Nearing 50 and my legs are trashed

The only thing I can figure out from this thread is that there isn't one answer - what works for one of us geezers seems to the downfall of others.

I remember at age 49 running 20 milers at 6:30ish pace and figuring the whole aging thing was a complete crock...something that happened only to others. Right now, I think it might actually be real.

I'm unsure if I'll be able or inclined to compete again, but I'm also not willing to let the peace and joy of running go yet and I look forward to running into my 60s and beyond.

Great thread.

I'm 59. Had 9 surgeries. 3 weeks since my laminectomy, 13 months since my cervical fusion. 8 months since I blew out my ACL. Need a knee replacement.

Until I blew the disk out which caused this recent surgery I was still pretty strong and explosive. Despite being a little too heavy.

I ride with the bike club and can still hit 53 mph plus on the downhill and almost 40 mph on the flat. If my back hadn't gone I think I'd be over the top. I was pushing 1700 watts.

I am not sure if I will have anything when I come back due to the nerve damage. That seems to be the limitation.

I hammered myself racing - Jumps,to 400 m runner, lots of work. Early surgery from a traffic accident forced me to sprints. So I have a lot of history of injury which I ran through. I doubt your issues are similar, but I think I mine are extreme.

I have found that as you get older you really have to manage your rest. I suspect that you need to take more off days than you believed, and focus on freshness. You should also try to make sure things you took for granted are managed. Like your core strength, and keeping the weight off. Added weight is a killer for old runners. Everything blows up. Ankles, knees, feet, neck, back. All due to too much load.

Take up flower arrangements on the off days. Stay away from the Hard Work.

Paula Newbury Fraser was top Tri lady who came back when she was really old and did almost as well, and on half the work. She said rest and recovery was the most important thing to an athlete as they get older. I am not talking 35 year olds. But 45 plus.

Soreness used to be a badge of courage for me. Now its something I try to manage.

I'm 45 and running as well as I did at 30 and training about the same - 6/7 days and 50 mpw with one or two fast workouts per week. I can run 17:20 pretty regularly for 5k. Chronic small injuries but nothing bad so far. I am small - 5/11 135 lbs.

This talk of rest days is deeply depressing - the highlight of my day is my run - probably I would rather run 7 days than race fast. Or put another way, if running 6/7 days means losing 15 seconds in a 5k I would probably make that trade.

Cavorty,

Well said. What works and what hurts each runner is as individual as body types.

I actually gravitated toward marathons, 20 in the last decade, because the training proved less likely to produce injury than what is required to run shorter, faster paced races.

In the quest to get faster, I still find ways to overdo the marathon training and become injured(see Jack Daniels elite schedule).

I've tried all the core, wgts, strengthening programs that work as injury prevention for most folks and have fared poorly.

I come from a football/rugby background and am not built like a greyhound; I should've expected training results a little outside the norm.

Can we be more specific than using terms like "trashed" or "shot". What are you talking about exactly...are you sore? pain? fatigued? injured? etc...

@malacoochie - your comment about managing soreness was SPOT ON!!

Yes, now my legs are almost always sore and achy. Getting up from my desk at work feels like I run a track workout EVERYDAY!

I am not really running that hard or much. Like a lot of posters on here, in my early 40's I was laughing off this concept of getting old. I had a string of sub-17 5k's going that I thought would NEVER end!

Even at 45 I was feeling great, running 85+ mile weeks getting ready for CIM. Then the bottome dropped out. I did try changing my diet to vegetarian but quickly felt like that might be the cause and went back to meat. To no avail.

It was like I was hit with a ton of bricks and my years of feeling so young caught up to me in the space of a month or two. I ended up taking 4 full months off of EVERYHING! No working out at all.

Then started back very slowly last fall running 2 - 3 days a week and only 2 or 3 miles at a time and slowly built up to only 4 days. But 4 quality days now.

I ALWAYS take, at least, one full day off per week now. I do ride with a cycling group 1-2 times per week but not on my day off.

I try to get a massage at least once a month but twice would be better. Over the winter I lifted light weights and did some leg stuff like squats. Not so much during the summer due to the cycling.

didn't realize there were so many of "us" out there... the late, great Dr. George Sheehan - marathon PR at age 60 - around 3 hrs., right? He was running every other day at that time, and taking naps on any available gurney at Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, NJ. Miss that man...

i've had more success focusing on getting to my planned hard workouts rested enough to actually do them well versus making sure i hit a mileage goal.

i gotta wonder that if you've spent 20 years building base whether it's really necessary to focus on this anymore. you've done that work.

i now plan a schedule and let the mileage take care of itself. it's when i get hung up on achieving mileage goals that i get hurt and stale.

Get off the pavement and run on soft trails, pine needles being the best, broadleaf trails 2nd best. Train at about 150bpm heart rate for 6 months. Get your diet straight - green vegetables. Work on flexibility constantly. Sleep 8 hrs/day. No lactate running for 6 months. No alcohol. Make your runs fun fartlek. Do long runs with ultrarunners at jog-hike pace on soft trails. Recenter yourself spiritually.

His is a book that had a great influence on my minset.

sodbuster wrote:

didn't realize there were so many of "us" out there... the late, great Dr. George Sheehan - marathon PR at age 60 - around 3 hrs., right? He was running every other day at that time, and taking naps on any available gurney at Riverview Hospital in Red Bank, NJ. Miss that man...

This was a great thread, thank you.

I'm 52, running since I was 16 and can't get over how slow I have become despite me desire to still be a playa'

Papa Dave wrote:

I'll be honest--it sounds to me like you may have fried yourself on too much interval work and racing over the years. The reality is that as you age you must back off on the intensity and amount of anaerobic work you do--if you don't it is inevitable that your body will stop performing. You can still run and do well if the bulk of your running is aerobic. I'm amazed at how many people ignore the obvious and continue training like they did in their 20's.

EZ10Miler wrote:

Actually reading through the thread it looks like more guys that are still getting it done are focusing on intensity and NOT doing just piles of easy miles.

Good thread. I agree with EZ10Miler. I think the general pattern is that people who continue to race well in their 40's & 50's worry less about total mileage than they used to, but keep a strong focus on hitting key workouts. At least, that seems to be the pattern among the guys I know.

In my 40's I emphasized one interval session (with 5 easy AM), one tempo session(also with 5 easy AM) and one long session per week. In my early 40's I kept the mileage up pretty high, and was running in the 15's for 5000, 4:30's for the mile and 2:30's for the marathon. I have recently found that I can only hit the key workouts well if I am willing to go by feel on the other days. Often 5 easy AM and 6 easy PM, but I would rather cut one of these down to an easy 2.5 miles (just trotting home from work, basically) than sacrifice the quality of the tempo/interval session. I also don't go as far on the long runs (now usually 70-90 minutes, and only do them every 2-3 weeks. At 50, this is yielding 4:40 mile, 16-low 5k, 33-mid 10k results. I think the hard workouts are the most fun, and the most productive. Nothing like running a set of intervals on the way home to light your brain up with endorphins!

While I'm nowhere near being a Master's runner yet, I do happen to have a .pdf of an article John Kellogg wrote a while back on running after 40. It's at the link below, on Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_zzkn1-wR0dMmU5M2I3ODYtNmIwNS00MWJhLTg3YzMtZWE2N2RkZDcwNTU5/edit

It's pretty good stuff, and I dare say even some of the young'ns like me can learn a few things from it.

One has to pace themselves...from a 64 yr. old.

True but they also have to believe w/in themselves that they can still produce or give what they can for that day. In other words stop complaining unless you have lost ALL capabilities of the mind and soul.

To the OP, your legs are only trashed if that is what you believe. Just commenting ...:)

Masters Marathoner... wrote:

The only thing I can figure out from this thread is that there isn't one answer - what works for one of us geezers seems to the downfall of others.

I'm unsure if I'll be able or inclined to compete again, but I'm also not willing to let the peace and joy of running go yet and I look forward to running into my 60s and beyond.

Hi Ray. I'm really glad to meet you in this thread. Kind regards, Christian.

For me its higher heart rate and overall fatigue if I run every day. I start out at 10 mpm and pick up the pace after the first mile if I feel good (heart rate around 140 bpm). On bad days my heart rate will be 150+ bpm and I return home. I've tried lifting more but that just brings more fatigue. Had blood work done (iron, thyroid, electrolytes) and all was normal. Now I'm running 4 miles every other day and doing light core work. Plan to build slow and hope to feel better with the cooler weather. Great to hear I'm not the only one struggling.

I started out the year logging all my workouts as I have done for years. I finally said, enough!

That is one way I have ensured I will not be a slave to the log and the need to bag miles. In fact, we were talking about Garmins this morning and I am holding out buying one for the same reason. So many of our runners here will tack on .065 just so they can log a perfect 10 miles. That is plain stupid in my eyes.

My 4 runs a week are what they are. I don't care how far they are, only that I get in the presribed workout. But I have no problem bagging a day if the old doggies are barking at me. I doubt I have run over 35 miles in the last two months.

Regarding soft surfaces, I couldn'r agree more. Here in the suburbs of Chicago we have this beautiful rails to trails system called the Prairie Path and we do almost 100% of our workouts on that crushed limestone surface.

I recall this similar thread from a few years back: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2335768