[ryanoelke]

As a person more geared for middle distance, tempo runs felt intimidating at first, but I’ve grown to love them. One, I don’t think any workout has taught me as much about pacing as the tempo workouts. They’re long enough for me to get in a groove, and also let me intuitively focus on form. Hard enough, but my eye balls aren’t popping out.

Today I did the beastly 2 x 16mins @ tempo and I nailed it. My pacing for each of the miles in the two sets were only off by 1-2 seconds. I did look at my watch to check myself, but I felt pretty good on staying even. Funny enough, my second interval felt really good, better and smoother than the first!

That I was able to do this workout, feel pretty good, not feeling injuries or obliterated the rest of the day, is mind blowing, compared to how I felt and where I was 6 months ago.

Anyways, gratitude to the 8020 team and the community 🙂

[Charles]

I agreed, it is an important and satisfying workout.

I had a problem with it last fall with the 5k plan where it falls into a five day period along with 10k and 5k race pacing intervals. There is simply insufficient time for recovery.

I’m an older runner and an outlier, but I aim seeing more young runners going to a longer micro cycle to make sure there is a at least a couple of days between key workouts. In my case I am using the 80/20 workout library and a 10-day microcycle to meet my needs and I am feeling better.

[ryanoelke]

oh yeah, I said the hell with that 10k + 5k back-to-back pacing workouts! I had a consult with Leyla and I’m like, ‘hey, I think there’s an error in the plan’ and she said nope, that’s how it is. So instead I’m doing a 90 minute endurance run on Sunday, then the 5k pacing workout on Tuesday. Even still, sometimes with a tough workout like that, I’ll need to rest a few days, skip a workout.

I’m 44 going on 45, plus still really building up a solid foundation and making sure I don’t get injured, so I don’t mind at all now adjusting my plan on the fly. For the 5k 2 level plan I’m not doing the full volume/all the workouts because it would be too much. Swapping out 1 for indoor cycling. But looking to add in more of it in the next round.

I like the idea of a 10-day cycle. I’m feeling more fluent with 80/20, understanding workouts, and listening to my body. I might have to explore that later this year. Are you crunching the math to get an 80/20-ish split on your cycles?

[Charles]

I’m 30 years your senior…

I don’t doubt that the 80/20 plans are effective for youngsters, but the reality is the hormonal changes as we age – recovery takes longer. Yet, it is even more important to get the miles in and train at intensity to stimulate natural hormones for older athletes. That’s why dropping to a lower level plan doesn’t seem to work for me – I tried.

I’m using the 80/20 workouts from the subscription library. They are designed around the 80/20 zones.

I’ve also started working with a personal coach who provides a general structure for a longer microcycle and periodic feedback to prepare for my next race. It’s more fluid than 80/20 periodization and I recognize the 80/20 principles in the periodization. I just haven’t done the math.

[ryanoelke]

You are mighty impressive, my friend! Here in Asheville, we have some seriously impressive age groupers, and most of all, older athletes. I had someone around your age beating me up until the very end of a 5k, passed him with about .5 miles to go, and he cheered ME on, saying ‘they’re slowing down up front, go get them’ and I’ll I thought was, DUDE, you are amazing! I figured he’d catch me back 😛

Well, I’m logging your tips for the years to come!

[Charles]

Here’s a tip. Learn humility.

In a similar situation I got out kicked by a 13 year old girl last fall on a 5k trail run. She earned that win, and we both had fun.

[ryanoelke]

Oh yeah, humility is good stuff here and honestly unavoidable in my local races and where my time is at 😛 One example was a 5k in December, and it was definitely not as fast as group compared to some of the others, I finished 13 overall, I got beat by a 9 year-old and 7 kids between the ages of 11-15. Other races I had both young folks, but also people in their 60s even 70s beat me. So yeah, ain’t no option but to keep humble! But really, I just find all these folks super inspiring. Helps me to stick to it!

Partly helps that I didn’t do squat more or less much of my adult life, so I’m starting slow, so mainly racing against myself, but happily setting PRs every race until I finally hit my ceiling 😛

[Author]

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