rest of your years, replace your declining hormones and RUN!!!

And please stop bitching about it. IT happens to EVEREYONE..

Old guy runner wrote:

The problem is I don't think i could possibly run more than this without total muscle breakdown.

I am in a constant state of muscle soreness. By Tuesday they feel slightly better than say mid-day Sunday.

But I feel like I am in the midst of marathon training and running 85+ miles per week.

But I'm not...

I still WANT to run 85+ miles a week and be even more competitive...but I can't bear the fatigue of my legs.

Are you eating substantially within 45 mins after the run for recovery? For me, this makes a HUGE difference. I eat 3 slices of raisin bread & a handful of soy protein. I also drink about 50 ml water. Again, all within 45 mins. THAT'S when the body needs renourishing the most. I also continue nibbling, drinking. If you don't meet the 45 min rule, then your recovery is compromised (from reading & personal experience).

Have you gotten blood work done (including anemia screen with ferritin levels)?? Don't know that this sounds like anemia, but it probably makes sense to take a look just to rule things out. I'm in my 40s and went through an extended period of tired/sore legs and finally got a blood test, and my ferritin was in the high 20s. Though that isn't "clinically" low and the doctor said everything was normal, low-ish levels can still negatively affect performance and I felt better when I got my ferritin back into the 60s. Just a thought. Good luck.

Been running since 92 knee's ache once in a while but ok. I supplement running with cycling and swimming. I can still run 10 miles at 6:10 on a hard day. Im 5'9" 185. Lose some weight fatty.

Old guy runner wrote:

I have been running competitively since 1990 and was a bike racer before that. So lots of years on these legs.

I don't normally take too much time off but was forced to take 4 full months last summer.

I have only got back to running about 4 days a week on average this year and once again my legs are trashed.

Has anyone else experienced this and were you able to overcome it?

Did it force you to quit racing?

What really sucks is when I pulled my hammy frickin jogging, jogging. Took 5 day off ran for a week and I then pulled my hammy again jogging.

I'm 56. I'll really sucks when the mind has the will, but the body can not do it any more.

I've been running since 1971.

Tailgunner wrote:

-Throw away the watch

-Train for feel, not splits

-Eat more paleo (more meat, fat, veggies, fruit)

-Run 4 days/cross-train and lift 2-3 days

-more pure speed, drills, plyos, short hill reps

-work on your technique, running tall and light and with good knee lift.

-get your sleep cycles nailed down

-run mostly on dirt and softer surfaces, but at least one session of sprints/strides on the track

-get away from 400-mile intervals until your legs feel great. Then do most of your race-paced stuff as fartlek

-read more of Pete MaGill's stuff

40 great years of running (I'm 56) next week and ready for another great 40!

the above is good advice for anyone.

but we have a burn out situation that runners, almost all of them get into some sort of trouble due to inappropriate recovery. our man needs to recover from chronic muscular use and abuse.

i would recommend taking 18 months off from almost all running and cycling. switch to swimming, golfing, some walking. go on your favorite internet guru's diet and vitamin scheme for muscle recovery.

you can however run a mile a day easy, then do 6 strides with a walk back. then call it a day. this leg work is meant only to get the blood flowing to those tired old legs.

you will want to have therapeutic massage at least 2 times per week, you can go on the internet and find out how to do massages your self.

you will need to do yoga 1-2 hours 5 days a week.

all of these things need to be done in a quality way.

when you do come back, focus on recovering fully before doing more hard stuff.

if you get your head into it, you can have a lot of fun with the above schedule.

I think there has been some good advice given here. The one thing I'd strongly suggest looking into is using an Alter-G. You can purchase their latest unit for about

$32K, but more and more rehab centers are getting them now since they put out the more affordable unit. They usually rent it to folks for about $1/minute of use, cheaper by the larger bulk. You can actually use it in conjunction with the other poster's ideas to gradully increase your percent of gravity tolerance, thus gaging whether their suggestions are "paying off" in true improvement.

What comprises "trashed" legs, anyway? Are they like "blown" knees?

Mike Robertson and Eric Cressey have tons of articles and videos on the web about muscle and joint recovery. Here is a muscle by muscle guide. I use a foam roller and a wooden rolling pin from Walmart instead of the stick.

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/downloads/Self-Myofascial-Release-Purpose-Methods-and-Techniques.pdf

Maybe try getting a series of deep tissue massage from somone close to you who is recommended by friends. Some offer discounts if you prepay for a series. Many pt places have lmts working there and insurance may cover it. Go to light resistance cycling for a bit too. Are you on any medications?

I'm 52 now - I've been running for just over 20 years now - primarily marathons - but only really got serious about them in my 40s. I've been running 7 days a week - generally over 50 miles a week for last 10 years or so - peaking around 80 toward the end of marathon cycles.

I was getting stronger and faster through most of my 40s - running marathons in the 2:40s - my best was at 49 - 2:41... After that I was going to give one last push to get into the 2:30s but started feeling crappy - but I ignored that for a long time. - Turned out I had Lymes (and had it for a while). I think I've finally kicked that, but my joints are iffy now and I haven't been able to generate much speed...I ran a couple of high 2:40s marathons since then but I'm mostly just running (not training now) - still 7 days a week and 50 or so MPW. I still enjoy running but rarely run faster than 8 minute milees.

For me, while I was competitive in my 40s a key was only running hard twice a week, and running pretty slowly on other days. I did work with tinman for a while and he recommended the 2 hard workouts a week.... I think that works well as the recovery time increases with age.

Not sure if any of this rambling is of value - except, see a doctor if you feel significantly poor and the 2 workouts a week thing.

Good luck with it.