Over 60s training.

This morning I went back to the Cornwall Park run 5km. It was pouring down with rain when I woke up and was trying to decide whether to go or not and my son rang and said he was going and would run/walk with Mae, so that was it.

I was late getting there, so not much warm-up. The rain stopped, but everywhere was wet and muddy. Didn't really feel like I got going, I just couldn't run any faster. I will have to do some speedwork to get the legs ticking over.

There are lots of sharp turns, so after about 200m, there is a sharp right turn and because of the muddy conditions one guy near me had a big slide. I settled in and pretty much ran by myself until about the 4km mark where I was catching a girl, who called out to her mother saying she wanted to stop. Instead of the mother saying that she was running well, the stupid women just yelled at her to run faster! Poor girl, and few metres later she pulled out. Sad, as she'd already done most of the hard work.

Anyway - 1km 4.52, 2km. 4.54, 3km 5.04 (long hill), 4km 4.47, 5km 5.06

24.24

Think all I can say is that it is a good way to do an effort run.

Sorry Aws - I couldn't change the typing mistakes in my other post.

Good morning

nrd

NZC - Why apologise to me? I'm not the keyboard police.

al

NZC,
We have a lot of deer around our garden and with 3 dogs that are furry and close to the ground, ticks are a major concern. They are tested for Lymes Diease every year and the older dog has tested positive. As he is 14 and he is not showing any symptoms we are not treating him because the treatment will make him feel very ill.
The groomer has found ticks on them and of course she removes them with a hot match but they are dangerous.
I don't fancy your 5k, it must have been tough in all that mud. It makes your time very respectable, well done.
You and Columba do choose the toughest of courses, I however look for the easiest.

I ran one of my old routes today. a very pretty 18k run along a undulating wood trail for most of it. It connects to an old railway track which presents us with a 4k slow climb to the finish so a bit of a challenge. It was 20c and a bright, not a cloud in the sky , kind of day. Sorry TS but is was very enjoyable but next weekend I have my 10k target race so it will be eyes popping effort which should make up for all this enjoyment.

JJ,
Your comments about aging made me think about the number of runners I meet at races who were racing 30 years ago. It seemed like the numbers had really diminished so I thought I would crunch some numbers to see how fast it was shrinking.
Data is readily available and we have a large local race with 10k runners so I took the half marathon data for men from 40 onwards with the following results.

 The vertical axis is the % of male runners in each age range from 40 to 80+, in 5 year increments. The total number of male runners was 4310, so a good sample size.
Just to give you a feel for the numbers there was only 2 80+ runners. It was the half marathon so maybe there would have been a few more in the 5k.

In my age group, 65 - 69, there were 49. In your age group, 70 - 74,  there were only 20.
Does that mean I have less than a 50% chance of still running in 5 years???

Anyway I ran 6 days this week for a total of 40 miles, full speed ahead and damn the torpedos.