50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

At 54 years old, I ran my first competitive 5k race in quite some time last weekend.
Based on workouts I figured I’d be around 21:30. We had a perfect temperature day, flat course but strong winds. No split times, not even mile markers, but I did view the course map the night before. Course was certified. The first mile was comfortable and I immediately found two guys I could tell were my level and was able to sit on their shoulder. Both guys actually separated from me at the half way point but it was fine, nobody passed me after mile 1. I’m pretty certain I ran even splits finishing in 21:10 - 1st in 50-54. I’m happy with that and thinking I have a shot at sub 21 which I’d be thrilled with. I run about 20-25 mpw with a decent long run and some tempos. No interval training worth mentioning. Any suggestions on how I can get into the mid 20s?

Kevstreet,

It seems like (or, better yet, I am pretty sure) you will break 20:30 with your current profile of training. Just be consistent for some months. Your post shows that you are well-focused.

To improve further, the first issue is to increase mileage. I am a “low miler” too, but prefer not to drop below 30 mpw. Thus, would recommend you to proportionally enlarge your
daily runs to get above this number.

Also, it is not clear what are your tempos and long run look like. Coaches would advise better, but my personal experience put me on the following baseline: some 20% of the
mileage are “fast miles” (above LT). This includes tempos, intervals (long, 1-2K), hills - short (45-50 sec) and long (2-3 min), and fast segment of fartlek on trails. Prefer 2 workouts per week (interchange them from week to week), but when a long run included (rather rare), only one workout remains.

Good luck. I wish you will smile at this your post next summer trying to break 20:00.

Good advice from Orient as always. @Kevstreet, another M50-54 hobby jogger here. Congrats to the 21 min. Sub 20 is on the horizont. Consistency with slow and quick miles will do the job. My week:

Mo 7 miles easy

Tu WU, 20 min drills and jumps uphill, 8x60m uphill, 2x150m uphill, CD

We 7 miles with 6 miles easy/steady

Th 4 miles recovery, 10x100m strides with jog back

Fr 7 miles recovery pace

Sa WU, 3 miles tempo @ 6:37 mpm, 10x300m a bit faster than LT with 100m jog, CD

Su 60 min recovery in the hills (crawling on shot legs at its best)

Will use November to get used to the increased volume of threshold running on Saturday.

Have a good week and stay safe, BR

Greetings, fellow 50+ers! And a belated and thankful happy Veteran’s Day to those of you who served!

Last week I forgot to mention that my monthly total for October was 58 running miles. While that may seem to be a modest total by some standards, it is my highest monthly total for this calendar year. Now that I am hopefully past the injuries and illnesses that have made this a challenging year for my running, the goal is to improve on October’s total. And this week’s total of 20.3 miles of actual running keeps me on pace to do just that! Wish me luck.

Sun: 55’ CR; body wt ex

Mon: off

Tue: 56’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Wed: off

Thu: 54’ running (2); 16 oz curls

Fri: off

Sat: 55’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

All the best!

M63, 5'11", 181 lbs
Age 23: 16:05, 2:40:30
Age 43: 17:10, 2:56:03
Age 58: 18:58, 3:07:23
May 2022, age 62: 3:44:06

Week Number Six after four months off due to health issues. I took Weeks Four and Five off, but this past Monday, I resumed the long climb back to fitness.

I took 13 days off because I had been experiencing internal pain at the primary surgical site during and after each run. I was afraid maybe I was doing too much, too soon (my first jog was only 10 days post surgery).

NOVEMBER 7-13, 3022
M - 5.0 miles @ 11:03/mi avg
Tu- Off
W - 5.0 miles @ 9:51/mi avg
Th- Off
Fr - 5.0 miles @ 9:55/mi avg (10:30, 10:09, 10:15, 9:51, 8:46)
Sa- Off
Su- Off
TOTAL: 15.0 MILES

Run well!

nice going. Sounds like the 13-day pause was a good decision.

fun week for me in fluctuating weather (highs in the 70s, heavy rain friday, beautiful saturday, 40's and blustery winds today, motivating me to get cold-weather gear out of storage)

M 45:00 + 1:00 x-t

Tu 2:00 double

W 1:30 double

Th 2:15 w/4 x 3:00 hills (4:00-ish jog down recovery)

F 1:00

Sa 1:30

Su 1:00 with 20:00 tempo + 1:00 x-t

have a great pre-Thanksgiving week,

Dave

Since last Sunday's 8k XC race I have had a good, uneventful training week, but felt like my legs were a little beat up the second half of the week. 39 miles for my week -

M- 6mi walk

T- 6mi of HR recovery of run to HR 150/ walk until HR120, repeat

W- 9 mi of AM 12 x 400 easy run/400 run in about 1:40s, PM 3mi walk

Th- 5mi easy run

F- 4mi of HR recovery of run to HR 150/ walk until HR120, repeat

S- 5mi easy run on trails 9:46/mi

Su- 4mi walk

I'm now at 30 straight days of at least 4mi run/walk, which is a long streak for me. I'm trying to get out and do at least that much every day until Club XC 4 weeks from now. Good running to all!

Mon: Off

Tue: 6 miles, weights

Wed: 1.5 miles. Caught my 96 year old mom trying to get out and drive to store on her own. Stopped running, got street clothes back on, jumped in and drove her to store. Didn’t make up the workout.

Thur: 7 miles. Weights

Fri: 8 miles

sat: 3 mile fartlek

Sun: 8 miles weights

33.5 miles

Your Wednesday training was in the name of the good. Respect.

Greetings!

Newbi, looks like a solid effort. Good luck with building aerobic basis.

Olde Farte, 4 x 55 is a solid work. Wish you keep this pace.

Allen, good to know you are back to training.

dhaaga, quite an impressive volume, as usual.

My week was not bad. Remains from an Atlantic hurricane brought an unusually warm air and we had temperatures up to 50F, which is outstanding for mid Nov. I even was able to run twice, thought the rest was on an elliptical. Tomorrow freezing temps will return and I will be waiting for the snow and ski season.

Mon – off
Tue – 62 min elliptical incl. 19 min @LT effort (by feel, not by HR)
Wed – 55 min elliptical+ treadmill incl. 19 min @LT effort (by feel, not by HR)
Thu – 5 miles run on a trail. 3x(4:40-4:50) intervals at effort close to 6:15-6:20 min/mi on a road
Fri – 45 min elliptical incl. 16 min @LT effort (by feel, not by HR)
Sat – 63 min elliptical. A sort of a 33:22 tempo at a pace slightly below (maybe sometime equal to) LT by feel.
Sun – a.m. 4 miles run, easy/recovery, p.m. – 57 min elliptical copy, incl. copy of the Sat’s tempo, but 32:40 now.

Happy and injury-free running to all!

Robert E. Lee,

Bravo and respect for your Wed. (incomplete) workout!

Thank you, kindly. Your thoughtful, comprehensive, response is very much appreciated.

I will check back in here w my progress.

Orient, the above response was intended for you.

Checking in after taking a bit of down time after my last race. Running has seemingly been very good lately! The past 6 weeks of 'just running' have been 20, 25, 41, 44, 40 & 50 with 6 days off during this time. Most runs are comfortable, pain free 7:45-8:00 pace with an occasional sub 7:00 tempo. The plan is to stay 100% healthy while in maintenance mode thru the end of the year. Then switch up to HM training. I've entered the 10K at my local Turkey Trot with no expectations.

I saw mention of retirement a few weeks ago. At 62-1/2 I have no plans of retiring any time soon. I run my own construction business and still work full time daily. Typically 6-7 hour days. But we are financially set and in a good place. So it's nice knowing I have work and an income but It's not needed!

On a personal note, I hit one year alcohol free yesterday! I wasn't sure how it would play out but there are no regrets as EVERYTHING, physically & mentally, is better. I do enjoy an occasional non-alcohol craft brew as an ambassador for Athletic Brewing. (All the hops without the alcohol; How do they do it?!) I'm yet undecided if I want to do the social media promotion thing for another year. It's a bit outside my comfort zone...

I'd stay with what you're doing! Maybe increase your mileage a bit. And some occasional post run strides. I've had decent success this year with a similar plan.

Have a good run,

Dave

Posting here as I am past 50.

I signed up for a Marathon to pace a friend to a BQ, but he bailed out and now I am unsure what pace to run.

I have a few of the usual nagging injuries here and there, but I am in a pretty good shape. My buildup has been decent, with 3-4 months at ~50 mpw, peaking at 70 mpw. I did three 20+ miles run and a bunch of 13-18 miles runs, some 13-14 at 7-flat pace on very hilly terrain. From my training, I can tell that my threshold pace is ~6:15-6:20. I do not have any recent race results, beside a 17:50 5K in January, and I think now I am in better shape, but I also tend to be much better at shorter distances than long ones (my best 5K is 16:40, but my best marathon is 2:50). My last marathon was 3 years ago, when I jumped in a local marathon to do a long run during a vacation abroad and I run 3:09. Weather is predicted to be around 30 degrees and very windy.

What pace would you recommend that I run? In ideal weather, I may give a shot to a sub-3, but the weather is going to be far from ideal. I am really not sure and I would like to have a good time, rather than crash badly as I often do in marathons.

Just run, baby.

Last week (11/07-11/13):

M: 9.25M with 5(4:00 @ 8:20 pace/3:00 recovery)

T: 1:40 treadmill @ 12:43 pace; HR 70%
W: 9.25M @. 9:55 pace; HR 75-80%
Th: morn - 65:00 treadmill @ 12:20 pace; HR 70%; afternoon - 35:00 treadmill @ 12:10 pace; HR @ 70%
F: 5.5M @ 10:37 pace; HR @ 70-75%
Sat: 17M with a 13.1M MP race in windriven snow, slush, and ugh. It is what I was given.

Enjoy the week

Greetings, fellow 50+ers and Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃

Things continue to go well here though I did take an unplanned day off on Wednesday due to a combination of weather concerns and a medical appointment. So my weekly mileage took a temporary dip to 15+ miles of actual running. I did add a touch of “speed” on Monday for the first time in many weeks. I also noticed an improved pace on yesterday’s run, so I’ve got that going for me. Finally I will point out that temps this week dropped to the point where I wore pants for two of the week’s runs. Oh well, it had to happen eventually. 🥶

Sun: off

Mon: 55’ CR w/ utility pole fartlek (6 x 1 on, 3 off); body wt ex + med ball routine

Tue- Wed: off

Thu: 57’ running (3); 16 oz curls

Fri: off

Sat: 54’ CR; body wt ex + med ball routine

Best of luck to all running Turkey Trots this week!

Greetings!

Good week for me. First, as legs feel better, added treadmill to elliptical. Second, some 4-5 inches of snow arrived on Fri-Sat for the first time this fall (pretty early vs. average). Enough for skiing in the field and across ponds and lakes (but not in a thick forest, yet). Enjoyed skiing this morning in a perfect winter weather (26-28F, no wind, Xmas card – like scenery).

Mon – off
Tue – 1:02 on elliptical. In the middle, 1x5k at LT-pace by feel. Then 500 m above LT.
Wed – 1:03 on elliptical. In the middle, 2x2k at LT-pace by feel. Then 2x500 m above LT.
Thu – 1:12. 20 min treadmill, then 45 min “tempo” on an elliptical.
Fri – off
Sat – 0:52. First, 32 min on a treadmill incl. 3х1K at 15 km/hr (6:27 min/mi). Then 20 min easy on an elliptical
Sun – 1:05 skiing (XC). In the middle, 2K hard.

Nice week and happy running to all!