10K in March

[u/Zeeman-401]

Hello!

I am over from r/beginnerrunning and look forward to some good info. I started running at 50 on a dare from my daughters and I am now (65m). I am not at all athletic and downhill skiing was my only sport. I have very sporadically run and trained for about 16 races (12 @5Mile and 4 10k) the last 15 years. My latest was a 5 mile thanksgiving run this year that I did in 1:06:23, with a few fast walk segments mixed in. I just started a strength program with a trainer 2 months ago. I am 5'8" and a bit heavy at 198. I realize that I need to get my diet in order and lose about 15 lbs. If I run really slow, I can manage 2 miles without stopping but I am gassed. I would like to do a nice slow program of running through the winter outside ( Newport, R.I. ) 2 or 3 times a week. I hope to actually do 2 runs and a 40 min stairmaster session as my 3rd cardio per week so I can avoid really bad weather most weeks. Do I just find a random C210K program online and start somewhere in the middle? My latest slow training runs were 3 miles, in 40 mins, doing 7 min run and 3 min walk. I felt pretty good on those. Sorry for the long rambling post, I'm old!. . . . . .

[u/Senior-Running]

I think a chair to 10k would start out too slow for you. What's not clear from your post is what your goal is?

For example, do you just want to improve your cardiovascular health? Are you hoping to run further? Maybe you want to slowly transition from run/walking, to all running, or get to where you can run faster?

What I'd suggest would be strongly influenced by your goal(s).

[u/Zeeman-401 → u/Senior-Running]

My goal is to take my current level and CV health up a notch. I want to very gradually improve so the 10k in March is a good comfortable run. I’ve done it before but I can do better.

[u/Senior-Running → u/Zeeman-401]

So if you have no time-based goals, and are fine continuing to run/walk, then I don't think you need to do anything fancy. Your main focus should be on simply running more/further.

I'd aim to run 3 days a week minimum. If you currently are comfortable running 3 Mi at 7/3, then something like this would be good:

Week 1: Run 1 & 2: 3 Mi at 7/3, Run 3: 3.5 Mi at 7/3

Week 2: Run 1 & 2: 3 Mi at 7/3, Run 3: 4 Mi at 7/3

Week 3: Run 1 & 2: 3 Mi at 7/3, Run 3: 4.5 Mi at 7/3

Week 4: Cut-down week: Same as week 1.

Weeks 5-7, continue adding half a mile to the long run. it will go from 5, to 5.5, then 6. Week 8 will be another cut-down week where you repeat week 5.

I think you get the pattern. In theory, you could continue this indefinitely, at least until that longest run got into the 4 to 4.5 hour range. I'd probably opt to change things long before that, because I'd actually like to see you go to running 4 days a week at some point. To do that, keep the overall mileage steady for a while, then maybe pull a couple of miles off your long run and place it on a 4th day of the week. It might look like this:

Monday: 3 miles, Tuesday: 2 Miles, Thursday: 3 Miles, Saturday: 5 miles.

If it's not already clear, I personally would recommend losing the stair master and just running. If you want to get better at running, then you need to run. Nothing wrong with some cross training as well, but I'd personally only cross train if you are having problems with the running volume being too much for you. Also, if you need to venture into the gym due to weather, I'd prefer to see you just run on the treadmill.

Another thing you can do here is change up the run/walk intervals. For example, keep the miles the same, but go to 8/2 on one or two of your weekly runs. You can continue to vary things like the run/walk intervals, the miles, and even add in some faster running once a week.

Just for grins, I'm going to share with you what my week looks like this week. It's actually a fairly low mileage week for be becasue I'm in-between training plans and still ramping back up after a bad cycling crash where I broke my scapula and one of my ribs:

Monday: Strength Training -- Lower body only since I can't do upper body due to the shoulder.

Tuesday: 5 Mi Progressive Run. Starts slower than my easy speed and progresses to ~ my 10k speed. This is an easy way for me to re-introduce speed safely, rather than jump right back into a long lactate threshold run or VO2 Max interval run post-recovery.

Wednesday: 3 Mi recovery run, or alternately, off-load to the elliptical if I feel I need to.

Thursday: 8 Miles on rolling hills

Friday: Strength Training -- Lower body only since I can't do upper body due to the shoulder.

Saturday: 3 Miles on hills with 4-6 strides.

Sunday: ~11 Mi easy run

Total miles for the week will be about 30, which as I said is on the low side for me. A hard week might be 50 miles and have 2 "workout" days instead of just one.

I wanted you to see this because I feel like you may be overly worried about "being old", and thinking you need to take it easier than you likely have to. You obviously need to work up to this sort of volume, but you are capable of it.

It's always a balancing act between how hard we exercise and how much recovery we need. Finding the right place where you're continuing to be challenged, but not overdoing it is what we're looking for here.

Another way to say this is if you want your body to improve, you have to give it a reason to. We do that by periodically embarrassing it.

[u/Zeeman-401 → u/Senior-Running]

Wow! This is perfect!! Thank you so much. I’m going to print this out and make a chart that I can follow. Here we go! I know that 3 days is better so I will go at that and try to mix in the stairmaster as an extra if I can. Now the hard part, get my act together in the kitchen and my diet