Tag: training

Training/working out at 64

I am amused by this song: I am 64. And no, being 64 is not the end of the world. But I am in uncharted territory (living what I’ve never lived before). And yes, the old-timer remind me: “it gets worse.”

Today’s walk was instructive:

Yes, it warmed up to 86 F, 57 percent humidity (error in the meme)

Now the walk did NOT start off well. I was 16 minutes at the turn off of Moss (just over 1 mile) and I was feeling some left glute/hip tightness at Dozer (just over 2 miles. I gave some thought to just turning around and going home; instead I stretched and continued. I was glad that I did.

Oh, there is some glute soreness and yes, it is lumbar related. It happens. And I WAS fatigued, just a bit. How I could tell: the tightness..my getting irrationally irritated by cars and bicycles (none of which were bad, AT ALL..and yes, I kept my irritation to myself since it was MY problem, not theirs).

But here is where experience came in: instead of angrily pressing the pace, I just relaxed, tried to focus on pelvic tilt and angle (I have stenosis due to spondylolisthesis) and focused on the mechanics of walking. And the pace picked up a bit. I walked to the driveway of the old marina and turned around; going out I stayed on the sidewalk of Water Street until the Gateway building (to avoid the Farmer’s Market foot traffic) and on the way back, I walked along the seawall, and made some other adjustments. The return trip took 1:03 and that was net uphill and done in hotter temperatures; the down trip took 1:06.

So, while I was not pleased with my lack of speed, it was not much of an effort, and I did have tough walks on last Saturday (Steamboat 4 in 43:44 plus 4 more miles), Tuesday (15K at 14:44) and Thursday (“fast 4 on the track”). I have to pay attention to cumulative stress.

And this leads to the topic of this post: working out while older. I’ll list some things just off of the top of my head:

  1. Chronic conditions. I have to be careful here. On one hand, NO ONE my age is not going to have aches and pains. My past areas: knees, shoulder, lumbar. They WILL act up from time to time. Pain that is highly localized and does NOT go away with warm is way I pay attention to. I rarely take pain pills; I haven’t since my bout with COVID in the winter of 2023. I also have to modify exercises, delete others. Part of the reason I film a few sets is to see if I am aggravating some condition of mine.
  2. Body responses Yes, my walking times ARE slower and the weight I can lift is lighter. There is nothing I can do about that. But I can pay attention to things like “I don’t do well in heat so I should back off of my normal pace” or “this stretch/exercise works well for this condition” and I can make it a point to do extra physical therapy for specific things. I do have some concerns about my balance (balance forward) and so I’ll have to practice yoga tree poses and the like. I have to take just a bit more time between sets in lifting, OR do fewer sets if time is tight.
  3. Load management I have less capacity for volume. So; I have to make choices. It seems that I can handle two strenuous walks per week (distance with some intensity and higher speeds), and perhaps two medium walks (slightly longer at a slow pace or shorter at a faster pace), and two heavy (by my standards) press workouts per week. The off days have to be easier.
  4. Testing my limits Deadlift: probably a bad idea as when one tries for a max, the form breaks down a bit. I cannot afford that. Bench: every once in a while is ok, but I have to watch the shoulders. Pull ups: my pull ups have a slight kip to them but trying too many leads to form breakdowns which leads to radiating pain. Walking: take it easy on the races; do them once in a while with a bit of faster walking once a week. Distance: build up gradually. I feel it if I build up too quickly.
  5. Overall life stress This is a tough one. There was a time when I went the hardest when things like work stress were the greatest. That doesn’t work anymore. I have to leave something in the tank for my job. I’ll have to one of my tough walks on the weekend, and limit my tougher sessions to the weekend, juggling them around football games in the fall (I am NOT giving those up).
  6. Keeping perspective. I sometimes get encouraging comments on my Youtube videos…that would be appropriate were I a 24 year old just starting out. But I am not that; I am on a downward trajectory and I am working to retard the slide as best I can; to slow the rate of my decline. Decline I will. Local races: well, I have to remember that 2 years ago, I was doing 1-2 mile walks. That I can do them at all is something to be grateful for. But the reality I will be finishing with the elderly, the injured and the overweight. The days of finishing with the “hard bodies” is long gone. I still remember 1985-1986. I was at my strongest; I worked up to a 300-310 bench press. I weight about 230 lb (45 more than I weigh now) and decided to do a local 5K (on the campus of St. Edwards University). I routinely ran 2-4 miles per day. My time: 23:15, or a 7:30 pace. My trying to run that pace now would be a complete joke. Yes, my waist was 4-6 inches wider than it is now. I have to remember that when I get discouraged by not being able to stay up with someone who does not look in good shape.

Bandwagons and my first marathon

I am still thinking about the posts about some in the running community “not being welcoming” (whatever that means) to newer or slower runners.

That got me to thinking about what I saw recently, at an Indiana Fever WNBA game. Some lady had on a shirt that said “I watched women’s basketball when it wasn’t cool” and I had to smile. I did too: University of Texas from 1985-1991 then Bradley 1991-present. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a woman’s final four (1986-1987…front row seats, no less!) and watching several highly ranked college teams, including several national championship teams.

But yeah, there are those new to the sport, either as fans or participants.

Back in 2022, the Illinois football team went 8-5, which, by Illini football standards, is a breakout season. And I remember long loyal fans posting stuff about bandwagon fans; many asked for tolerance of them.

And, I wonder if there is some of that going on between those who have been running a long time vs those new at races (e. g. the newbies lining up way too far up front, running/walking 4-5 abreast, coming to a complete stop without warning and realizing that there may be some behind them, going out way too fast and clogging things up, ESPECIALLY on trail runs, etc.)

And there are those like me, who kind of miss being with the “hard bodies” running the 6-7 minute miles and are now at the back of the pack with the slow, lame, overweight and fellow old people. I remind myself that walking slowly is a lot better than not being able to walk at all. I don’t love being this slow, but I love being able to walk and beat most of the current race cutoffs.

And I have to remember that, back in the day, I, in my current state, would have been too slow to make the cutoffs for many (most?) of the races. It was common to have 5 hour cut off for a marathon (San Antonio back in 1981) I ran a 3:48 and felt like an absolute failure.

So, without the army of slower runners, there would be no races for me to finish.

That leads me to think about my first marathon: the Maryland Marathon in 1980:

During my senior year in college, I decided to run the Maryland Marathon. That was me at about mile 18 or so; note the cotton shorts, cotton shirt and the New Balance 730s. Those were state of the art shoes back then.

Though I had several 50 mile weeks, I did no run over 15 miles. So the marathon was a bit of a rude shock. I hit mile 10 in 1:15, half way in 1:37 and slowed to 2:38 at mile 20. The finish: 3:33. Boy, was that last 10K a death march! It wasn’t just for me though; I managed to keep something like a shuffle (and flipped off a kid who said “here is a fat one”) and people were walking at this point; not everyone of course.

My buddies (who went to the race with me) ran 2:38 and 2:59. I ran 3:33 for 1054 out of 2229 men; the median time for the men was 3:36. There were 201 female finishers; two friends of mine finished in 3:30. The median female finisher was 4:05.

How do I know this? I still have the program!

I know that some racewalker finished in the 4:30-4:40 range; I remember asking “is that good?”

I knew that Olympic walkers walked at about 7 minutes per mile (3:05 pace) and didn’t know what a “good but not elite” walker would do.

Now, I wonder why the median time for both the women and men were so much faster than present day median times, even among the younger age groups.

It isn’t age, though the marathon used to attract a somewhat younger crowd; still the median Maryland Marathon time is about 30 minutes faster than the current median for men 20-40 by the above table that I linked to.

My guess is that more average people are attempting them now (it might have been more of a “sporting minded workout-bro thing”; something for people who had a background either in sports or in military physical fitness and the like. I have no data to back that up though.

Or could be that there was more of an emphasis on the 10K back then and people then moved up to the marathon after they’ve had some running under their belt.

And it could be that the current popularity of the marathon means that it is attracting those with no talent for it.

Example: one of my older buddies was a speed burner in college. He ran the then 440 yard dash in something like 47-48 seconds (slightly faster 400 meter time). Yet, his time for the 2 mile was over 13 minutes, 1 minute slower than I! And his marathon PR was about an hour slower than mine. He was faster than I ..a LOT faster but he has no slow twitch fiber at all (ok, very little of it).

Caution: when I talk about SLOW in a marathon, I am talking about people *I* might see were I to try one again; over 6 hours on a normal road course types. I used to consider 4-5 hours to be super slow but now, that is well beyond what I can do.