“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
– Goethe

 

The Quad Rock is getting closer and training is coming along slowly. Too slow for my likes but what are you going to do about it? Now that I am a few years over the age of 50 I find that recovery takes a lot longer than when I was younger. Doing heavy workouts day after day can take a toll when you are 25 to say the least but when you are 53 it can be a recipe for injury. Last year was an OK year but could have been better. I did remain injury free until about the middle of August, but then I suffered an insult to my left knee. I believe it was due to over training and not enough rest. This year I am trying to train a lot smarter.

Last year’s late season injury started after a successful run at the Silver Rush 50 in Leadville. There I had improved my time by one and half hours in the 50 mile distance. For me that was huge. Riding on the euphoria from this race, I was really looking forward to another successful run at the Run Rabbit Run in September at Steamboat Spring. I took about 10 days off after the Silver Rush and was feeling pretty good when I started back training. This was around the first of August. After the personnel best at the Silver Rush, I really wanted to nail the RRR. So I had it in my mind that more training equals better performance and maybe that might have been true when I was 25. The reality was that I needed to train smarter, not harder.

While finishing a great trail run behind Fort Collins, I decided to push the last few miles a little harder than usual. And it was that decision coupled with a lot of running the weeks before that started the cascade. After the run my left knee hurt a little but nothing too painful. That should have been the first warning sign to back off. But did I listen to my body, nope, told myself that I needed to run the next day and besides the weather was beautiful. That next morning my knee was still hurting, so I told myself that I would still get out and run – but just make it an easy one. I told myself the same thing the next day and the next. Just do an easy run when what I really needed was rest for a few days. Not only did I not listen to the continued soreness in my knee, I was not getting a lot of sleep – telling myself that I would make it up later. The interesting thing was the knee soreness never really got any worse it just persisted – until about a week later. Well you can probably fill in the rest of the story. Sad to say but it took a good month and a half for it to heal.

So when I started training this year I wanted to do it smarter and just by chance one morning my wife told me about a new book that had just come out, called “FAST AFTER 50” by Joe Friel. Joe used to write an exercise column for the Fort Collins Coloradoan years ago when we first moved to Colorado and being an enthusiastic reader of the column back then – I immediately looked it up on Amazon. Man am I glad that I did. Since his early days in Fort Collins Joe has written and coauthored several books on training and nutrition for the endurance athlete. This new book shows that experience and the research that has taken place in the last 20 years on the older athlete. I am now into my second reading of the book and that is saying a lot. I cannot recommend this book enough. Especially if you are over the age of 50. I would even go as far as to say if you are over 30 then this book can help you. It is for all endurance athletes. Easy to read and easy to apply the principles in training.

Funny – I am not a religious man or even what you would consider a spiritual one but sometimes the “Universe” moves in strange ways. I wasn’t even looking for a new book on training, especially one for the older athlete – denial has always been one of my go to defenses against getting older. I just figured I would look through some of my older books and magazines on running, and see what I could learn and relearn about proper training. But there it was – the door opened – and just what I needed was offered up by the “Universe.” Crazy! I will keep everyone updated with how the training is going over the next several months. This year’s races are: Quad Rock in May, the Leadville 100 in August and the Run Rabbit Run September. Depending on how my training is going and how I feel I might add the Silver Rush 50 in July. But that might just be wishful thinking…. My mother had a saying when she was in her elder years: “Old age is not for Sissies” and she was right.

Well that is all for me this week. The pictures are from running the last few days. The top one is in the Running Deer Open Space looking west towards Long’s Peak, the second one is the Pelican Marsh Open Space and the third one with the Mule Deer is off of the Poudre River trail – all in the city limits of Fort Collins. Hope to see you out there!!