Masters: Racing too often?

What's with all the hobbyjogger threads lately?

Use your brain, I'm sure you can figure out whether you can run a 5k every other week or not.

Do whatever you enjoy until you enjoy it no more. If that means racing often, go for it. If that means never racing, that's fine too.

We're old and slow, so there's no pressure to do anything in particular. My pendulum swings quite a bit so that one year I do a dozen races and the next I'll only do 2 or 3... or none.

It cracks me up every time I read some post where the masters runner says, "I'm nearly 20 pounds heavier now, mainly muscle. This really means I have added about 17 pounds of fat and barely 3 pounds of muscle (maybe 2 pounds of muscle and one pound of water weight). That said, race as much or as little as you feel like. In my early 40s I raced about every 2-3 weeks on similar mileage because I liked racing. In my 50s and 60s I tend to race every 2 weeks in the Fall XC season and maybe 3 or 4 races the rest of the year. You are racing for you own entertainment. Do whatever you enjoy.

And at just 41, you are hardly effected by age yet. I could still run reasonable times in my 40s. It's different when you get to your 50s (at least for me). So I would say at 41, you don't have to start giving yourself longer recovery times between hard workouts or races.

Why did you decide to start running again?

gccg wrote:

Why did you decide to start running again?

Busy with family and work, I miss the solitude of running. Karate and rowing were social things for me, which were good at the time.

Now, road races are not solitude you might say, but I only mean to race as a means of getting some structure into my training.

Btw depressing that 17 of the 20 I gained is fat, you say. I just assumed they were muscle since I'm able to lift much heavier now than when I started after I stopped running in the first instance.

The only thing you can really do here is try it and see how it goes. Doubtful that you'll crash & burn from racing 5Ks, even if you do it every weekend. Whether you race or not, you're still going to need a ton of training to hit peak conditioning. It's just going to take time - a LOT more time than when you were younger.

Main concern is not age but lack of miles on your legs. With the low mileage, your body may not be ready for consistent all out efforts. I would be afraid of injuries piling up that could be prevented by giving your self more time between races. Also, it is not a very effective way to improve. If you give your self 6-8 weeks between races and dig in to a good training plan, you will find that you will have significant improvement from race to race. If you race every other week, you can burn out quickly as you will not have enough training stimulus between races to see much improvement.

MasterOfNone wrote:

I consider racing every other week. But fear that I will crash and burn because of my low mileage and poor shape and heavier frame.

At age 43-44 I raced a lot. Usually once a week, sometimes twice a week. Mostly 5Ks, but as short as a mile, and one marathon. One weekend was a 5K Saturday and a 20K Sunday. I raced each as all-out efforts -- didn't think of any of them as "workouts."

I was fairly heavy, 5'11" 170 lbs, but stayed injury-free. Mileage averaged about 35/week.

However, my best performances came early in the year, and stagnated after that. I had a lot of fun, but surely would have seen better results if I had targeted key races with a proper and well-planned training strategy.

Even so, I was competitive as a local masters runner. My 5K peaked at 17:10 in June, then got stuck at about 17:30, with only a couple under 17:20 after that.

It was a hoot to race that much, but there is a tiny lingering regret that I didn't get into the 16s one last time.

I have read a few articles and spoken with a few people who have all stated as we get past 40 we should reduce junk mileage and add in more quality runs. In fact, it's been suggested I race a 5k every other week or even every week in order to keep speed. We can go far as we age but we lose speed a lot quicker so its good to hold onto as much of it as we can and that's done through high-quality workouts and 5k's.

mcguck wrote:

In fact, it's been suggested I race a 5k every other week or even every week in order to keep speed. We can go far as we age but we lose speed a lot quicker so its good to hold onto as much of it as we can and that's done through high-quality workouts and 5k's.

As per my above post, that was exactly my approach for one year in my 40s. Besides the weekly race, I would do a fairly fast-paced long run (12-16 miles) and either an LT or VO2max workout each week, with additional strides and hill sprints. Total mileage was 30-40/week.

Arguably I at least maintained my performance level. But I realized no substantial improvement after gains early in the year.

In contrast, last year in my late 50s I targeted just a few races (ran only six the entire year). My training was progressive and designed to peak for the target races. Based on age-grade percentages, my performances were substantially superior to those at age 43-44.

It all depends on what your goals are, and what you want from running and racing, in terms of enjoyment or social engagement or self-satisfaction, etc.

41 is barely a master. I am 42 and do not call myself a "master."

Just race when you feel like it. What's the worst that can happen?

Now, road races are not solitude you might say, but I only mean to race as a means of getting some structure into my training.

I can't see how there could be a physical (or age-related) reason against racing a couple or three times a month.

Personally, my issue with racing so often would be that it tends to make me less disciplined about following a structured training plan. That 5k weekend race may mean I'll skip a long run or postpone a workout by a couple of days and, before I know it, I'm doing almost nothing but easy shortish jogs and a race. In terms of fitness, it's not as effective as consistently doing a workout or two plus a decent long run.