Re: Training Week Ending January 22, 2006



Phil M. wrote:

Got it. It just sounded to me like you and TR were saying that age is
not a factor in recovery rate. But what I think you guys are saying now
is that age is not the primary factor in the need to increase the
interval in between hard workouts. But it is a factor. Correct?

Not to speak for Doug, while EVERYTHING could be considered a factor, age is way down the list. What age does correspond with (generally) is experience. And experience has taught us how to manage/listen to our bodies. As Doug said, we don't have the speed of younger runners, but we know it so don't beat ourselves up pretending we do. Instead we have learned to pace ourselves so that we can go steady for a reaaaaaal long time. And like Michael, going at a pace that doesn't seriously impact the joints/damage the muscles, allows us to recover from it very quickly. The trick for me is to train slow, recover fast so I can train more which gives me the endurance to outlast the young whippersnappers, then race hard. But when we do "race" we're like anyone else; we need more recovery time.

To give you an idea of how I train, I figured out a long time ago that in most western ultras, if I average 5-6MPH, that would be pretty good. So I generally run no faster than that at any time in training on my long runs. I will do somewhat faster short runs but even those are mostly still in the comfort range. So for me, a 8-9 minute mile pace is "speed work" which doesn't beat me up and the long run at 12 minute pace, even for 30M, is usually well within my comfort zone.

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