50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

mo'pak wrote:

Well finally I might have most of you folks covered. I sneak ahead of Amkelly in the improvement award.

And I should be a top contender for the least improved.

Dec. 2009 - 3:30. (1st marathon)

Dec. 2010 - 3:38.

Apr. 2011 - 3:34.

Apr. 2012 - 3:25.

Dec. 2012 - 3:40.

Apr. 2013 - 3:34.

Apr. 2014 - 3:24.

Dec. 2015 - 3:24.

Apr. 2016 - 3:22.

Dec. 2016 - 3:30.

Dec. 2017 - 3:33.

So it took me 2 1/2 years to improve on my debut marathon by 5 min. (Suffered severe cramps in my #2 and #3, and DNS in Dec. 2011 with hamstring strain.) Took another 2 years to cut 1 minute. (Hamstring strain leading up to my #5 and #6) Two more years to lower my PB by 2 minutes after two DNS (Dec. 2014 and Apr. 2015) with hip injuries. So a total of 8 min improvement in nine tries over 6 1/2 years, while going up from 50mpw to 70mpw. I may never run faster than 3:22, but at least I want to reverse the downward trend of my last two marathons.

M: off.

T: 7 miles.

W: 11 miles. (9th-10th miles @ 7:53-7:47)

R: 7 miles.

F: 8 miles.

SA: 7 miles.

SU: 17.8 miles. (last mile @ 7:56)

I tried to pick up the pace for the last mile of my long run. But my legs felt a bit heavy from the beginning, and the wind was pretty strong. So I managed only 7:56.

Olde timer wrote:

Sally V wrote:

There is someone here who has not been very kind to me in the past, and I would rather step away than possibly take away from what appears to be a good thingfor most of you. While I am supportive of standing up to one's abusers, there is a time and place for that sort of thing and I choose to fight that battle elsewhere. Goodbye.

#metoo

After your previous post, he actually posted a very unflattering photo labeled with your name. I had it removed.

I missed that fortunately. He’s not a nice person. You are. Thanks for being respectful and doing the right thing.

#metoo

Hey there Sally V - you should stay. You are more powerful.

I saw the questions about HR and thought I would try to help with my observations as a college coach and as a former good athlete.

Ok first, after downloading every workout between 1997-2000 with a heart monitor came to the conclusion that HR monitors are overused and misused. Here are my thoughts. When you go hard the HR goes up - go real hard/fast it goes way up. 1k repeats at 3k pace at 5k pace or 400's at mile pace all have high heart rates. There is nothing of value knowing the difference between 170 and 175. Mostly heat is a great factor then effort anyways. I have heard athletes say they hold a steady HR of 170 or some number as their "threshold." Poppycock no one can hold a steady effort like that. It isn't how HR work because HR drifts due to dehydration and temperature. Hold the same pace and watch the HR climb. Try to maintain the same HR and you will slow down. Well that doesn't help with racing now does it.

So not much use on hard days - all it is telling you is that you are going hard, which you already know.

Here is how they are useful. Low intensity tests. For example, run 5 miles at 80% of vVO2 use the HR monitor to note the peak and more importantly the AVERAGE HR. A real world example would be an 11:15 3000 or 12:00 3200 at 80% = 7:30 pace.

This is pretty non invasive test. 80% is the pace that is the fastest aerobic pace (little or no lactate accumulation) and not so hard that it would interrupt normal training. So you repeat after a few weeks to see if the AVG HR drops – if it does you have improved.

I use HR monitor for two workouts now. My long runs and tempos. Mostly because I can get really good suffer scores on strava. I also use it on my bike because that keep me in control on those stupid long races when it is easy to go too hard on the bike and trash my run. (I hate that). Anyways I’ll be getting a power meter to help with that.

I train all my college team by pace based training. There maybe better ways but I don’t have all that stuff. Sometimes they have HR monitor and we use it on the easy days. Interestingly I’ll average 140 HR for 12 miles at 7:45 pace but I can barely go hard enough on the bike to hold the same HR without my legs giving out. I think I might be lopsided on the bike.

Well that should be enough for now.

Good luck.

Thanks for the support, Mike. You are right...I AM more powerful. In this case I choose to use my power to let this thread thrive as it has for many years...long before I or my tormenter arrived here. He’s obviously not leaving, so I will. That way I maintain control over him. I’ll be reading, but not posting much. Trust me, it’s better than way. Good luck with your training.

#metoo

I have started using a heart rate monitor, too, though for long runs, intervals, and races. At age 66 I find it harder to do some kind of steady state, harder effort, without hurting my other runs. Seems that I can only handle two harder runs per week at most, fyi, and that one of those could be a race. I do find that the HRM relates well to what I perceive my race to be. So a sluggish race correlates well to a less than max HR, same with an intended hard workout. Perhaps I should wear it some to make certain I am not working too hard on easier recovery days, too, or just play around with it on different days and see what I "might" learn.

To Colorado, my max HR appears to be 150 now, and a good effort is from 120 to 130, and a harder effort over 130's (a long ways lower than in my youth, but cannot remember exactly how much). I tend to run more by perceived effort than any other way, though I do try to get in longer runs every couple weeks, intervals when within two months of racing, hills if the races will be hilly, etc, but mostly keeping runs fresh, enjoyable, hard/easy/easy, and enjoy the days that seem like they will never end, since they someday will.

So sorry to hear. After looking through some posts of past years I noticed some "unkindness" in general. I was looking forward to your contributions. All the best to you.

Sally V wrote:

Hello, all. Despite the excitement about discovering this thread that I expressed recently, I have reluctantly decided not to get involved. There is someone here who has not been very kind to me in the past, and I would rather step away than possibly take away from what appears to be a good thingfor most of you. While I am supportive of standing up to one's abusers, there is a time and place for that sort of thing and I choose to fight that battle elsewhere. Goodbye.

#metoo

Thanks for your support, Phoenix Rising. To be clear, the verbal abuse I was subjected to did not happen on this thread. However, the abuser is a prominent poster here so I am not surprised to learn there has been "unkindness" here too. My hope is that if I stay in the shadows there will be less of it. Perhaps at some point in the future the atmosphere will be conducive to posts from me about my running. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best.

#metoo

Thanks to all of you who are chiming in on the heart rate discussion! I'm not overly obsessed with heart rate as a measurement, and I agree that it's quite variable due to factors like fatigue and heat, but it's interesting to observe how things change over time.

Here's some more self-indulgent nerdiness on the topic ...

When I was a collegiate rower (1985-89) our coach had us wear heart rate monitors for hard sessions. I remember that I was maxing out in the mid-180s and wondered why I wasn't hitting the 190s like some others in my boat. But I figured if my rowing ergometer test numbers were good that was better than worrying about HR Max.

After college I rowed with a national team development program, getting in with a very fast lightweight 4 boat. We won some national championships, and eventually every other guy on the boat got a national team seat ... but not me. I was always a step behind on the test scores -- not by much, but enough that I figured I'd be better off not banging my head against a wall trying to keep up. I pulled 6:28 for 2000 meters on a Concept 2 if there are any rowers in the crowd. Interestingly, the coaches never had us wear heart rate monitors -- the erg score was really the only measurement that mattered to them.

Later in life I started running regularly, and doing some cycling and triathlons. In my early to mid 40s I was doing weekly cycling sessions with coaches and watt-based power metering. The workouts were fun because they were done in a group setting, and really challenging. I was surprised to see that my max heart rate was now below 180, but the effort was just as intense, and other objective scores were pretty good. My functional threshold watts for a 20-minute test was 275 (at 160 pounds, and at an altitude of 5500 feet) whereas a top guy (of my size and in my age group) might be 300 watts or so.

Now that I've cleared the 50 years mark, I'm mostly running and doing some general fitness stuff. My brother got me a month of passes to Orange Theory, which is an indoor group workout that utilizes heart rate -- the goal is to accumulate points in "orange zone" which is defined as 83 to 91 percent of max heart rate. However, since the parameters for their heart rate zones are based on standard charts and not customized for each athlete, I have a hard time getting to the "orange" rating. It's a little comical because I'll be wailing on the rowing machine or running hard on the treadmill during the workout and I'm still the the "green" zone, while the person next to me is trotting along at a slower pace but has their score pinned in the "orange" range. But it's no biggie, because I can definitely tell by feel that the effort I'm putting out is challenging enough for me.

So yesterday I ran some hard efforts with the Garmin HRM chest strap on, and during my first mile, downhill, warm-up, my "heart rate" went as high as 173 (I have never had it above 150 in the last year or so), and did not feel any kind of rapid, fast, irregular or fluttering in my chest. My "intervals were 1 x 1/2 mile and 3 x 1/4 mile, and none of them went over 150, even though they were about 2 minutes/mile faster pace. Perhaps I was picking up my wife's heart rate, who was next to me and does run higher? Who knows, it was weird. Anyhow, had a good effort on a 35 degree day. Wish there was greater accuracy but then, I'm not perfect, so why should I expect other things to be?

Oh, and, yes, I do get excited to have my wife running next to me :) but she's done that for almost 39 years now. Our first "running date was 1/28/1979, Happy Anniversary to us!

April 7th Pepsi Entry request for Mile :

http://otcmasters.runnerspace.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=220&do=news&news_id=507678

after 2 weeks of calf rehab did a hard half mile not half backed so giddyup.

Mike Lundgren wrote:

So yesterday I ran some hard efforts with the Garmin HRM chest strap on, and during my first mile, downhill, warm-up, my "heart rate" went as high as 173 (I have never had it above 150 in the last year or so)...

Oh, and, yes, I do get excited to have my wife running next to me :) but she's done that for almost 39 years now. Our first "running date was 1/28/1979, Happy Anniversary to us!

My Garmin often takes a while to make a good contact with my skin and when that happens it shows 173 as the HR. Once I sweat a bit, it falls to the proper level. I generally give it a boost by wetting the strap and rubbing some water into my chest where the strap crosses. I also don't have much of a hairy chest, so that makes it easier, too.

Happy Anniversary!

Allen1959 wrote:

I can't address your heart rate question, but being relegated to indoor stationary equipment has me pondering the purchase of an HR monitor -- for some measure to track progress. The displays on the machines are pretty much meaningless to me.

Depending on what kind of indoor stationary equipment you're talking about, I think displays can be quite beneficial and help the time go by.

Due to a plethora of chronic injuries over the last several years (57 now), I've had to relegate myself to more & more spin bike workouts and back-off considerably on mileage, speedwork, number of days running, etc. This is what happens when you're not built for running in the first place (short & stocky) and try to continue running into your middle-age. What I could get away with in my younger years with high mileage, lots of speedwork & year-round racing has all come to a screeching halt in my 50s. A massive rebellion by the body - no freebies when you're not built for running. Lol.

Anyway, I use the Schwinn A.C. Performance plus carbon blue spin bike at the club (24hr fitness) - this is a real "hotrod" with a power meter containing watts, RPM, mileage & active/split times. The seats are comfortable and you can use the aero position is so desired. Once I correlated my VO2max (for me about 95% of my MHR) with the wattage gauge I could do some higher intensity workouts and break up the boredom of just peddaling an hour or so at different cadences. So, once I had my high-end wattages determined, I can spin at the target watts for the intense workouts which actually feels fairly similar to the effort of my speed workouts out on track.

And with that new study that came out last year on the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and what is now considered the best form or excercise for us old folks, I do HIIT on the bike most of the time.

Fascinating study on HIIT for older people in "Cell Biology" if anyone is interested (as if most everyone here didn't already know this - it's those sedentary folks that keep trying to tell us how bad intense excercise is for our age. Lol):

*Week 346*

Greetings, 50+ers! The week was mighty hectic, so I've read, but not interacted with, the thread. Always a pleasure to see where your running is at (nice track results Igy & KP); I don't have time for any negativity or passing judgment on others, so I choose not to go there. We've all been around the block enough times to know how counterproductive (and often damaging) that is. Life it too short, so let's choose to be positive; let's choose to be inspiring to those around us. We owe it to each other. OK, I'm done preaching (mostly to the choir.)

Especially at the start of each semester, it's always a new challenge trying to find slots in the day to get some running in. Mon and Wed are going to remain problematic; my buddy suggested I take time to climb stairs during the day...not a bad idea, even that might be hard on Mondays, though. My current objective is to slowly build back up some volume and hold back some on effort (again, a suggestion from several of my buddies.) With 26.5 miles, I'm up another mile or so from last week. Log reads as such:

Sun: 5.2 Moderate-to-hard (7:36/mi)

Mon: Off

Tue: 5.0 w/6xBraemer Hill Loops (8:13/mi)

Wed: Off

Thur: 5.0 Easy (8:23/mi)

Fri: 4.2 Moderate (7:47/mi)

Sat: 7.1 Easy (8:29/mi)

So there were a few effort miles in the mix (which these days is anything under 7:15 pace,) and the 70 ft hills are always a workout. The rest was easy (8:00+/mi) pace. I'll probably continue the same mileage during the week, and slowly add miles by tacking them on to the weekend runs. It's been 4-weeks and the verdict is still out on the joint supplements; icing the knee after runs has helped, though.

That's all I've got. Hope you've had a good week. Looking forward to reading your reports. Anyone headed to Tallahassee next weekend? Pretty sure KP is one of them. To you and any others, wishing you safe travels and a solid outcome!

All the Best!

Funny how you mention climbing stairs. I'm giving my injury another week to heal and have been investigating low impact workouts. I did pool running for a few days until the pool was closed for maintenance. Great! I've done the elliptical before but the pressure of pressing on the pedals didn't do my ankle any good. So I tried the stair mill. Good Lord.....what a butt kicker!

There's no resistance to the workout. You can make the stairs move faster to increase the difficulty. I found a steady pace of 60 stairs per minute or one stair per second to be comfortable at first. Then it got harder and harder. I finished up a half hour session which meant 1800 stairs. At first I was walking tall and not holding the handles. The last 300 stairs or so I was grabbing the handles and panting. Serious leg wobble when finished. Highly recommended.

As I said, one more week before I'll attempt to run again. In the meantime, 2 weight workouts and 3 stair mill workouts this past week. I also need to rededicate myself to my diet. I lost weight but have plateaued. Nothing has come off since the beginning of the year. Who remembers the days of skipping dinner and waking up 2 lbs lighter? Those days are gone!

Foggy this morning. I live in a low lying area right off the Boise River and it is common to get fog in the spring, not typical of late January though. Hopefully we will get heavy snow in February. I have yet to use my ski pass.

I had a non-running related health issue pop up last Monday. Suspicions of what I will likely be dealing with; I will post the prognosis once I have more information. Decided I had a good indoor season, made a lot of progress so time to transition to outdoor season. Log book reads five days of walking 3-4 miles. Have a good week all.

Igy

I'll be getting back on the horse in Tallahassee next weekend. I've got no expectations other than to finish. My ankle is OK on the roads but it will be a challenge on an XC course. There are plenty of strong runners in my AG and I haven't done any speed work other than one track workout this week so I'm just going to go with the flow and see where I am fitness wise. I hope to see some of our other posters there too. Here was my week:

Sun: 8.1 E @ 9:03

Mon: 6.3 E Hills

Tue: Off - 30 min strength work

Weds: 6.1 E, 2250 yds swim

Thu: 1:08 biking (strength work)

Fri: 7.0 Track 5 x 800 (3:45 avg)

Sat: 8.1 E @ 9:02, :45 swimming stroke work

My son opened his indoor season yesterday with an 8:21 3k which was a big improvement. He's so dedicated but always seems to get sick or injured - it's not just us seasoned runners who struggle with this. We're keeping our fingers crossed that he stays healthy this year!

Ouch there Igy...hoping you can straighten out your health issue ASAP. As you have great discipline and attention to detail in your training and ancillary fitness work, am confident that you shall. Sending good vibes your Idaho way.

Had a solid week...just 36 miles but lots of quality. Highlight was running a 3,000 time trial on the track on Tuesday morning...ran negative splits and squeezed out 13:14...I'll take it. Also throughout the course of the week's 23 miles that were run in 400 meter circles, I incorporated 43 x 100 meters...no, not all at once ;} At any rate, as it has been 18 days since I first started to include some quality work versus just running, all of my times seem to be coming down and am feeling way sharper...I can see track racing at 800 and 1500 in the not that distant future. Good to feel like a runner again after having been a slogger for the preceding 9 months...like coming out of hibernation for an early spring...Ground Hog's Day is just a stone's throw away after all, HA!

Have one fine fine week of master's training and racing...remember to "train don't strain".

your pal.

MF

SCgal,

That is a very good 3k and I am assuming on an indoor track.

Igy

So today is the 39th anniversary of my wife and my first run together. It was a tough 13 mile in and outside of Iowa City and had some snow-packed roads. Compare with today in KC in which it'll be almost 50 degrees for the high. Such is climate change.

Yesterday I waited on an RN and MD that I knew from 25 or so years ago. She had had a hip procedure and so couldn't run, and asked me how I was able to continue to run. Of course, I may be just the lucky one (Feb 1 will be my 41st anniversary of becoming a lifetime runner), but I am looking at their shoes, both Well-worn, and well over 2 years old. Maintaining our primary equipment can be done, it just costs a bit. But then, probably costs less than that co-pay for a surgical procedure!

After two 30 mile weeks, was time for a 20+ mile week and a day off. Glad I did, as I was starting to feel a sore throat coming on at week's beginning, and feel fine now at week's end.

Would love to be running that Master's XC race in FL, bet that is a flat course. Enjoy the festivities SCGal and KP, and hoping for the best on your healthcare outcome Igy.