A Brokendown Hero Is Something To Be!

All of my running idols are old crippled people like me now. Frank Shorter has to have injections of cartilage from rooster combs in his knees every few months to keep upright. Sally Edwards, with disks like mine, now runs only twice a week, and does all that other cross training stuff. Bill Rodgers went thru a broken leg from stepping off a curb, and then a bout of prostate cancer. Alberto Salazar had a massive heart attack, died, and was brought back to the living. Dick Beardsley had a knee replacement and spinal fusion. Course, he was aided in his crotchetiness by getting eaten by a thrasher down on the farm. Point is, I REALLY have to try and keep this running stuff limited now that I am trying to come back from the broken leg stuff and the damn disk crap. Now, since I really don't see myself racing anymore (if you can't really train properly, you shouldn't try to race!), I need to set the bar low and figure out what I want to accomplish and how doable it is! Here are my more recent thoughts. A modest goal is to try and do a 10K faster than my age! I gave up marathoning when I went from 3:10 to not being able to run under 4 hours any more. I gave up the half when I went from running 1:27:30 to more than two hours. Now, the 10K has gone from 37:54 to 56:30 (Rite Aid 2009), and it appears that at age 59 soon, 59 minutes may be difficult but doable. My 5 mile pr is 29:56, and soon, a 5k might approach that time. And at 17:45 for 5k, well, there just is no real distance any more to race around in that time frame. So, here is my plan for trying to keep my 10k time under my age. I will try and run 4 times a week, with one of those on the treadmill and the other three on dirt. To aid in recovery, I will do 4 miles easy on the treadmill on monday morning along with the usual weight stuff. I will run outdoors on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings. In those three runs I will try and accomplish these three eventual workouts. A long run of 8 miles, where the last 2 or 3 are a progression run where I try and pick up to what the corresponding 1/2 marathon pace would be (not that i am ever gonna run one again) based on a performance equivalency chart. a 7 mile run where I try to run three one mile intervals (or 3 or 4 miles steady) at projected 10K pace equal to my pace time necessary to run my age. And a 6 mile run including short fartlek intervals just to try and wake up my muscles and increase my leg turnover. Just thirty or forty second intervals done by counting the number of strides. I can't do real traditional speed work anymore, because all it does is injure me. I will utilize the heart rate monitor to see if these paces fall into ranges that will allow this task to be accomplished. Now those workouts are all aways away currently. Now once that goal is no longer possible, I will move down to the 5k and try and stay below half my age. after I lose that battle, well, I will just have to come up with something completely different to have as a motivational goal......maybe just to stay alive!!