You serious Clark? wrote:
colder and wiser wrote:
Why the hell are you trying to get to 7:00 pace? Stop that nonsense.
Look at it this way: You've been running too fast, pushing every day to the point of failure, at paces that send your HR/breathing rate skyrocketing, and not getting enough recovery - for TWO MONTHS STRAIGHT. Of course you're overcooked.
Maybe there's an underlying health issue, so go see your doctor and get checked out.
Doctor says you're okay? Then take a week or two off. No running.
When you start up again, only do short, easy-pace running with lots of walking breaks. Stop and smell the roses. Take pictures on your phone. Whatever it takes, just jog a mile, admire the scenery, jog another mile. Repeat a few times and go home.
Only increase mileage of pace if it feels EASY. Once you're feeling recovered, start with stupid workouts like a 1-mile tempo run, for a few short strides. You're 53, so you have to build off of where you are in reality, not aim for some stupid arbitrary number like 7:00/mile.
LOL if you think 7:00 pace is too fast for a 53 year old's workout effort. Is a 53 year old not able to run a 21:30 5k?
I'm also hitting a wall recently, I think the solution is to just make extra sure you're taking your easy days easy. Like reeeaaally slow down a couple of easy days this week and maybe another week. Maybe even stop workouts for a week all together to get fully recovered. As another poster said that they took 6 months off because of over training, I do not at all think that's the solution. Six months is a ton of time, way more than you would need. Just take your runs really slow this week, look around and enjoy the nature. Don't worry about your performance and just enjoy being out there again.
I agree. 7:00 is not crazy fast at 53. I'm 64 and just did a solo 10k time trial at 6:38, and I've done a 10 miler training run this year at 7:15 and I'm a long way from being exceptional.
Absolutely no doubt that the first thing to do is to get a complete medical work up. The shallow fast breathing would be a major red-flag.
If the medical is all clear, then it's possible you could get that way with too much anaerobic training,