As I near the end of my first week being 50 I am continuing to look forward and challenge myself to maintain or even better past performances. Can I set new PR’s (apparently a PR is a personal record and only achieved when your time is recorded, via a race etc, . a PB is a personal best and something personal to yourself, without the recording  bit i.e. not a race. I learned this from Facebook , what did we do before Social Media.? ) or new PB’s this year or am I being faced with a gradual (I hope?) decline as Father Time finally catches up with me.

To this end this week I have been reading a book by Joe Friel called Fast after Fifty :How to Race Strong for the Rest of you Life. So  far I’m upto Chapter 5 but it is encouraging albeit Joe seems to be a big advocate of intensity over LSD (Long, Slow, Distance, which is what Matt Fitzgerald champions, and remember in Matt we trust.) Thus I am in a quandary. For the last 9 months I have been following the LSD training with minimal intensity but according to Joe this can be a recipe for disaster. My VO2 max figure will lower and I will lose my fitness slowly over time. Joe describes tests and studies where, as you age, you need to look at intensity over volume. Must admit the front cover did worry me but he seems to have written the book for all athletes.

The only issue with the intensity training, as Joe rightly points out, is the constant fear of the death of all older runners, are old friend the ‘grim reaper’ , injury. I hate typing that word!  Joe suggests us ‘older runners‘ take longer to warm up than younger versions, and trust me Joe you’re right. Once warmed to ‘interval temperature’ we are normally ok to go but be mindful of the old Hammy’s and calf’s; two of our favourite things to break as older runners.  My right hammy is particularly susceptible to the odd twinge and typing this post I can feel the old girl twitching. She can normally be placated with my old buddy ‘deep heat’,  though I wonder sometimes if this is more to keep No1 Wife at bay. (Only joking Karen, it’s for the hammy honest!)

My goto intensity session is the old faithful Mona Fartlek. A 20 minute session where you can really ask yourself some serious questions and embed yourself in the ‘pain box’. It is one of my favourite sessions and one I have been avoiding lately as the end of the year was all about ultra running and LSD. With the new racing season just about on me it is time me and Mona spent some more time together.  RFYL magazine describes this beast of a session below :-

What: “Mona Fartlek” was developed when Chris Wardlaw (a.k.a. Rabs) suggested that Steve Moneghetti (Mona) go out and do 15-20 minutes of fartlek. Mona, who is just a little bit obsessive-compulsive, and who likes to do things exactly to the letter, delved for a few more specifics. Rabs suggested that he should do 20 minutes, and off the top of his head offered two 90-second efforts, four 60-second efforts, and four 30-second efforts, all with equal recovery. Mona replied that this only totalled to 18 minutes, so Rabs added an additional four 15 second efforts to the end. This is the Mona Fartlek and the story of how it was created.

When to use: Similar to the quarters sessions outlined in Issue 3, this session can be used all year round, and there are a large number of elite Australian runners who will do this session at least once a fortnight at any stage in the year. Given it is a “fartlek” session, it is easy to manipulate the intensity of the session to suit your needs and the time of year. It is a great session to assist in sharpening up for the next competition, but can also be used as a “rolling” session during weeks of high volume or intensity.

What pace: Mona Fartlek is most popularly run with a float recovery, rather a jog recovery. A “float” is a pace that is slower than your effort, but still much faster than what you could term a recovery jog. A good, solid float would be run at close to your half marathon or marathon pace. Depending on your goal from the session, the pace of the efforts will vary from your 1500m pace (if you are after a high-intensity workout) to your 10km pace (if using it as a “recovery” session). At times, Mona Fartlek has been criticised by some coaches as being too short; but when run strongly, it is a great session to assist in building your speed and endurance.

Event best suited to: This is an ideal session for 5km through to marathon and for road, trail or cross-country running. It trains you to run at a good tempo with minimal recovery between efforts. In a race situation, it will allow you to increase your effort on hills or for surges and then be able to recovery with minimal or no decrease in your pace. It can also add some great quality for half marathon and marathon training. The session was originally developed to be run in an unstructured way where the distances of each effort were not necessarily recorded, but if the session is conducted over the same course, comparisons between the total distance covered can make for a good litmus test of your current form. The session can be used on grass fields, roads or trails.

Personally I still like to race as part of the open category and if I can pick up an age group win as a secondary option I’ll take it. These days my podium time is dictated more by runners who don’t turn up than my performance. I have certain times I know I can run and if that is good enough for a top 3 finish great but my window of opportunity is getting smaller as my times slowly increase and the ‘pack’ starts to catch up.  I will then start to look at those age group wins as more of a primary target rather than secondary, and that is fine. I’m hoping with Matt and Joe in my stable I can hold off the pack for a few more years, we’ll see.

On that note I managed to grab another WAMC (West Australian Marathon Club) age group award on the weekend. A nice piece of bling to add to my small collection. These awards are the reward for a hard year racing and a time to reflect on the past year ,while looking forward to the new one. It’s an exciting year 2017 as I move up an age group, it’ll be nice to be the ‘young thing’ in the 50-55 age group, albeit for a year or two only.  These age group wins keep me honest and a world of new records have opened up to me in 2017. I will certainly now be returning to the Australia Day Ultra (http://australiadayultra.com ) in January 2018 to try and grab the AURU 50-55 Australian age group record of 7hrs58mins and I’ll be keeping an eye on the 55-60 WAMC Perth Marathon age group record currently standing at 2hrs59mins in a few years. (I’m hoping it’ll be lower by the time I get to it as my good friend Mike ‘sick note’ Kowal is making a run for it in June as he turns 55 just before the Perth marathon.) There’s also a 50+ age group trophy at the 6 inch ultra marathon this year as well. ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com )

Actually this getting older ain’t as bad as everybody makes out, it could be an opportunity to turn my small bling collection into a large bling collection. Right back to Joe and chapter 5 in his secret of racing into the fifties and beyond.