Well after months of talking it up it actually happened, today I turned 50. I have been so focused on this event I even created a website dedicated to it. www.fitfastfifty.com , which now I can promote.

This morning I celebrated as only a runner can with a 14k progressive run with the boys and a Yelo muffin. I mean what more can any man want on his birthday? Good company and quality muffins with coffee and great banter. I really am very lucky to live in Perth surround by some great friends and family doing what I love, normally twice a day.

The question is of course how long can I keep on improving? 2016 was a breakout year with so many PB’s on the back of the extra training I put in. Is this sustainable? I don’t see why not, I’m enjoying the extra training, truth be told, and the results are well worth it. I suppose the real goal this year is the elusive sub 2hr 40mins marathon. I’ve ran 2hrs 41mins 3 times so I’m close, real close. I’ve targeted the Perth Marathon in June this year, which I have ran 12 times so I know the course well. Perfect conditions and it could be on.

There is also the Utah option in October. A marathon built for PB’s as it’s a point to point with a massive 2560 feet elevation difference. (http://www.stgeorgemarathon.com/information.php ) This has been mentioned to my Wife and I received a verbal confirmation that I could ‘maybe’ go. Sometimes it is better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission? Mike, Dan and Jon are all up for it and I’d love to go. Check out the elevation below, how good is that? Of course I would have to tailor my training to account for the beating my legs will take with all that downhill running but Dan ‘ the man with a plan’ Macey will come up with something and we’ll be ready come October.

Funnily enough the course is a qualifier for the Boston Marathon? Go figure, although of course there is no chance of a World Record!

Utah aside I wonder if I will be able to replicate my form of 2016, can I grab a few more PB’s before Father time finally catches up with me? I was even discussing running track this morning, albeit while eating a Yelo muffin and drinking coffee, which may have clouded my judgement. I have never really given the mile a good tilt, I mean how difficult can it be it’s only just over 1600m’s. Sub 4 minutes at 50 years old, that would be special, I would of course be on a bike! Seriously the target for 2017 is not to slow down too much and maybe grab a sub 16:30 5k and my holy grail a sub 2hr 40mins marathon. Early 2018 I’ll be chasing the Australian AURU age group record for the 100k, currently 7hr 58minutes.

Reading this post back it seems to have morphed from a discussion about turning 50 into setting goals to keep yourself honest. That is what to take from this post, it’s no good just running aimlessly you need a goal. This goal gives you purpose and with purpose you have motivation, with motivation you have the ability to be ‘comfortable being uncomfortable’. (A Mark Lee quote this morning.) When you are comfortable being uncomfortable the PB’s will come.

I searched the internet for posts on training in my fifties and not slowing down and found this website which looks promising, I intend to download the book today and read it over the weekend. I’ll let you know how I get on…

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2015/01/what-it-takes-to-be-fast-after-50.html

What It Takes to be Fast After 50

By now you may be aware of my latest book—Fast After 50—being in print. In February it will also be ready to go as an ebook. This project started out as a birthday present to myself. I was approaching my 70th birthday and that number was scary for some reason. I was afraid of rapidly decreasing athletic performance. So I decided to read all of the research I could find on aging and endurance. There was a ton of it. For the next eight months I read research studies almost daily while taking detailed notes. From that I decided to post what I was learning to this blog (search “aging” here to find the various posts—more than 20 of them!). The blog posts were so well-received that I knew I had to write a book about what I was learning.

The following is an overview to the book. Should you decide to read the book I hope you learn something that proves helpful. I also hope you’ll contact me and let me know how the lessons here are working for you. I’ve gotten several such emails recently and really appreciate them. Thanks!

So here’s what the Fast After 50 is about…

Prologue

Here I start by telling you the answer to the question that is the underlying theme of the book: Why am I getting slower and what can I do about it? And I get into why I used so much research, rather than simply my opinions, to write this book.

Chapter 1 The Aging Myth

The overriding purpose of this chapter is to come face to face with the aging process by understanding exactly what aging is and also by looking at what the best age group athletes in the world have accomplished in their sports. We also take a look at how “normal” aging differs from athletic aging. The big question here is, How much should one expect to slow down with advancing age?

Chapter 2 The Ageless Athlete

This chapter is about exercise as “medicine.” I get into the common and popular theories of aging so you get a historical perspective of how your advanced age has been explained over time. And I examine some of the physiological markers of longevity, such as telomeres and stem cells, and how exercise alters them—for the better.

Chapter 3 Over the Hill

What’s standing between you and being a fast athlete once again? The challenge is by no means small and requires both dedication and discipline. It won’t be easy, especially at first when your training and lifestyle begin to change. And we’ll dig into lifestyle as a determiner of what your future may look like. That brings us to the twin roles of nature and nurture. You’ll probably be surprised at what aging experts are now coming to believe is the more responsible of these two for how one lives out their life. You’ll come to understand why society at large is doing so poorly in this regard—all of them except you, that is, because you stay focused on what makes you faster. As it turns out, it’s also the stuff that gives you a long and healthy life.

Chapter 4 The High-Performance Senior Athlete

Now the tables begin to be turned. We move away from the downsides of aging and begin looking at what it will take to slow the effect of age on performance or, even perhaps, temporarily reverse it. The objective is to become not only fast but also faster. Here we look at how to once again determine your potential as an athlete, only now an older one. And we start digging into training in order to turn the tide of slowing performance. It all starts with the intensity of your workouts. Surprised?

Chapter 5 Training Basics

But intensity has downsides! I don’t want any injuries or overtraining! Calm down. We’re going to talk now about what stress is in training and why it can cause injuries and overtraining—and, more importantly, how to prevent that from happening. It mostly comes down to greed. We try to get too much too fast. Field testing is suggested to determine exactly where you are right now as an endurance athlete and point you toward faster racing in the future.

Chapter 6 Advanced Training

Now we’re into the heart of the book—how to train as an older athlete. We’ll dig into two of the greatest determiners of performance with aging—aerobic capacity and muscle mass. In this chapter you’ll read about how you can reverse the decline you are undoubtedly experiencing in both of these. Here you will come up with a personalized weekly training routine (I suggest one that is rather novel) to get you back to advanced training once again. Workout types, regardless of your endurance sport, and periodization are described.

Chapter 7 Rest and Recovery

In Chapter 6 you learned about how to train—except for one thing: how to recover. This, in many ways, is the critical concern for the aging athlete as we tend to recover slowly. Here I’ll tell you about such stuff as fatigue (what is it?), sleep (how to improve it), hormones (how to produce more) and nutrition (what the research suggests for older athletes). We also go into a whole host of alternative recovery aids.

Chapter 8 Body Fat

This is the chapter that scares everyone. Nobody likes to talk about body fat—including me. Why do we get more of it, and mostly in certain places, as we get older? Again, the hormone thing! We haven’t got enough and we need more to keep our bellies under control. What can we do about it? Menopause also shows up here. By the end I hope you have a handle (not a “love handle”) on how to combat increasing fat with aging.

Epilogue

Besides summarizing the main lessons of the book, I get into the personal challenges I faced in implementing them. I certainly hope you don’t experience what I did while in the process of writing this book. 2014 turned out to be a doozy of a year and, as a result, I’ve only gotten back on my Fast After 50 training regimen in the last few months. I explain all of this here.

I end the book by thanking the many senior athletes I’ve coached over the past thirty-some years. Amazing people! I remain in awe of how good they are as athletes. The journey for me continues with them as role models.

The last few months has all been about distance. I had the 6 inch ultra marathon at the end of December 2016  ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com ) and then trained hard over the Christmas break so I was as prepared as possible for the Australian Day Ultra ( http://australiadayultra.com ) at the end of January. This entailed so big distance weeks back to back , with little or no real pace work. Ultimately I ran both races well and finished strong so the high mileage was a success. (Thank you Matt Fitzgerald , in ‘Matt we trust’ , http://www.mattfitzgerald.org ) Now though it’s time to start thinking about the next few races on the calendar.

I have two weeks to train and then a 4 race block in 5 weekends, starting with a hilly 12k before , after a week off, exploding into a 3 weekend in a row smorgasbord of racing starting with a 16k (a good old fashioned 10miler) before a 5k and then, one of my favourite races, the Darlington half marathon. Then a few weeks later another 10k, another half marathon, two more 10k’s and then the first goal race , my 13th Perth Marathon. That will keep me honest until the middle of June before I then start to get serious with the City to Surf Marathon in August. The two Ultra marathons at the end of the year give me a reason to keep training but the season for me starts in a few weeks and then continues up to the end of October where I run the Rottnest Marathon.

As you can see for me racing is why I do what I do. It’s not the final position in the field, although that is important of course, for me it’s chasing the PB’s and trying to run faster than I have ever run before. When you cross the line and grab a PB it is the best feeling and makes all the hard work in training worth it. Truth be told I enjoy the training as much as the racing so although I spend a serious amount of time running I enjoy every minute of it, if you didn’t why would you bother? (There is the Mark Lee caveat though when he decides to hoodwink me with promises of an easy run which turns into a ‘first person to break’ sprint !! A very untrustworthy character that Mr. Lee.)

Tomorrow I’ll be getting up nice and early for the weekly 14k progressive run ending up (and starting ) at Yelo for the best muffins in the world (probably) ( http://yelocornerstore.com.au ) with the boys. This will be run number one as I move towards the new 2017 race season, barring the 5k and 100k I’ve already run which were ‘starters’ before the main course really. Then later in the week another one of my favourite sessions the Mona Fartlek. This run is , in my view, a staple diet of speed runners. A 20 minute session with 10 minutes of all out speed and 10 minutes of ‘floating’ , improvement is measured in distance rather than time , which is fixed.  The session is explained below.

The Session:Mona Fartlek: (2x90sec, 4x60sec, 4x30sec, 4x15sec with a slower tempo recovery of the same time between each repetition. The session takes 20mins in total.

Distance Mona covered: The session was most often used on Tuesday night at Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree. The first time Mona did it as a 20-year-old he did not complete the Lap of the Lake (6km) in the 20minutes but in his prime he completed the Lake in 17.19 and then continued on to finish his 20min session. He still does it most Tuesdays and even at 52, covers 6km.

History

Mona devised the session with his coach Chris Wardlaw over the phone back in 1983 when he was just 20. He wanted a solid fartlek session, one that would help improve his speed as well as endurance and stimulate an ability to change pace mid-run, something that helped later on his career when tackling the Africans, who had a habit of surging mid-race.

The session became a Tuesday-night ritual for Mona and while it was set up for Lake Wendouree, he’d use it whether training at altitude at Falls Creek or overseas preparing for a championship marathon.

It is still widely used today with Ben Moreau and a host of Sydney athletes doing the session. A recent feature in the UK has led to a number of British runners adopting the session along with a number of runners in the US, although some are calling it the “Mono” session.

A good idea is to set your watch to beep every 30 seconds, so that you don’t have to look down at it all the time.

Mona says

“I was always a stickler for routine and I feel that this session, coupled with my usual Thursday night session of 8x400m with 200m float set me up and gave me continuity with my training.

The 15-second reps came at the end and really forced me to concentrate on accelerating hard when I was fatigued. One night when I was in top shape I covered nearly 7km with Troopy (Lee Troop).”

Tip for other distance runners

For many runners, the session will be too demanding initially and you will need to build into it.

Mona recommends just walking or jogging the recovery as you adjust to it.

Middle distance runners may wish to reduce the length of the session, halving everything (ie: 1x90sec, 2x60sec, 2x30sec, 2x15sec) to make it a 10minute session.

Next of course is some hills sessions. I’ve never really ran too many of these but will be starting this season as a way to introduce something new to my routine. Something about ‘old dog and new tricks’ worries me but I’m sure I can learn to adapt to new ideas and how hard can a hills session be. (Actually even before I even finished typing that sentence I realised it was flawed!)   A Runners World article below explains just about everything we need to know about hills.

That’ll do for the moment. I’ll post on other pace sessions later in the week, get into some tempo and threshold runs and the VO2 max experience, and people though running was easy, if only they knew.

If you happen to live in a landscape dotted with tors, pikes and braes, then won’t have much choice about mastering the art of hill running. In fact, your perception of running up – and down – hills is likely to be different from that shared by the majority of the running population.

That would be that hills are the enemy. They’re an obstacle, standing in the way of fast times, a burden to be endured, a muscle-sapping, lung-bursting exercise in pain.

Of course most of this is true. Hills are tough and challenging. They break your rhythm, make it harder to run a fast time and put an immense strain on your body.

But hills are good for you and they’re good for your running. Training on hills improves leg-muscle strength, quickens your stride, expands stride length, develops your cardiovascular system, enhances your running economy and can even protect your leg muscles against soreness. In short, hill running will make you a stronger, faster and healthier runner. What’s more, the benefits are relatively quick to take effect. In as little as six weeks of regular hill training you can expect a significant improvement in your muscle power and speed.

Why hill running works
Runners today increasingly understand the importance of combining strength work with regular running. It strengthens tendons and ligaments, reduces the risk of injury and improves overall running form. The problem is that most runners tend to do the majority of their strength-specific work in the gym, through squats, leg extensions or arm and shoulder presses. While these exercises do increase strength and muscular power, they do it in isolation of your running, focusing on individual joints and small sets of muscles.

Hill sessions, in contrast, force the muscles in your hips, legs, ankles and feet to contract in a coordinated fashion while supporting your full body weight, just as they have to during normal running. In addition, on uphill sections your muscles contract more powerfully than usual because they are forced to overcome gravity to move you up the hill. The result is more power, which in turn leads to longer, faster running strides.

Science of hills 
Much of the science supporting hill training was carried out in Sweden, initially at the Karolinska Institute. One major study carried out on marathon runners discovered that after 12 weeks of twice-weekly hill sessions, the athletes’ running economy had improved by three per cent. Although the subjects were trained runners, that improvement would still have helped them clip as much as two minutes off a 10-mile time or six minutes off a marathon.

Other research, carried out by Dr Bengt Saltin, discovered that runners who trained on hills have much higher concentrations of aerobic enzymes – the chemicals which allow your muscles to function at high intensity for long periods without fatigue – in their quadriceps muscles than those who did all their running on flat terrain. Heightened aerobic power in your quads gives you improved knee lift while running and also accelerates each leg forward more quickly as you run, which improves your speed.

Those who run on hills have also been shown to be less likely to lose fitness when they take time off from training. And many scientists believe that hill training can improve the elasticity of muscles, tendons and ligaments, allowing these tissues to carry out more work with less effort and fatigue.

Going Up
It is the moment all runners dread. You turn the corner and right in front of you is a big, imposing hill. But don’t wince, focus. Shift gears both mentally and physically and prepare to attack the hill; don’t let it attack you. Running hills well is all about rhythm; if you let the hill break up your rhythm you will slow dramatically. But if you make the proper adjustments and maintain your cadence you’ll make molehills out of the mountains. Here’s how:

• As you start uphill, shorten your stride. Don’t try to maintain the pace you were running on the flat.
• You are aiming for equal effort going up as well as down, not equal pace. Trying to maintain the pace you were running on the flat will leave you exhausted later in the race or session.
• Take ‘baby steps’ if necessary and try to keep the same turnover rhythm that you had on the flat ground.
• Your posture should be upright – don’t lean forward or back – your head, shoulders and back should form a straight line over the feet. Keep your feet low to the ground.
• If your breathing begins to quicken it means that you’re either going too fast, over-striding or bounding too far off the ground as you run.
• Use a light, ankle-flicking push-off with each step, not an explosive motion, which will waste energy. If the hill is long or the gradient increases, keep shortening your stride to maintain a smooth and efficient breathing pattern. If the gradient decreases, extend your stride again. Try to maintain the same steady effort and breathing throughout.
• In a race, or when you’re training on a undulating course, run through the top of the hill. Don’t crest the hill and immediately slow down or pull back on your effort.
• Accelerate gradually into the downhill.

Coming Down 
Most runners make one or two obvious mistakes when running downhill. They either sprint, which causes severe muscle soreness later on, or they’re so hesitant to surrender to gravity that they’re constantly braking, which fatigues the quadriceps muscles. The optimum pace is somewhere in between. Try not to let your feet slap on the ground when you are running downhill. Step lightly and don’t reach out with your feet. Slapping can be a sign of weak muscles in the shin area, in which case you need to strengthen them. To help your downhill technique, follow these simple tips:

• Try to visualise gravity pulling you down the hill.
• Try to maintain an upright body posture, keeping your torso perpendicular to the horizontal.
• Keep your feet close to the ground for maximum control, and land lightly.
• As you increase your pace, emphasise quicker turnover rather than longer strides, though your strides can be slightly longer than normal.
• The key to efficient downhill running is to stay in control. When you start, keep your stride slightly shortened and let your turnover increase. When you feel in control, gradually lengthen your stride.
• If you start to run out of control when descending, shorten your stride until you feel you are back in control again.

Key Hill Sessions

Running hills is like doing speedwork, in effort if not in outright speed. It is hard on your body, so don’t do more than one of the following sessions per week. Hill Intervals This is the most basic and yet one of the most beneficial of sessions. Warm up with a 10- to 15-minute run and then do a set of intervals on a steep slope – it can be anywhere from 30 to 250 metres long. On the uphill section try to run at an intensity that is slightly harder than your best 5K race pace. Jog back to the foot of the hill and, when you’ve recovered, run hard up the hill again. Start with four or five intervals and gradually build up. You can increase the severity of this session by increasing the number of intervals and/or reducing the recovery time. Benefit Boosts leg-muscle power, giving you quicker, longer strides. Hard Hills For this session you need an undulating loop which includes a variety of climbs and descents, rather than a single slope. After a warm-up, start to run continuously over the rolling terrain at slightly less than 10K pace. Try to attack the hills on the climbs, building gradually to 10K race pace. Stay relaxed, balanced and under control on the downhill sections. Even if you have to loop around and double back on the same hills, try to find a route where you are constantly climbing or descending. Benefit Increases leg-muscle power, improves the fatigue-resistance of your muscles and prepares your legs for harder sessions and races. Indoor Hills If you are reading this in Lincolnshire or Holland, don’t worry, you can make your own hills with a treadmill. Again, warm up with 10 minutes of easy running, then set the treadmill to a one per cent gradient and the speed to 10-15 seconds per mile slower than your current 10K race pace. Run at this pace for five minutes then increase the gradient to five per cent and run for two more minutes at the same pace. This should force your heart rate up by 10-15 per cent, increase your oxygen consumption by 25 per cent and quicken your breathing by 35 per cent. Run easily for five minutes and then try to repeat the interval. Over time you can force yourself up to four seven-minute intervals (five minutes at one per cent, two at five per cent) and reduce your recovery to three or four minutes. Benefit Conditions you to attack on hills and makes you an explosive hill runner. Bounding up Hills After a thorough warm-up, ‘bound’ up the same hill you use for your intervals. As you run up the hill, spring from foot to foot with an exaggerated vertical body motion, bringing your knees up high and stretching the Achilles tendons fully as your feet hit the ground. To do this, land on your toes with each foot-strike and rock back onto your heel before springing upwards and forwards again. Start with four or five repetitions. To recover, jog easily down the slope. Benefit Enhances the strength and elasticity of your muscles, tendons and ligaments and makes you a more efficient runner. Group Hills One of the problems of training with any mixed-ability group is balancing the effort and recovery of each person. That’s especially the case on hills. To train effectively as a group, set off together on a moderate climb (between 50-100 metres from top to bottom). When the fastest person in the group reaches the summit of the hill, everyone turns around and jogs back to its foot, ideally reaching it at the same time. The goal if you are new to hills is to start gently and to gradually improve your position on the slope with each interval. Those running at the front should run the session as a basic hill interval session. Benefit Combines all the physical benefits of hills in a more motivating and competitive group environment. Downhill Hills Most people’s idea of hill running is only half the story. Hill sessions usually concentrate on running up hills rather than down, the implication being that downhill running is the easy part and requires no practice. In truth, efficient downhill running is a skill that will save you just as many seconds in a race as efficient uphill running.Start on a gentle slope with a stretch of flat terrain at the base. After 10 minutes of jogging, ease into the descent with a short (50-metre) burst. Build up over time to as much as 300-400 metres downhill. Focus on your technique and try to go with the natural pace of the hill, but under control. Don’t sprint down, and try to avoid the opposite situation, where you try to brake with feet and quads. You can either focus specifically on the downhill section, in which case jog or run/walk back up the slope, or combine it with another hill session and take your recovery at the base. Ideally, though, you should do your downhill training on a rolling course where you can naturally practice the transition from uphill to downhill running. Running down after a hard climb, rather than taking a breather, is one of the key skills of hill running. Benefits Conditions your legs against delayed onset muscle soreness, optimises your performance on hills

In 2013 I ran quick all the time, by quick I mean sub 4min/k average every time I put on my trainers. Be it a 10k, 21k or 30k,  my goal was to finish with a sub 4min/k average. To compound this issue I also stopped running long runs after reading an article in Runners World magazine about a training program where you would run at your marathon pace all the time. The logic was if your marathon pace became your normal pace when you were tired during the marathon you would revert to your normal ‘training pace’, which of course would be your marathon pace. The training program also recommend not running too many long runs but more runs around the 20-25k distance.

This training program yielded some good results but I sacrificed my top end speed as I wasn’t running any tempo or threshold runs, just lots of sub 4min/k’s. Raf from the Running Centre (http://therunningcentre.com.au ) picked me up on this on Strava  ( http://www.strava.com ) and recommended I try a 10k threshold at least once a week,  just to break the monotony of running the same pace for every run. I was surprised when I tried to add pace as I struggled and my 10k times weren’t that quicker than my ‘normal’ pace. Something was amiss and I was found out at the Bunbury Marathon in 2014 when I blew up after leading the race for the first 10k. I admit there was also some mental problems as I was defending my marathon title after winning (my only marathon victory) in 2013.  I had gone out at my 10k pace truth be told and at 15k my race was finished. I met Raf afterwards, in the hotel spa of all places,  and he could sense my disappointment of finishing 4th in a time of 2hrs54mins, when I aiming for a sub 2hr40min finish truth be told.

For the rest of 2014 I struggled on (Bunbury was in April) and although I  managed 2hrs 46mins at the Perth Marathon I never managed to reach the heights I had reached in 2013. Something needed to change and in January 2015 I was taken under Raf’s wings and given a program for the Perth marathon, my first training program at the ripe old age of 48. The first 3-4 months were harder than I expected as I really struggled with the top end pace work. The steady and long runs were do able but my top end pace just wasn’t there. Over time I did improve of course thanks to Raf’s coaching skills but all the good work was undone by a slight stress fracture  just before the Perth marathon. (Picked up on the last steady run , a week out ! Always the way ?)  I ran a 2hrs49mins, 9th place finish, but Raf had me in better condition than that but the injury played on my mind.

After Perth Raf gave me another training plan for the City to Surf marathon in August and I stuck to this one and ran a good time for a 4th place but more importantly a strong race and strong finish. My first good marathon for over a year. Although I enjoyed working with Raf I was time constrained by my family, work, life etc, the runners quandary. I decided for 2016 to take what Raf had taught me and adapt my training accordingly.

I think the most important thing Raf taught me was there is no such thing as ‘junk miles‘, every kilometre you run is doing you some good, at whatever pace. This to me was a ‘lightning bolt’ moment as I was so use to running every run as a tempo and finishing with nothing left in the tank. I just didn’t run slow, ever ! The first few runs I ran at a slow pace I was questioned on Stava by my running friends as to whether I was injured, such was the disbelieve that I could run anything bar sub 4min/k’s. I must admit the first few times it felt alien and I had to really work hard to run slow. Raf introduced me to the Maffetone training method  ( https://philmaffetone.com , I have mentioned this a few times on the blog.) and I was off building my foundation for the success which was to come in 2016.

Fast forward to the Perth marathon of 2016 and I just about ran a negative split and was 2 minutes quicker than the previous year. (You can read the post regarding Perth 2016 on my new website http://www.fitfastfifty.com ; http://fitfastfifty.com/index.php/2017/01/25/perth-marathon-2016/  ) After Perth I added the double days and the PB’s came tumbling down and my confidence returned in spades. I managed to drop my 5k, 10k, 16k,21k and 50k PB times and by quite a chunk each time. So how did I do it ? Basically I slowed down, ran more and raced more. It really was (is) that simple. Taking what Raf taught me, reading Matt Fitzgerald’s books and a sprinkling of Maffetone added to the mix and hey presto.

Thanks to Strava (in Strava we trust) you can see how this slowing down is trending on my 10k go-to run of choice. (see below) Over time you can clearly see my running average pace for the 10k is slowing but in the same period I have ran probably 10 PB’s, so there is a correlation of slowing down to speeding up when you put a bib on your chest. Of course I have added distance and more time on my feet into the equation, combined with racing more but the slowing down is a factor.

It really is a case of slowing down to speed up.