Going For It at Sixty

I'm having a great time running at age 60. I've run three half marathon P.R.s over the past year, and I'm going for another just past my upcoming 61st birthday. As stated before, I never ran a half marathon until age 58, so it's the event I can still set a P.R. with. Certainly I'll no longer run faster than the 4:01.0 1500-meter as I did at age 20, but I'm excited to try and break 1:40:00 next month at the Oakland Running festival in the half marathon.

Recently I completed a 62-mile week in the buildup to my next half marathon. This is the most I've run in a week since I was a kid on the UMass Amherst track team. Now, with the next half marathon race 3.5 weeks away, I'm a week into doing faster than race pace workouts.

This Sunday past I had an exhilirating experience running fartlek from Miwok Meadows over the trails of China Camp State Park in San Rafael CA. Heck, I was going to go easy that day, on the out-and-back 8-mile run I'd scheduled. But coming back, I found myself just throwing it down and blasting through the woods! Running fast and free, it felt effortless!

Was I thinking of mountain lions??? Maybe! But I conclude that increasing my training volume over the past several months has paid off. I can reach deep into a reserve of strength I've developed and sustain a quick pace at will. I can't wait to test myself over upcoming races! I'll be sure to report here at The Grumpy Runner on the results.