This question is for those OVER 50 who have MANY years of endurance sports training under their belt.
How have your recovery needs changed? What additional protocol do you build in to your programs to avoid burnout, staleness, injury etc. yet maintain the quality component needed to offset the ravages of the aging clock? This query is best posed for those who have many years and decades of endurance sports training behind them (let’s say 20 or more), not for those just starting in the past few years with “fresh legs”. Do you focus more on the recovery side, or on the key workouts side? How do you you assess your readiness to resume hard training or key workouts (leg weariness, soreness, other overtraining indicators). Much of what we read on the Forum and elsewhere, is really not focused towards the Veteran athlete. The world was a lot different at age 30!
I’ll be 47 in 2 weeks, so I’m close to qualifying. My history is that I used to do a lot of endurance sports (marathon, triathlon) in the 80’s but only running since then. Recovery, as you point out, is probably the biggest difference between the young legs and now. In a nutshell, I don’t do the same workout two days in a row. If I swim on monday, I wait until wednesday or my shoulders hurt. If I bike on tuesday, don’t do it again until thursday. If I have a real strenuous weekend ride, it might take 2 days or more to recover. I never, ever run 2 days in a row. I’m more attentive to soreness with ice now and definitely a lot more stretching is needed. I take MSM/Glocosomin/Condroiton faithfully and I think it helps. Definitely need the support of my wife and training friends as the number of people that train hard dwindles over 35. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
The care and feeding of a body over 50, not to mention over 55, is vastly different than one under 50. Lots more rest and recovery has to be built into the schedule. Fewer double workout days. More OFF days. Fewer of those non-essential training sessions. Concentrate on 6 key training session per week and only do more if your body is feeling strong and unstressed. Don’t compare times and logs from years ago to what you’re doing now. You’ll only depress yourself. Plan on a longer, easier off-season and longer, more gradual build phase. No “epic” days or weeks. The price you’ll pay is way too high. Fewer races with more focus on the ones that really matter. More massages. More sleep. And keep in mind how very many more miles, hours, days, weeks, months and years of training those pups in the younger age groups still have to put in to get where we are today!!
Keep hammering…even if it’s a more subdued hammering!
Frank
I’m 51 with 25+ marathons and a lot although fewer triathlons, been training and mostly running for about 30 years. I think the biggest change for me is to be more careful about consecutive hard training days. I have tried to do more quality such as riding at tempo pace, stretching and core/abdominal workouts at the gym, riding up long hills etc- theory is that I have such a huge aerobic base I don’t need so many 3 hour runs to finish a marathon. I have also been injured more and have to be smarter about my back than I was 10 years ago.
Problem is I LOVE those long, slow efforts and I don’t like speed work on the track or riding w/ HR @155+ for 20 mins…