Gray Guys/Gals Masters Mentor Group - OPEN (Page 4)

I had a goal to BQ ten (10) years ago.  It was not so much something I wanted to do, but something all my running group wanted to do and I didn't want to be the only one in the group that didn't BQ and miss out on working with the group towards a common goal. I like to run fast.  I am pretty good at doing that up to about 17 miles.  Then I fall apart.  

My brother who is a year and a half younger than me has been doing Ultra Marathons for the past two years.  On his best day he could probably do a 3hr 25min marathon. He is the one that signed up first for the Marathon. He wants to go for a PR at the St George race.  I could do a 2hr 52 minute Marathon on me best day.  I would really like to pace my brother to a PR.  The last time I had a goal to do that was at a 15K last November.  I stayed with my bother for probably one mile before a 20's something guy looks at us old guys moseying along and said to himself it looks like I am the fastest guy here today I am going to win this.  As he pulled away from use I stuck with him.  Then I at 6 miles when he started to struggle I left him in the dust and won the race by 6 minutes putting me eleven minutes ahead of my brother who was 4th overall.  So if I pace my brother it may be harder to slow down than it would be to go pedal to the medal and do a 2:52.  I am not a young guy anymore though and it hurts when I kill myself for a PR at a long race. 

So for now I am just focusing on training to do a sub 1hr 30 min run split at my 70.3 race in September and I will see how I feel after that.  If my brother has trained hard and is ready to PR.  I will pace a 3hr 30 marathon.  If he doesn't train and isn't prepared for a PR then I may run with my other brother who lives in St. George who is 8 years younger than me and doing his first race over a 5K (and I think he has only done about 2-3 of those).  My younger brother could possibly do a3:10 Marathon but doesn't have the experience for a long race so he is a wild card.  My sister who is 3 years older than me has a running background about the same as my brother who is 8 years younger than me.  They didn't run track or cross country in highschool and have never been competitive runner.  My sister did win a local 5K two weeks ago.  She was the first overall female in a race with just over 100 people.  Her time was a little over 23 minutes which impressed me.  She said she will be running slow even though her husband wants her to BQ.  She is the most sensible of the siblings in the family so I think she WILL run slow.  If I were sensible I would put any PR or BQ goals aside and focus on running a perfect race to get my brother to a sub 3hr 30 minute PR.  Running slow takes more discipline than running fast but I think I can do it.  

Yes...I have pushed it too hard at a few races since I passed my running peak at age 26.  Yes I have paid for it.  I am more disciplined now don't over do it.

Here is another perceptive on frequency/volume for aging athletes.  from Active.com Link 

Age. As we get older, we start to lose muscle mass, and our joints become less lubricated. We also lose motor skills, or the ability to move efficiently. The reduction of testosterone and human growth hormone production (important for muscle repair), that happens with aging also compromises recovery. The older we get, the more we should focus our training on frequency, strength, mobility, elasticity and motor skill, and the less we should focus on volume.

So...

1) the Joe Friel plan was to do 6 runs a week (plus biking & Swimming) in your 20's-40's then 5 a week in your 50's, 4 a week in your 60's, and 3 a week for 70+ years old. 

2) the FIRST Plan (Furman Insitute of Running and Scientific Training) said that everyone should limit their run training to 3 key run workouts a week (and make up the rest of the training with cycling/swimming).

3) And the Sergio Borges suggests that younger athletes, lighter athletes, and those with running backgrounds and do more/longer long runs because they recover faster, but that older, heavier, newer runnings should focus on more short light runs and fewer/shorter long runs.  

My brother is an Ultra Marathon Runner and is a big fan of Camille Herron (she is an Ultra Runner from Oklahoma much like my brother and they are the same age so they would have been at track meets together in preschool).  I got on her website and was quite impressed with her background.  She did her post-graduate work on some aspect of endurance running and said that her study concluded that the shorter, more frequent, lighter runs were the best plan for endurance run training.  

I find this all very interesting.  None of it is going to drastically change much of the way I do things.  I have been an experiment of one for three decades and I know what things hinder me and what things help.  :-)

Welcome to the group Troy.  When I have taken time off from training 8 weeks is about the breaking point when I am starting to feel like I am in shape again. 

I don't do a lot of races.  I will just do one 70.3 race some years.  Two years ago I made my main race an Olympic race because it was the "Stake Championship"  and I thought that some of the people I knew from running in my pre-triathlon races would be at that race.  After that race I took about a month off and with no more races in the year my level of motivation was really low.  I considered just taking 6 months off and waiting until the following year to choose another race to train for to get my focus back.  I didn't like the lack of ambition I was feeling so 7 weeks before an instate 70.3 race I signed up for it.  I hadn't been training for 1-2 months and decided to just train to finish the race and not try to train to race or get a PR.  Well...I broke my PR by about 30 minutes on 7 weeks of training at that race. 

So...8 weeks is sometimes enough to get you to where you need to be.  consistency over a long period of time, however, is what pays the biggest dividends in training.  

My first real triathlons was in 2015.  The BT Mentor groups are what got me through because I there were no swim groups, bike groups, run groups, triathlon clubs, or even local bike shops where I was living.  The training wasn't too hard to work out, but I had tons of questions about how Triathlons races worked.  Specifical how to set up transitions areas, how to execute a transition, what I needed on the bike for a race and how to set it up, how aid stations worked on the bike and run, equipment questions for the swim, bike, and run, nutrition for training and racing etc.  My suggestion would be to do your best to work things out for the race, training, equipment, nutrition, etc. but to ask lots of questions on this forum.  Scott (k9car363) is the mentor for this group and has decades of experience in the sport as both an athlete and a coach.  He has a gift for boiling things down to what matters and what doesn't and explaining things in a manner that even my 9-year-old could understand everything.  

The general outline to most training plans is to do your swimming, cycling, running at a ratio of 1:2:1 by time spent in training.  You start with a build phase where you slowly increase your training time each week for the first 1/3 off your training to build your endurance, then work on strength for 1/3 of your training to increase your speed/efficiency, then taper to practice your race day game plan and getting mentally ready for your race and shed fatigue from your training.   

I would build volume/training time by 10% every week for three weeks then do a light week.  Then work on speed train/interval training for two weeks, then focus on figuring out how you are going to race for two weeks.  The last two weeks, practice going from the swim to the bike, practice going from the bike to run,  figure out what equipment you will use on race day, etc.  With your race two weeks away you don't have time to increase your fitness/strength so just spend this week and next week practicing for the race.  You will be swimming 800m in the Open Water so get in some swim workouts that of 8x100m at your planned race pace with 15-20 rest between intervals or 4 x200m at your race pace.  Get in another OWS or two if you can.  You will be doing a 13-mile bike ride so get in some intervals at the pace you want to race at such at.  You can do 6-8 minute at race pace then recover and do it over again a few times.  Practice that pace so you know what it feels like.  You will be running 5K so get in 3x1mile repeats at your planned race pace with 2-3 minutes easy jogging or walking in between of 5x1000K at your planned race pace with 2-3 minutes recovery in between.  Pract those transitions.  It is very easy to spend 2-3 minutes longer in transitions than you need.  If you practice that you can easily cut that time, but cutting 2-3 minute from you swim, bike or run leg is infinitely more difficult.  

Good luck.  We here to answer any questions you have.

Hi Mike,

Every journey begins with a single step . . . or a single lap.  Well done!  I know this is counter-intuitive but the fastest way forward is holding yourself back.  Consistent small steps forward will add up to achieving your goal.  Good luck!  Don't hesitate to ask questions if/when you have them.

Troy,

When is your 70.3 race next season? 

My first Triathlon in 2015 was a 70.3.  I have done one ever years since then.  What type of training are you doing now? Do you have any Triathlon clubs where you are at?  The Tri clubs are a good place to find mentoring/coaching.   Many plan group track workouts for the run, group rides for the swim, and open water group swims.  If you aren't in an area with a triclub you can look into online coaching where you upload all you workout data to coach to annalis each and to perscribe workouts. 

This year I moved from doing 1-2 70.3 races to doing Sprint Triathlons so that I could race more and get the 3 race minimum for the  USAT athlete rankings.  I had a great Grey Hair Guy moment this weekend.  The race I was at gave overall awards to the top three over all then also gave an ward for the first place Master's Athlete.  So...I got my first first place master's award.  :-)

Hey Bryan,

Yes, the group is still taking new members however, you should know it's all but shut down at this point as we come to the end of the season.  I still check it weekly and respond if there are direct questions.

I saw your post in the main forum.  Obviously right?  Since I responded to you.  We'd love to have you.  I suspect you may have some questions that will be helpful to others in the group.  I think at least some are still checking in periodically.

What part of Indiana are you in?  I'm down south in Seymour.

We get over to Santa Claus a couple times a year.  Normally once in the summer so we can have "Christmas in July," and then another time around Christmas.  Never been up to Portage.

No worries.  I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

As I re-read this I had some new thoughts about younger running partners. 

10 years ago when I was living in my home town of Tulsa I would drive by my old high school in Jenks, OK on my way home from work.  The Jenks America youth USATF track club would be at the high school track a 6:00 PM several nights a week and my old coach was still running all the club track practices after 30 years.  If my schedule didn't permit me to meet up on the other side of Tulsa with the adult Running club on interval work out days I would stop by the youth club practice and my old coach would let me join with the junior high and high school kids for 400m repeats.  They had a few high school boys that could knock out about 15x400m at 60 seconds a repeat.  My target goal was about 80 seconds a rep and if I could do 75 seconds a rep I felt like I was flying.  Some of the slower guys were doing about 72-76 seconds laps and, after working with them for several weeks and getting into a groove, I settled into my own slower pacing and didn't try to stick with the younger guys for the first 150m until they dropped me.  As I slowed down an interesting thing happened.  The younger guys would leave me in the dust in the first 100 meters, but by 150m I was keeping pace with them and by about 200-250m I would start to pass people.  When I passed people I would be running at a smooth gentle stride and the people I was passing would be at a hard strained sprint.  My breathing would by in a rhythm and they would have labored breathing.  They would catch me again coming out of the last turn and in the last 100 yards create a large gap between us, but when I saw some of those guys at a local 5K race a few weeks later I beat them by 1-2 minutes.  I became convinced that what comes naturally to young people is to muscle their way through and because they are stronger they can go faster but that it creates a lot of wasted energy.  As the athlete matures their form typically improves to where they can run more efficiently.  They lose some of their raw speed but their sustainable even-paced top speed can actually increase.

 I ran the St Goerge Marathon on Saturday.  The plan was to run a 3:25:00 with my brothers to help my 39 year old brother get a PR.  We didn't get to the starting line early enough to pick where we lined up.  We were still dropping off our bags with our warm-up cloths when the race started then merged in just behind the 3:35:00 Pace Group. 

When we started my brothers really picked up the pace.  My GPS watch was still searching for satellites but I was guessing we were about a 7:30 pace and the target was a 7:49 pace for the race so I told them to slow down.  My 32-year-old brother lives in St. George and had done multiple long runs on the course (all at training pace for a 3:00-3:05 Marathon) and he complained that he had never ran that course so slow before.  We hit the first mile at 8:30 pace.  It was all downhill to mile 7 and by the time we got there we were1-2 minutes ahead of the 3:25:00 pace.  Miles 7-12 were full of hills with uphill sections as long as a mile.  My heart rate for the first seven miles never went over a 131 BPM.  My Zone 2 is 137-144 so on the hills I slowed things down just enough to stay under 145 BPM and my slowest mile on the 1-mile climb came out to 8:28 min/mi.  I was happy to keep everything faster than our first mile and to keep my heart rated inside of zone 2. 

We were on pace to hit 3:25:00 at mile 9 but my 39-year-old brother began to struggle around that point.  He had sprained an ankle two weeks before the race.  I thought he would be okay since I am usually back to running about 5 days after a sprain but he must have thrown off his form because his opposite leg started to get aches and cramps.   I thought he would adjust work through the cramps and try to get back on pace, but at 13.1 we had dropped to a 3:30:00 pace and my brother looked like he was wanting to drop back rather than get back on pace.  The fastest part of the course are miles 14-17 so I figured if he was going to get back on pace in those miles we could hold back for another mile for him to work through things but if he was going to continue to drop that my 32-year-old brother and I  would probably enjoy our race more if we went ahead on our own.  We had the breakup talk and my 32-year-old brother and I dropped the pace by 30 sec/mi and took off. Then, when we hit the last 10K, we dropped the pace another 15 sec/mi. I had been doing all my race-specific paced training at 7:03 min/mil and the last 10km we were hovering at 7:01 pace. I felt like I could have gone a lot faster but slowed things down to stay over 7:00 min/mi so I wouldn't lose my 32-year-old brother or two other guys who were running with us.  The only mile I went under 7:00 was mile 26.2 so my slowest mile was mile 1 and my fastest mile was 26.2.   

So....I really did try to slow things down. I was right on the target pace for the 3:25:00 through miles 9 or 10, but when things went slower than that I cracked.  I had a 10-minute negative split doing the first half in 1:45 and the second half in 1:35.  Running this race a hair slower than I could and not going for a PR or BQ was really a lot more fun than any other marathon I have done. I had a great time.   

I also had a sister in the race.  She caught my brother at around mile 21 but he couldn't keep up with her so he really slowed down a lot.  My sister finished in a 3:55 and my brother a 4:16. He did not seem to be in any pain or discomfort at the finish line which is a good thing, so I think he just had to slow down to a training pace to mentally get through the race.  

I wish there were Masters swimming options and Adult Stoke Improvement classes where I live.  Living in a small town has its advantages but in-person coaches and group training are not one of them.  I need to get back to the swim though.  I was planning on doing a 70.3 race this fall but changed to sprint option at that event because I had done well at the sprint distance at the other three Sprints I had done and my swim volume was so small that I didn't think I could do much more than a Sprint let alone a 70.3.  Winter seems like a great time to swim.  I am taking a month off before jumping into the winter training though.  

Hello Scoty,

Welcome to BT!  I saw your post in the "Introduce Yourself" forum.  As you observed, the Gray Guys/Gals Group has been very quiet of late.  We are at the end of the year and new groups typically start up early in January.  Keep your eyes on the Mentor Groups and you will see when the new groups begin to roll out.

A couple quick observations.  Your planned approach to training for your first Sprint Triathlon is a valid plan.  You mentioned you plan to take some swimming lessons.  That is perhaps the single most valuable thing you can do.  Swimming is highly technical.  If you are swimming with improper form, you can swim hundreds of thousands of meters/yards and likely not improve very much.  However, if you swim with proper form, you will quickly become fish-like in the water and have a distinct advantage (Yes, I admit it, I come from a swim background!).  When you get to training, have a plan, write your plan down, and then follow your plan.  The one thing that will help you progress more than any other is consistency of training.  How much volume you do, how much intensity you do, neither of those will matter if you aren't training consistently.  That doesn't necessarily mean every day or multiple times per day.  It means train regularly and don't miss scheduled trainings.

Good luck!  Again welcome to Beginner Triathlete and keep your eyes open for the new mentor groups which should be coming shortly.