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As someone who can run at a pretty competitive pace, speed isn't everything. I notice that operating at the top competitive levels of most sports tends to destr
by vanilla_nut 3y ago
As someone who can run at a pretty competitive pace, speed isn't everything. I notice that operating at the top competitive levels of most sports tends to destroy your body pretty quickly -- lots of stress injuries, sprains, accidents, etc, simply because you're pushing it so hard so often. When I really tried to push it, I could go faster and further... at the expense of actually enjoying myself.
I trail run in a much more relaxed way now -- enough to get a good workout, but definitely not as competitively as I used to road run. I've also picked up trail biking, and it's been SUCH a relief to just not think about my speed. I focus more on the experience of enjoying nature and I feel like that's a much healthier place to be. You can still push it occasionally, but there's a really pleasant niche at 60-80% of your max capacity! I also get the opportunity to share the sport with friends who aren't quite as speedy as me; turns out it's more fun to be social during an activity than to push myself.
And I have to say: at 53, even 4 hours is very very respectable. Try to remember that these things are first and foremost hobbies that are supposed to be fun!
- dougSF70 3y agoAt the age of 52 I ran my first marathon, not an organized race, I just picked a day, trained and ran it with a friend (an Ultra runner) who paced me round. I will never be fast but the sense of accomplishment of even a 10k or a 5k makes running such great form of exercise for the reasonably fit person.
- teach 3y agoI ran my first half marathon earlier this year; I am 48. I'm slow but before two years ago I'd never run so much as a 5k. I would like to run a full marathon someday but I have no desire to run "quickly" for such a distance; I honestly think the training for that would leave me in worse shape than I am now.
- dougSF70 3y agoIt can be done with 16 weeks of training, 3 runs a week 10k, 15k, 20-25k. Each run you just need to train running the last 5k at a faster pace.
- ramblerman 3y agoare those the total distance per week, or per run?
- TedDoesntTalk 3y agoCan you elaborate on this or do you have a link to more info?
- dougSF70 3y agoIf you are on strava , you can see my training log.
- zimpenfish 3y ago> I have no desire to run "quickly" for such a distance Don't run it "quickly" then. I know a bunch of people who are normally in the 5:30-6:15 range for a marathon (and several of them are well into the multi-100s of marathons run). If you have "6 hour" runs[1] near you, they're probably a good option for working up to / slowly doing a marathon. [1] Run as many laps as you want in 6 hours. Handy for slow marathons because you know there'll be people around for at least 7 hours. Handy for bailing at a half / 10k / etc. since you can't DNF after you've done one lap.
- mbesto 3y ago> You can still push it occasionally, but there's a really pleasant niche at 60-80% of your max capacity! Also, there's tons of studies that show elite endurance athletes train at Zone 1/2 (60-80% of VO2 Max) for 80%~90% of their training.