Boston planning for an injured old guy who hasn't run in 3 months

Hello, Smoove. I just googled the topaz procedure, and that sounds really frightening. I think if your pf was really full of scar tissue, then a hands-on type of physical therapist would have been much more effective getting rid of it manually with Graston, ART, or whatever you want to call it, rather than a bunch of pin pricks. If you're running pain-free now, then that's great!

If it comes back, I'd get a second and third opinion on what's going on.

I did Grastin for months with a PT that I have a lot of faith in. She told me that it simply wasn't getting better and wasn't going to. I talked to a couple of people who had topaz done, and they were very happy with the outcome. I chose it because of that and because it seemed less invasive than the partial release surgery.

I am back at it, and running moderately hard (tempo efforts), but the recovery took 6 weeks longer than the original outside estimate, and there is still some scar tissue from the procedure, even after subsequent cortisone injections.

If I were in the position to go back to May and decide what to do, I might go with the partial release procedure, but obviously, that just cannot happen. So I apply one of the many lessons running has taught me - you assess where you currently are and where you want to be, and chart a course to get there, leaving the last race, the last workout, or, in this case, the last treatment decision, behind you.

Interested in online coaching from a Boston area resident? I have coached college as well as post-college in-person/online all abilities. I ran under 2:22 at Boston and under 2:20 multiple times in later marathons. Shoot me an email if interested.

Did you submit the 2:40 for registration or was it too early in 2015 to use for 2017? Just wondering if you have a corral 1 time or if you got in with a charity / invitational bib and will have to fight through the later waves.

I was able to use my 2:30 from October 2015.

Here is how things have gone since my last update on 11/1.

Weight continues to drop slowly, but steadily. Down into the 147 range, with a goal of 144-145 on race day. Given we are in the holiday season, I am happy with the progress I have made there even though I wanted to be at my race weight by now. I definitely don’t want to worry about cutting weight during the heavy lifting portion of my training cycle, but if I had to race at my current weight, it would be fine, and if I was really worried about it, I could bear down and lose the last 2-3 pounds in two weeks or so.

From a health standpoint, things aren’t perfect, but are good enough. My feet don’t feel great when I get up in the morning or when in bed at night, but they are not impeding my training and they don’t bother me during the day. Everything else seems to be in pretty good working order. I even still have 8 out of my 10 toenails.

Training has gone as planned, with mostly base work, with a few basic “knock the rust off” workouts mixed in.

Week ending -

11/6: Ran 45 miles including a progression run that included a middle three miles of 6:16, 5:54, 5:45 (2nd time running something other than easy distance – kind of botched the progression, but it gave me some indication of my fitness at least);

11/13: 52 miles including a 200/400 reps workout at :36/:74 and a 13 mile long run in the hills;

11/20: 56 miles including a 10 mile run with 3 miles at tempo pace (5:41/mi) and a 14 mile long run in the hills;

11/27: 51 miles including a 5k Turkey Trot at 16:22 and a 13 mile long run in the hills. I was pleasantly surprised with the 5k since I was thinking I would run somewhere in the 16:30’s, and probably in the high end of that;

12/4: 56 miles with a half marathon today.

In my last update I set a goal to run the half marathon in 1:16, which, given where I am in the training cycle, I thought would be a good benchmark for showing some progress towards my ultimate goal of a 2:35-2:37 or so marathon in April. Then I ran the 16:22, which indicates a sub 1:15 half marathon fitness level, which of course led me to wonder if I should try to run a bit faster. Ultimately, I decided to try to run 5:45-5:48 pace and see if I could sneak into the mid-to-high 1:15s. My thinking was that equating 16:22 with 1:14:58 assumes that you are equally well trained for both distances, and based on the fact that I had run a total of 395 miles in the 10 weeks leading up to this week, I didn’t think that was the case just yet.

As it turns out, it was a beautiful day with temps at about 60 degrees and a light breeze. I got out a little hard (5:32), tried to reign it in, going through two miles in 11:12. I felt pretty decent, so I kind of just went with it and figured that at worst, I'd be banking time for the end. Two mile splits were then 11:07, 11:14, 11:19, 11:25 (started to feel it), 11:37. Mile 13 was 5:49, then finished with a 33 high to go 1:14:19. I was alone the entire race, finishing in 7th place. Obviously, I am pretty happy with that outcome.

So far, so good. The plan for the immediate future is to run another week of base training, then jump into the vo2max portion of my training plan, which is basically comprised of one 5k paced intervals session and, most weeks, a tempo session in addition to my long run. Next race is a 5k on January 14th. The goal there is to get down to just to 15:50 or so. At that point, I will have one more week left in the vo2max phase of my training cycle, then I will jump into the core phase of marathon training since I will be 12 weeks out from race day.

At this point, my primary goal is to stay healthy, then to stay consistent, then to get in some high quality days (in that order).

Pretty aggressive start for someone planning to go out at 5:45.

I'm impressed! Looks like you're on track.

Thanks. I'm definitely ahead of where I expected to be. It's still a long way until race day (19 weeks), and lots can happen in that time and on race day, but I'm pleased with how it is shaking out.

And yes, I got out too fast - it's just hard to really figure out where you are fitness-wise after a layoff; so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Besides, the last few miles were already punishment enough.

Updating this thread as today I raced the 5k referenced in my last update.

Training is going well. I've done a handful of vo2max workouts at around 5:08 pace, my tempo pace has been in the high 5:20s and my mileage has climbed into the mid 70s (on its way to the high 80s). All is going as planned.

Unfortunately, my race today didn't go as planned. I was hoping to run 15:50 as I said in my prior update (and based on my workouts), that remained a reasonable goal, but I could only manage a 16:04 (5:08.9, 5:11.6, 5:12.3, :31.3). Lots of little factors that I could use as excuses, but none of them really amounted to much - I'm just in 16:04 or so shape.

I'm not terribly disappointed by this (just modestly disappointed). It's a :20 improvement on my turkey trot and if you look at the VDOT tables, it's the equivalent of a :45 improvement over my half marathon from 5-6 weeks ago, so I'm progressing fairly well, just not as quickly as I had hoped.

Weight is still a couple of pounds higher than I want it to be - need to drop those last 3 pounds or so still.

Injury is as healed as it is going to get - it doesn't quite feel right but it isn't impacting my training at all.

I'm just over 13 weeks out from Boston, so the heavy lifting portion of my training cycle starts after next week. I don't have any more 5ks on the books, but will race a 4 miler in mid-February and a 10k and 15k in March. That should give me a few chances to reassess my fitness ahead of Boston. If you believe the VDOT tables, today's effort currently puts me in 2:33 high shape, which puts me squarely in range to make my top-5 in my age group goal an appropriate goal to try to achieve (I respect the distance too much to say I can do it - just saying that shooting for that is not just wishful thinking on my part). So I just need to keep putting the work in and keep testing my fitness from time to time and go from there.

It has to be a little concerning that you're 15 secs from where you planned to be - no?

Galen?

Our trajectories are moving in favorable directions for our Boston showdown.

Actually goes to haw farsical age group awards are. There is a modest chance that My age group performance may be better than Galen's.

I won't be getting a six figure appearance fee though.

Like your postings and story- good luck at Boston! I hope you meet your goal and more importantly have a great race! From one 40 something year old to another... keep reaching for your goals!:)

I'm enjoying following your progress. Please keep updating us.

It makes me realize how slow I was at short distances, back in the days when I could actually run. You are shooting for a marathon time about ten minutes faster than my best, but your "disappointing" 5K is already more than two minutes faster than my best.

Good luck with the training between now and then!

Very inspiring. May I ask how long you have been running?

Did you just started it in your 40s?

started > start

Damn typo.

I started running my freshman year of college when I walked in at a D3 school. Ran consistently from 18-23, then ran very inconsistently after that until just about age 40.

I'd run 30-40 mpw for a few months, then take 6 months off, then another stretch on, then 3 months off, etc. weight went up and down with mileage, getting as high as 182 once, with a couple of other periods around 170.

Decided to get more consistent again as a masters runner and was able to get to the point where if I age adjusted my times, they were in line with my college times. Used regional and national masters age group standings to motivate myself.

And I get why people make fun of age grading and masters titles; but I think my story is evidence that they are useful.

I get that it is all just a contrivance, but it is a contrivance that allowed an out of shape, overweight, middle aged guy to find a way to motivate himself to find a healthier lifestyle.

As long as we don't take ourselves too seriously, I think that they are great for running.