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I haven't had covid and have avoided more public things minus running. I don't know if this helped me avoid it even though i have run with others consistently. I want to prevent long term issues so i can run.
I haven't had covid and have avoided more public things minus running. I don't know if this helped me avoid it even though i have run with others consistently. I want to prevent long term issues so i can run.
I hear you about trying to avoid it. The irony is, my lifestyle would have fairly well insulated me from catching the virus, were it not the fact that I apparently was infected, as best as I can reconstruct, on 16-Jan-2020 while visiting my elderly mother in Hackensack Hospital, four days before the official first United States COVID-19 case. As for my lifestyle, my company designated all but mailroom employees, myself included, as Work From Home employees, so I've been basically holed up on a horse farm surrounded by many dozens of rural forest trails for running and hiking.
As has been documented for nearly 100 years now, Long Slow Distance really works; every time my legs feel like picking up the pace I force my brain to switch gears and go long instead. Today I went out for a 6-miler on my favorite snowmobile trail which was covered by reasonably firm packed snow; by the one mile mark I was already hoofing it along in the low 10-minute per mile pace, way too fast for my personal speed limit, so I switched my brain into a 10-mile mode. I ended up with 10.4-miles at an 11:46 pace, my first run longer than 8-miles since mid-2018. The thing was, with the weather warming up, and with the sun shining on the trail, the snowy surface got mushy and that sucked a lot of energy out of my legs. I was seriously sucking wind during my last two miles.
I took the following shot at about the 5.5 mile mark of the run:
Last edited by horseshoez; 02-13-2021 at 03:32 PM.
Glad you were able to get some miles and that you were feeling ok doing it!
With this ridiculous arctic weather, I've still been running but been bundling up big time. Today's run was about 20 F with a wind chill in the single digits. The trail pavement I run on was slick so I also had to use a lot of energy just making sure I kept my gait and didn't slip. I felt warm everywhere the whole time except my fingers. Two days ago I used running gloves and that didn't work. Today I used light ski gloves and didn't work. Next time will have to use my heavy duty ski gloves.
But we are supposed to get half a foot of snow tomorrow with temps as low as 0 so I won't be risking going out then. But if it isn't toooo cold I'd like to give snow running a shot!
My wife, California born and raised, has hands are like yours, no matter how warm she gets during a winter time run, her fingers are painfully cold, and even turn purplish to black looking due to lack of blood. My hands, maybe because I grew up in lots of cold and delivered news papers in all manner of weather for five years, have the exact opposite problem. Even on the coldest days I start with a very light pair of knit cotton gloves, and within a few miles I need to take the gloves off, which are already drenched with sweat, and then fold them up and carry them for the rest of the run.
Incidentally, she's in Dallas this week visiting her sister; it's kind of bizarre to think your weather, may, if anything, be worse than ours.
I've upped my base plan for running to four days per week, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Needless to say, with the "Two Ws" (Weather and Work) dictating my ability to run on some days, the "plan" needed some adjustment throughout the month.
My final tally:
Run Days: 18
Run Distance range: 0.2 miles (way too much ice to be safe) to 10.42 miles on the 13th
Run surfaces: all but two runs were on snow/ice/slush covered trails; the remaining two were on the roads
Miles for the month: 101.18 (my first 100+ mile month since November of 2017)
My new March goal? I'm thinking maybe 125 miles. Assuming the weather holds, and my body doesn't object to the extra mileage, I'm hoping I can start losing some of the weight I've gained over the last several years.
Good to hear that things are progressing. How is March shaping up weather wise. Aside from three years in Oregon I've never had to deal with snow/ice when running outside (and when I was in Oregon I joined a gym) so I can't even imagine putting in 100 outdoor miles in those conditions.
Good to hear that things are progressing. How is March shaping up weather wise. Aside from three years in Oregon I've never had to deal with snow/ice when running outside (and when I was in Oregon I joined a gym) so I can't even imagine putting in 100 outdoor miles in those conditions.
The ice has gotten bad and forced me out onto the roads, which of course means my knees aren't happy. Through yesterday I managed 22 miles for the first seven days of March, and starting today things are going to warm up; low fifties today, into the sixties tomorrow and Thursday, so with any luck, the trails will be runnable by the weekend.
We started the week with temperatures in the teens and then saw 70°F Thursday and 64°F yesterday. The net result was a really rapid thaw on the trail which turned the surface into something akin to beef stew in some places, and water covered ice in others; not exactly conducive to getting some good mileage. I should hit 50 miles for the month this weekend which will allow me to hit 100 miles for the second straight month, but my chances of hitting my goal of 125 miles in March is pretty much not going to happen.
The only real good news here is I just got back from the trail and there was only maybe a mile in total of edge to edge ice across the trail and much of that had enough dirt strewn around to give decent footing, and the places where the ice has finally melted are starting to firm up. I'm hoping to knock out at least six miles tomorrow.
Last week I was worried about not hitting my goal of 125 miles for March, and now this week I'm looking at the prospect if hitting 150 miles. What changed? The weather and the trail conditions. Unlike most trail running around here in late March, the ice melted early due to a combination of a few warm and rainy days followed by some warm sunny days which turned the surfaces from "beef stew" into a good and slightly soft running surface, and this allowed me to bump my mileage a tad. Just yesterday I logged a 10.25 mile run and when I got back home my wife coaxed me to get on the scale after I mentioned I was down two belt notches since Christmas. Personally, I hate the scale as I'm only 5' 8" and carry a lot more weight than my size might indicate, case in point, I was tipping the scale at just over 250 back in December when I started running again; I yielded and was stunned, would you believe 226? You could'a knocked me over with a feather.
One other interesting thing about yesterday's run, it "felt" slow, doubly so because I kept forcing myself to maintain a slow pace due to the distance, and that combined with the fact this particular trail has a few "tunnels" which one needs to crouch over to slowly walk through to keep from hitting your head and/or tripping on the very uneven surface. Even still, my average per-mile pace was 10:26, easily my fastest pace since December for any run, regardless of distance. If this type of pace starts becoming my "new normal", then my goal of a sub-30-minute 5K is starting to look very realistic. Not bad for a "fat" mid-60s dude.
So, work happened and I missed 3 days of running last week so I finished the month up with 137 miles; could have been worse given March is usually the single hardest month to run around here due to the constant thaw/freeze cycles creating lots of ice coupled with a fair amount of rain and snow. At this point the trails are mostly firm enough to run, I think one 6-mile course has only a hundred yards of muck and deep mud to still be negotiated, while the other 6-mile course is runnable for all but about a quarter mile; as such, I'm thinking to set my April distance goal at 150 miles.
Regarding my workout plan, I am gradually transitioning from exclusive Long Slow Distance (aka. LSD) to what I call a "Modified LSD" plan, or M-LSD; a plan I used when I was in my mid to late 50s and is what enabled me to log a few half-marathons in the high "hour-thirty" to low "hour-forty" range up until just before I turned 60. So, what is "M-LSD"? A fairly simple concept, run the first quarter of whatever distance you're planning on at a pace much slower than what will be your average pace for the run, then for the next two quarters of the run, gradually increase the pace, keeping it reasonably comfortable, and finally, dial it up to whatever you can sustain for the last quarter of the run. By constantly "negative-splitting", your body gets used to pushing the pace faster and faster, and come race day it tends to pay huge dividends when you negative split every mile (except the occasional mile which is all up hill).
I catch a lot of flack for this plan from other runners who insist, come race day, you must go out strong and when you start running out of juice at the three-quarter mark of the race, you gut the rest of the race out with your remaining reserves. Funny thing though, when I'm standing there cheering them on at the finish line, they tend to give me a bit less flack.
So, enough about me, how is everybody else out there making out with getting in their miles? Is there any word in your parts of the country as to when and if racing might start again? If so, what are your race plans?
In my HS days I was a "go out fast and stay there as long as possible" type. But that was only 5ks. Trying to go the distance now, and negative splits is where it's at. Hal Higdon says, so I listen.
I finally got back to the gym and to the track this month after 364 days of inactivity due to Covid lockdown and general laziness. Easing back in and doing doing 3 miles twice a week, probably step up to 3x a week in April. I'm also fighting some injury in my shoulder. Woke up own morning and it was sore and I only have about 50% range of motion. Think I pulled something and it's healing real slow... So the gym work is pretty light, mainly legs, and then hit the track. The swinging motion isn't bad as long as I'm careful and not over exerting, but the next morning I can feel it.
There's a big 4th of July 5 miler around here that I think is doing in person race this year again. I'm still not ready to race, but it's looking like things might be turning around.
Re: the LSD... I'm doing the same right now. Trying to build back up the aerobic capacity and get the muscles used to moving. Before, my natural pace was about 8:30 now it's closer to 10:00. I've done a bit of anaerobic increase at the end of a couple workouts and 8:30 feels like a dead sprint now. Definitely have a lot of work to do.
Regarding your shoulder; I blew out my right shoulder back in 1990 while a half mile out in a glacial lake during the first leg of a triathlon; several times since then my doctor has recommended surgery because I was developing "Frozen Shoulder" (this seems to happen, not so ironically, when I'm not running much); each time I've declined. Instead I restarted my regular running and whaddya know, the shoulder would get better.
Funny story from a 5-miler I ran back in 2014, while slogging up a long hill near the half way point I passed a prototypical "little old lady" working her way up the hill as well. Now think about that for a moment, I was 2.5 miles into a race before I finally caught up with her. When I pulled up next to her I gave her some props for working the hill like she was and then went on my merry way. At the finish line I waited for her and was delightfully surprised when she crossed the line at the 42-minute mark; we talked for a bit, her name was Jan, and she was 70-years old, yeah, she won her age group. I told her she was my hero.
I'm LOLing about your 8:30 pace comments; I've been trying to keep myself slow, but every now and again a faster pace sneaks out. Yesterday I did an Out-and-Back 6.6 miles on a dirt trail with a couple of road crossings and one "crouch down and walk through" tunnel under a road. Spring was in the air and I was feeling frisky and my legs were just begging to go faster (my post-COVID lungs weren't real happy about that). I just checked my splits and whaddya know, I ran the final 5K in 27:36 with an average pace of 8:54, that and the last mile was run at an 8:29 pace; my aforementioned lungs were very aggressive in their displeasure.
Took 3.5 weeks off from running to recover from an unrelated operation and goddam... it's tough. I definitely lost some VO2 max. I was doing at least one 12 mile run a week no problem. Now, 6 miles is a beating. I scraped through a 9 miler today but jeez. My legs and lungs just aren't at that level anymore.. yet. Crazy that taking a ~month off can have such an effect. But no worries; I know that if I keep at it things will return to what they were.
Regarding your shoulder; I blew out my right shoulder back in 1990 while a half mile out in a glacial lake during the first leg of a triathlon; several times since then my doctor has recommended surgery because I was developing "Frozen Shoulder" (this seems to happen, not so ironically, when I'm not running much); each time I've declined. Instead I restarted my regular running and whaddya know, the shoulder would get better.
How ironic... I was just thinking about this last night on my run and was going to dig this thread up to respond.
I didn't realize that "frozen shoulder" was an actual term and not just you describing the situation. But over the weekend I finally broke down and consulted Dr. Google for some shoulder PT exercises and wouldn't you know it, the first source was a Harvard Medical article on PT for Frozen Shoulder. Reading through it described my situation almost exactly. As for the cause, I'm seriously thinking it's from my work-from-home situation over the pandemic. I've been working "temporarily" from a lap desk on a loveseat with big cushy armrests. So while I'm working, my left arm is basically just sitting at a right angle, all day, for like 15 months. Little to no movement since I hadn't been in the gym either, and I think I basically just atrophied myself into injury.
The shoulder is a little better now but still not 100% range of motion. I'm doing some stretching exercises and keep running a couple times a week and hopefully sometime this year it'll be all fixed up.
Still plodding along at 10 min/miles and only doing 5k a couple times a week. The weather is getting miserable and there's no good time to run right now. But I'm not sure I can go back to the dreadmill in the gym. Doing 3 miles on the track just seems orders of magnitude easier that running in place.
This was a successful year. 3 marathons, 2-3 half marathons, and two 10 milers. I was able to run all three without any real walk breaks. Maybe a couple through aid stations, but that's it. I ran a half pr of 1:31 in the middle of marathon training, completely unexpected. I qualified for Boston in 2022 and '23. Mrs. Dallison ran her first marathon in 3:46 and qualified for Boston too for 2023. If she was 3 months older, she would have gotten in for '22.
For 2022 I am going to Boston and we both are running Berlin in September and then Boston in 2023. Exciting times!
@dallison, congratulations on a successful year! Double congratulations on your Boston qualifications!
I started 2021 recovering from a 2019 broken leg and a "long-haul" version of COVID-19 which lasted for 10 months, and for us old farts, getting back into shape sucketh much. In January I managed 75 miles at a very slow pace; by June I'd managed 150 miles at a moderate pace and was aiming for one of my favorite 10-mile races the last weekend of August; this race circles the eastern half of the lake I live near and has about 1,000' of climbing, yeah, not optimal for a good time, but wow, what a beautiful course. Then the wheels fell off the old bus; nearing the end of an 8-mile run in mid-July I got attacked and mauled by two 150+ pound dogs and woke up in the hospital 30 hours later with a severe concussion and multiple wounds from being bitten, the worst on the back of my right knee where the surgeon needed to cut off all of the jagged skin and then stretch the skin on the back of my thigh and calf and staple them together.
I got the all clear to start slogging (slow jogging) in mid-August, managed 120(ish) miles in September and October and then had to back things off because what is starting to look like a spinal injury from the attack. This Friday I'm having my 4th MRI and hopefully they find something which is treatable. My goal is to finish recovering and then dial my running back up; I'd love to be able to break the 1:50 mark for a half marathon in the 65-60 age group in 2022.
^ - 100+ miles/month is impressive, especially after what you went through beforehand.
Dallison - Congrats on Boston. That's awesome.
Despite my earlier posts somewhat bitching about trail running I reversed course and decided to "finish" this running "season" with a 28 mile 10k elevation gain race. It was hard. Although I did very enjoy taking a few days off from running afterwards. I'm hoping to keep most of my mileage base and looking to see how I do in a March/April marathon next year.
Thanks.
WTF kind of race is that??? Congrats on a bitch of a race. That elevation is nuts! Have you signed up for a spring marathon?
Originally Posted by subinf
^ - 100+ miles/month is impressive, especially after what you went through beforehand.
Dallison - Congrats on Boston. That's awesome.
Despite my earlier posts somewhat bitching about trail running I reversed course and decided to "finish" this running "season" with a 28 mile 10k elevation gain race. It was hard. Although I did very enjoy taking a few days off from running afterwards. I'm hoping to keep most of my mileage base and looking to see how I do in a March/April marathon next year.
Quad Dipsea. I think I'm going to sign up again - I've more or less forgotten how terrible the last 60-75 minutes of the event was mentally.
No spring marathon - pulled my hamstring. I initially thought it was pretty minor and I would recover after doing nothing for a few days but its a little worse than I expected (cannot run at all...even incredibly slow jogging) so I'm taking 3 weeks off with the hopes it heals with PT, etc. and the goal of not loosing much fitness. Oddly enough riding my bike doesn't aggravate it at all so I'm spending more time on the trainer.
I'd planned to take a year to hit the gym a couple nights a week followed by no-pressure/no-objective running in the track to build back up my cardio after becoming a slug during pandemic. After that was going to start training and look to pick up some local fun runs at some point.
Well, about 8 weeks ago, the Mrs wanted to sign up for a local 5k with her friend, and she coerced me into signing up. But I decided to stretch it and do a 1/4 marathon (10k+). That amped up my running a little bit and I was pretty surprised how quickly I made up some speed and endurance after just plodding along over the past year.
Did the race last weekend and my starting line jitters got the best of me and I went out way too fast. Ended up falling in with an older lady who was keeping a nice consistent pace and finished averaging 7:59 min/miles. Not quite as fast as I was doing before, but felt fucking amazing after all this down time.
I ran Boston and had only run one single mile today since. My ass has hurt since. It's either my glute, pelvis, or groin and have been going to PT since.
I started running again this week. first time in over four years. Sweated bullets after 10 minutes the first day. not I do sustained 20+ minutes without breaking a sweat.
This is to be able to have sustained focus during track day.
I've spent much of the last six months finishing up a huge work project which, combined with my injuries sustained from the dog attack last July, means year to date, I've only managed just shy of 300 miles; less than a third of what I was planning on.
Most of my injuries have healed, errr, with the exception of the neuropathy I've developed, primarily in my left hand and arm (not optimal when one makes his living from a keyboard).
Over the last week I've managed to string together my first seven consecutive day streak of running, logging 39.7 miles, errr, check that, 39.7 VERY-SLOW miles.
I'm trying to get in shape to compete in the 10-Mile race I missed last summer and while I don't know if it is possible, my goal time will be 1:30, which I figure won't be too bad for a fat old man in his mid-60s.
I took advantage of a Father's Day sleep-in, cool temperatures (57° at the start), and some spare pent-up energy, and knocked off a 10.6 mile (rail) trail run today; June is turning into a watershed month so far with 16 runs in the last 19 days and a Month-to-Date total of almost 94 miles. Given my biggest single months Year-to-Date was February where I logged 68 miles, things are finally starting to look up.
Quad Dipsea. I think I'm going to sign up again - I've more or less forgotten how terrible the last 60-75 minutes of the event was mentally.
No spring marathon - pulled my hamstring. I initially thought it was pretty minor and I would recover after doing nothing for a few days but its a little worse than I expected (cannot run at all...even incredibly slow jogging) so I'm taking 3 weeks off with the hopes it heals with PT, etc. and the goal of not loosing much fitness. Oddly enough riding my bike doesn't aggravate it at all so I'm spending more time on the trainer.
So it took way longer to get back to being able to run. Ran very little in March (37 miles or so). 0 miles in April. And about 20 in May. Needed PT just to get some strengthening and stretching exercises down (whatever I found online wasn't good). And slowly started working back to establishing some semblance of a normal stride. Managed a little over 100 miles in June but the pace was well off what I was averaging a year ago. Mileage in July was the same but was not seeing huge improvements in pace otherwise. August is starting out a little better. The leg is probably 95% healed and doesn't bother me while running.
I thought I would enjoy working on the pacing aspect but it actually sucks and I wish I still had my January/February fitness. Oh well.
This seems to be the year for some (hopefully) minor but annoying injuries. My wife got a little enthusiastic when running down one of the hills in our area and started feeling twinging in the knee; she's an old school athlete (having run for the La Jolla Track Club back in the early 1970s) and just kept on pushing things; she ended up with bursitis in her knee and is now in PT with no running for the last two months. I finally started getting my mileage back up, managed 155 miles in June; but that's when the train ran off the tracks. Near the end of June I was crawling around under my desk setting up some new computer equipment when I felt an "Ouch, that hurt"; I didn't think much of it, however, sitting on the sofa the next day following an 8-mile run my patella tendon was extremely sore to the touch. My Ortho took a few pictures and was like, "Wow, you're the first old dude I've ever seen with active Osgood–Schlatter disease." In the final analysis, it seems I cracked the calcification (formed back when I originally got Osgood–Schlatter disease) at the base of my patella tendon where it attaches to my tibia; the calcification crack shows up on the X-Ray as a stress fracture.
I landed in PT for three weeks and then started running slow/short every second day runs of about 3 miles at an 11:00 minute pace; so much for the annual 10-Miler around our local lake at the end of August; well, maybe next year.
Bumping an almost 2 year idle thread.
I hate running, to get that out of the way early
I'm a cyclist at heart & miss road riding. Been swayed by the convenience of the Peloton [169 weeks straight, usually twice a week]
Decided to start running, to add some variety to the mix.
2 mile loop in my neighborhood, averaging about a 9 min pace
Still don't like it, but don't hate it as much
Now, if I could only get my Polar H10 to communicate with my phone. Works great on the Peloton, but refuses to be recognized by any app on my S23. Both Polar apps, Peloton mobile ap, straight Bluetooth. NAda.
9 min pace for not running much is pretty good! Sign up for a race so you have a goal/objective to work towards, that's what helps me.
I'm training for Ragnar again (4th time now!) so I'm doing slow, easy runs (11min/mi, 4ish miles) on Mon and Fri with speed training (varies but essentially 1min sprint, 1min walk, repeat) on Wed and long run (6-7mi at 10-11min pace) on Sat or Sun.
9 min pace for not running much is pretty good! Sign up for a race so you have a goal/objective to work towards, that's what helps me.
I'm training for Ragnar again (4th time now!) so I'm doing slow, easy runs (11min/mi, 4ish miles) on Mon and Fri with speed training (varies but essentially 1min sprint, 1min walk, repeat) on Wed and long run (6-7mi at 10-11min pace) on Sat or Sun.
Which Ragnar are you doing? I've done the Reach the Beach in New Hampshire four times, twice on a 6-person "Ultra" team and twice on a 12-person team. Lots of fun.
9 min pace for not running much is pretty good! Sign up for a race so you have a goal/objective to work towards, that's what helps me.
I'm training for Ragnar again (4th time now!) so I'm doing slow, easy runs (11min/mi, 4ish miles) on Mon and Fri with speed training (varies but essentially 1min sprint, 1min walk, repeat) on Wed and long run (6-7mi at 10-11min pace) on Sat or Sun.
No goal really. Happy to be able to consistently get 2 miles without stopping for now. Pace has gotten down in the upper 8s now. 8:49 & 8:37 on my last 2 runs. Once that gets more consistent, I'll add on a mile.
No long term goals, but am seeing some befit from it. My average heart rate [measured with a Polar H10 on the Peloton & my Citizen watch on a run] has dropped overall.
Which Ragnar are you doing? I've done the Reach the Beach in New Hampshire four times, twice on a 6-person "Ultra" team and twice on a 12-person team. Lots of fun.
I'm doing the Minnesota road one and have done that 3 previous times. Have always wanted to do Reach the Beach, that sounds awesome. We were going to do it in 2020...but we all know what happened there lol. Finally have a pretty stable team together now so I think we may try for a destination Ragnar next year.
The ultra team sounds horrible, I don't like running that much lol.
I'm doing the Minnesota road one and have done that 3 previous times. Have always wanted to do Reach the Beach, that sounds awesome. We were going to do it in 2020...but we all know what happened there lol. Finally have a pretty stable team together now so I think we may try for a destination Ragnar next year.
The ultra team sounds horrible, I don't like running that much lol.
LOL, I was 56 at the time and just getting back in shape after years of working two jobs and gaining like 50 pounds. One day I got a poorly worded email from a coworker talking about a relay team his son had needing a sixth member for a thirty-six mile relay. I thought, "Hey, I can run six miles, why not?" Yeah about that...
On the designated morning they picked me up in front of my company offices and once under way several realizations hit me:
I was the oldest in the van by 25 years (the other five were Dartmouth doctoral candidates in their late 20s)
The "relay" in question was Reach the Beach, and the nominal 36 miles was for each member of the team
They took one look at me and took pity on the token fat old man and gave me a "short" leg set of only 33 miles, however, that leg set also came with over 2,000' of climbing
Long story short, I held up my end of the deal to the point where my average per-mile time slotted me as 4th fastest, in spite of the climbing. When I handed off the baton after my sixth leg, I was totally exhilarated (and very-very leg-weary).
Oh it's an absolute blast, I definitely get that but I'd certainly be out looking for 6 more friends before signing up for an ultra haha. My mileage this time around is right around 18.5 and I'm totally fine with that.
02-10-2021, 07:18 PM
