Running and training has been going really well for me the last few months especially. I have been running times I didn’t even dream of because I never thought they would be possible for me at 41 years old.
Tempo paces of 6:30 min/mi was often my standard over my career. I thought I would be really amazing if I could get down to 6:20s for tempo work, but just this past couple of weeks, tempo paces of 6:15/6:10 have been in the wheelhouse! In the past, I was doing good if I ran 800 meter repeats around 3:00–or dipped right under 3:00–per interval, but now I can do 800 meter repeats in the low 2:50s.
In some ways, I’m not sure what I’ve done differently. I’ve worked my butt off for the past 10 years (even 15 years) to better myself and improve my running times. So it isn’t that suddenly I’ve been super consistent with my training or anything.
When I reflect back on it, there are definitely a handful of things I have done differently this year, so I wanted to highlight them in this post in case they could help someone else. Having solid, consistent training cycles built upon each other, year after year, is by far the most important piece for bettering yourself and your times as a runner. But I have been near my peak for a few years now, so trying to find that little bit of extra edge finally happened this year.
Here are 7 things I’ve done that may have contributed to me being the fastest I have at 41 years old:
Lower Mileage
I have always been a high mileage runner, running 60-70 miles in the off-season and 80-100 miles when preparing for a marathon. But my coach has really scaled my mileage back to about 50 miles during the spring and early summer. As the marathon has approached, she has increased my millage to 60-70 miles per week, but that is still quite a bit of decrease compared to what I typically do. She’s kept the intensity high while reducing some of my mileage. In the past, I do think the increased mileage helped me get faster and build my aerobic volume, but maybe this is what I needed at my age now as a master’s runner.
Creatine
Earlier this year, I started hearing more about creatine and the benefits of it for athletes. I decided to try it myself and started taking a creatine supplement during the spring. I take the Muscle Health Plus from Previnex, which does have more than creatine. Besides creatine, it also has HMB and BCAAs, which also helps with recovery, and I have definitely noticed that I can recover in two days before my next hard workout. I even had a 12 mile tempo workout one Friday, ran easy on Saturday, and then did a 23 mile marathon-paced workout on Sunday, and I crushed both of the workouts. I am doing a lot of other things right: eating enough and getting good sleep, but I do think this Muscle Health Plus is also helping.
Strides
I incorporate a lot more strides at the end of my weekly runs. I will do 6-8 x 20 second strides at the end of an easy run once or twice a week. I’ve noticed my leg turnover has gotten a lot faster, and I feel a lot more smooth with my form because of these.
Speed Workouts
I have also spent a lot more time on the track this spring and summer doing short speed workouts. No matter what distance you are training for, speed is never a bad thing. I’ve done workouts like 10 x 200 meters, 14 x 400 meters, and shorter tempo reps like 12 x 3 minutes with a short 60 second rest. The other thing I do often is try to do is end the intervals faster than what I started them at. So this means each workout has a slight progression in it.
Protein
I’ve always known the importance of protein, but in the past I haven’t always been good about getting it. I’ve been much more diligent in making sure to have a protein source at every meal and a meat source at two of my three main meals. I have dabbled with a vegan/vegetarian diet, but I find it extremely hard to get enough protein (even when being diligent). So I aim to have a protein source at every meal, and I usually have a protein snack in the afternoon as well. I did make two reels on Instagram, highlighting what I eat in a day while marathon training, you can see them HERE and HERE.
Breathing issues (Exercised Induced Laryngeal Obstruction – EILO)
For over 20 years, I have had this ‘breathing issue’ that would come on at the tail end of a hard workout or race–any time I was pushing myself hard. Over all these years, I just chalked it up as being something I had to deal with and something I had because I was pushing myself so hard. I didn’t know anyone else who dealt with this and anytime I brought it up to friends/other runners, they didn’t have any suggestions for me. But finally this summer, I had a race I really suffered and ran a lot slower than I should have and finally had had enough. I posted some stories on Instagram for help, and my followers really stepped up! I had many people suggest exercise-induced asthma, but I had been testing for that back in college, and I had tried an albuterol inhaler, but I found no relief. The other suggestion that several people had was a condition called Exercised Induced Laryngeal Obstruction (EILO), and after researching it more, this sounded exactly like what I was experiencing. I was able to get confirmation from a doctor, and luckily after speaking to a few different people and reading how to fix it, I was able to train myself how to control my breathing, and I haven’t had it flare up in a couple months now. I really think keeping my breathing under control has allowed me to push myself harder at the end of workouts.
Arm Carriage
This year I’ve been challenged a bit on proper running form. I thought I knew what proper running form should be, but then I came across an Instagram account called The Balanced Runner, and his approach has me thinking about each person’s running form in an entirely different way. I also listened to him on a podcast, and he said something to the effect that in every other sport, we work on our technique and try to improve our form, why wouldn’t we do that with running. So the one thing that it seems he has almost everyone do is carry their arms/hands much higher. Ever since I was a freshman in high school, I have always carried my hands down by my hips. But since making this switch to a higher arm carriage, I have noticed I feel a lot smoother with my gait and like I am exerting less energy when I’m running.
I can’t conclude this post without giving a lot of props to my coach, Nichole, for her expertise in coaching. I know another piece of this new level of fitness is in a great deal because of her. I’ve worked with Nichole on and off for 10 years, and she has always taken my running to a new level every time I work with her. I am not sure how she has this intuition to write the workouts I need, but she has really nailed it this spring/summer and now this fall.
So as I approach the marathon on Saturday, I am so grateful for how much progress I have made at 41 years old. I don’t take a single day of running for granted and being able to do this at my age. I truly already feel like I’ve won and gotten so much out of this year of running. Now the cherry on the top would be a really strong, solid performance on Saturday at the Indianapolis Marathon!
