'Mature' runners.

Hi Matt and welcome to the thread! We're not fussy about age   When I first started posting on here I was in my 40s but I'm half way through my 50s now.  Have you been running long?

JJ, Ruth finished just before me but she started nearer the front.  I was a good girl and started right at the very back which was good 'cos I kept overtaking people   I think several people dropped out too.  I saw lots of deckchairs and some of the marathoners were running well.  Did you see that Richard Whitehead won the 200m?  I've been following his progress ever since he gave me my medal at the TWells 1/2.  He's inspirational!

OT, yep, I think she did her 200th a couple of months ago if I remember rightly.  One of the 100 club members who ran had done over 800 marathons!  How on earth could someone do that?!!!!  I must find out how old he is.  I have precious little time for all my hobbies as it is without spending every weekend running marathons.

TE, is the NF 1/2 next weekend?  You are going to fly round!  I won't be doing any very long runs now as Beachy Head marathon is just 5 weeks away (I think).  I'll concentrate on off-road stuff with as many hills as possible.

JJ, I was the same as you, as even at my very best, there were always runners in my age group faster than me.

Matt, welcome to the thread. We are all ages on here and I am 66.

Red, the NF Half is on the 23rd September, and Tony Hodge is coming over from Germany to run it with me. The starter will be Liz Yelling. Tony is running the Munster Marathon on 9th September. I'm hoping that the NF race will stand me in good stead for the Solent Half which is on 14th October.

We have a very tough track session scheduled for tomorrow evening, comprising pyramids consisting of 400, 800, 1,200, 1,600, 1,200, 800 and 400 metre efforts.

A busy day ahead for me, firstly de-contaminating the paintwork on the white corsa we have, before heading off to set the jumps for my daughters horse riding session.

And finally the best part of the day, tonight its footie night   

Welcome, Matt, "old" is a relative term - we have oldies and much younger 'uns on here, all are welcome. I am currently an armchair participant, sidelined after an operation but hopefully will be able to run again by Christmas. Meanwhile you will see me posting about swimming, cycling and dogs!

Off to dog club tonight - we were at the other house over the weekend and Nemo has suddenly discovered it's fun to jump the garden fence and take off. So, no more unsupervised running around in the garden for him, he will have to be put on a long line now, silly dog.

Evening all,

No running today, just cross-training.  Will be out for a plod in the morning though.

IW, naughty Nemo!  How's your recovery going?

TE, ah, so a few weeks to go yet then.  Hope you have a good session tonight.

Aha, I feel welcome now thanks all!!!! Running again tomorrow!!

It's a bit chaotic here. Decorators hard at work.l Tiler starts tomorrow.

Matt
Welcome. We have mature youngsters, immature old folks and persons in between.

Redhead
Take a week off. It's not just a matter of muscle recovery. Everything else, including your immune system takes a hammering.

TE
The target for pyramids is to do each rep at the same pace so you are flat out and throw up  only on the last one.
JJ

The programme was revised slightly because of it getting dark early and we were to do 400, 800, 1,200, 1,200, 800 and 400 metres with 200 metre jog recoveries between each effort. We had to revise it again as we were informed that a helicopter would be landing on the field at 7.15. The first 1,200 was, therefore a bit less, as we cut across the field when the helicopter came in to land. My times were :-1.54, 3.52, 5.39, 5.57, 3.53, 1.43. The last 400 was obviously the fastest effort, but overall, I think my pace was fairly consistent.

JJ, sorry to disappoint, but nobody threw up

Hello and welcome Matt. I think I am probably post-mature at 68.

TE - your pyramid session as originally planned looked absolutely horrific, - no wonder JJ was expecting people to throw up. Good thing the encroaching darkness and the helicopter cut out the longest bits.

BIW, how high was that fence that Nemo jumped?

4 and a half miles x-c with the running club tonight. No rain for several days, so not much mud (was some, though). A lot of club members will be doing the Lake Vyrnwy half, and I have been given a few useful bits of advice, - such as that there aren't many drinks stations for the distance, so it's advisable to take your own. 

Columba - about 1 metre. He can actually jump quite high and is also adept at scaling a 2 metre A-frame. But he's never jumped out of the garden before. Since Oz died, he's changed in character, seems more hyper than ever although he's accepted Charly now. Another new thing he does is whine when I go out of the house, obviously being in the kennels while we were away has unsettled him, also with Ozzy passing away at the same time. Who says dogs don't suffer mentally?

Redhead - thanks for asking. Recovery is going well, except the nerve on the outside of my thigh burns if I stand on my feet too long, it hasn't yet regenerated properly. Still have 4 more physical therapy sessions to attend. Getting stuck on the Autobahn in a traffic jam for more than 3 hours on Monday didn't help either, instead of around 2hrs 45 to get from the other house back to here it was 6 hours.

When I can start back to running I am going to use the RW beginner run/walk schedule at first, it will be weird starting all over again.

Morning all,

I haven't run today as although I was up before the lark there have been so many things to get done before we head off for Mike's follow-up appointment at the hozzie that I've abandoned the idea.  It will be too hot by the time we get back so I'll probably just go for a long walk later.

As you say JJ, the rest will do me good.  Just think how lovely the house will look when it's all finished.

IW, we take longer to heal as we get older don't we.  I can imagine that sitting still for any length of time would be uncomfortable at the moment.  Run/walk is definitely a good idea as you might have a different running action now I suppose.  I love your fighting spirit   

When our young cat died suddenly a couple of years ago, Tinker, our remaining cat suffered really badly for several months afterwards.  I noticed that he seemed withdrawn, not keen on going out and generally miserable and then I realised that since he was a kitten he'd been surrounded by other cats and he'd never been on his own before.  As he was already getting on a bit we decided not to introduce another cat so to help him get used to being alone we changed our habits.  He started sleeping with us at night, curled up close to me, and each afternoon after his meal I'd make sure that I stroked him and made a fuss of him for a while as Barney always used to give him a wash and then they'd sleep together.  Gradually he started to develop a new routine and became happier but he definitely grieved for Barney, poor mite.

TE, I didn't like the idea of 2 x 1200m 

Columba, it's great that some of your club members will be there too as you'll get lots of support.  You're going to do really well but make sure that you don't push too hard if it's very hot.  I'm very excited for you!

Columba and Red, there wasn't much cut out of the first 1,200 metres, we just ran accross one of the bends. The midges were out in force during our sessions and I have got several itchy lumps where I was bitten. We don't know who was in the helicopter, but I'm sure one of the club members will find out. Hope your x country went well last night Columba, and good luck with your half marathon.

This morning I did a recovery pace 6.5 miles on roads, including a loop of Hythe Marina. The Southampton Water looked really lovely, as the waves were breaking  and the sun was making the water sparkle.

Tomorrow evening, we have a scheduled 10 miler in the forest, which fits in perfectly with my half marathon programme.

BIW, good news that your recovery is coming on well.

Have entered little Charly in a White Shepherd show on 23rd September, in the puppy class of course,which is 3 to 6 months, he will be 4 months old then. Be interesting to see how he stacks up against the other pups. Of course we think he's gorgeous but a professional judge may see him quite differently. We showed Oz at 7 months (youth class) and he won the class, but we were never able to show him as an adult or register him to breed as he was missing a tooth (the P4 for those in the know).

4.26 miles done today in 52 mins. Slow but it was all off road, with two ginormous hills, hard baked tracks, two newly ploughed fields where the footpath hasn't yet been reinstated and the usual gates and styles. Je suis knackered.

IW
I've always wondered why I never won any beefcake contests. Clearly I have too many teeth missing.

TE
I prefer to keep reps short for speed or longer for speed endurance. I'm not sure about the effectiveness of mixing 400s and 1200s. That's more like fartlek. There's no denying it's a hard workout though.
JJ

But JJ, you have other attributes!

Still can't upload any photos, I am following the rules to not upload more than 250kb but it doesn't work. I have been trying to upload a photo of Charly that has only 95kb but every time the computer tells me it's 99% done then gives me a message saying oops something went wrong, you will now be transferred to ...etc. Then nothing happens.

JJ you are right, it probably was more like a fartlek session, but it was ideal for me with two half marathons and a 10 miler race coming up. The longer efforts are probably more appropriate. The club has a good mixture of abilites, and some enter 50 and 100 mile races. I'm not sure of the value of shorter efforts for the "extreme distance runners" but acknowledge that they must have some speed work in their training. Your run sounds encouraging, and you are slowly but surely getting back into form.

TE
Clearly endurance runners need a predominence of Type 1 slow twitch muscle fibres but Type 2A fast twitch fibres can be developed with resistance training to help out the fast twitch fibres in extreme circumstances. That's why the extreme distance runners need to work  their fast twitch fibres as well.
Just to complete the picture, Type 2B fast twitch fibres have no endurance value at all.

IW
You promised you wouldn't tell.
JJ

JJ - so sprinters probably have a lot of Type 2B?

re your comment to IW about the beefcake contests and missing teeth: - didn't stop you breeding, though, did it?

One of the men at the x-c last night had run across Wales on Saturday; from the English border to the coast. It took him 12 and 1/4 hours. I didn't ask him about the route, but it must have involved crossing mountains.