Master struggling with recovery

Just wanted to add, when I started doing that 1 x 400m workout, I would hit 77 - 78. Now I can hit 66 -67.

zatopek3210 wrote:

Thanks for the response. I am running in the morning around 6 on an empty stomach, which is how I have done it for years. Maybe blood sugar is the issue. I hadn't thought of that. The problem is get up at 5 and I usually have to wait 3 hours after I eat to run or I get an upset stomach. How could you deal with this issue if you are running in the morning?

I also agree leg strength is lacking.

Nobody seems to have mentioned sleep yet. Why do you get up so early, and is it impairing your sleep? You need anabolic energy states to recover.

If you need to eat before a run, eat simple sugars. There is plenty of glucose stored in the liver in any case. But morning is a time of low metabolism and not ideal for exercise. Better to work out during catabolic energy states, after being awake a few hours, and use your anabolic phases for rest and recovery. Learn to be lazy.

The small matters of interacting with your family and earning a living often necessitate rolling out at 0-dark-thirty to get training in.

Another tool I use as I get older is the age-grade tables. I plug in the workout times I was running and my age then and see what I should be running now if I am working out just as hard.

If I was running 29 minutes for a 5 mile tempo at 40 years old, the age grade table says I should be running 31:20 at 50. While the rate runners slow down is different, it opens your eyes to how big a difference there is as you get older. 2.5 to 3 seconds per mile per year can add up pretty fast. You may not realize after 3 or 4 years you need to slow down 10 seconds/mile on everything you run to not get overtrained. We all wish this wasn't the case but if we don't address it, we can end up injured or overtrained and slower instead of faster when we want to race.

older runner wrote:

The small matters of interacting with your family and earning a living often necessitate rolling out at 0-dark-thirty to get training in.

Recovery doesn't care about mitigating circumstances. Sleep is mandatory.

Have you considered an ElliptiGO? It is the next best thing to running itself although not cheap.

Perhaps doing some cross-training instead of running will help you as definitely more recovery is needed as we age.

Bad Wigins wrote:

older runner wrote:

The small matters of interacting with your family and earning a living often necessitate rolling out at 0-dark-thirty to get training in.

Recovery doesn't care about mitigating circumstances. Sleep is mandatory.

And sleep isn't affected by what time you wake up. It's the difference between when you go to sleep and when you wake up.

I didn't have to make any compensation to training until my late 50s, but now recovery is getting harder because it takes longer after a hard effort. Here's my thoughts.

Get a health checkup for blood sugar, testosterone, and low thyroid. A LOT of my male running friends in their late 50s have hypothyroidism. If you have bouts of fatigue that return every few months, get checked for EBV (Epstein Barr Virus). If you test positive for EBV, post here and I'll explain how to treat it. The range for "normal" testosterone is very wide. You can be at the low end of normal while someone at the high end can have twice as much testosterone. So get that checked too.

Most of all, you want to slow the aging process so it doesn't get worse. At least one workout every week should be extremely high intensity to boost natural testosterone production. Distance running won't cut it. Tempos won't cut it. If you want to slow the aging process, you need to finish one short hard workout a week on your hands and knees. (Slight exaggeration... but only slightly.) Recover two days afterwards. If necessary, take one of those days completely off or spin or elliptical. Examples of high intensity would be 8x20 second hill sprints or short, hard intervals. It doesn't have to be running... crossfit-style tabata squats or sets of weights to exhaustion also boost T levels.

Consider a 9 day schedule instead of 7.... hard, easy, easy, hard, easy, easy and so on.

One final word of advice... more of an opinion actually... if you are running marathons, stop. Marathon training compromises your immune system. You can get away with that in your 30s and 40s, but as you get older, you can't recover as fast so your system is constantly filled with cortisol. Train faster for shorter distances.

Stop being so obsessed with running. Just go with what you feel.

Run fast. Don't run fast; run slow. Run fast/slow. Never ending debate.

Back up for a second.

What are your goals: racing, fitness, etc.? I assume since you're posting here, it's mostly racing. If so, what distance and what goal races. Train and base your life & daily activities around those.

Find out what works best for you, all around through trail & error and stick with it.

And get plenty of rest and eat well.

not from here anymore wrote:

i found the in the few years since age 45, i've had to spend much more time on weakening legs

Wouldn't it make more sense to spend your time on strengthening legs?