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Does anyone have any links to good articles about how to look after your body and keep running well post menopause? My mum was getting very annoyed at herself today for not managing a hill which she has done before and having to walk bits she normally wouldn't etc. I think she probably needs more rest days, but she won't believe me. I think reading something from women her own age might help. 

Fwiw, she has been running for less than a year and is regularly knocking out 6 and 7km runs. She is absolutely fine! But she won't take it from me! Lol

Dr. Louise Newson is the current flavour of the month for all things menopausal. She has a new app out which maybe why she’s getting a lot of press at the moment.
https://www.menopausedoctor.co.uk/
https://balance-app.com
 

I can sympathise with your Mum. Some women sail through the menopause, others don’t and it’s hard. First rule is be kind to yourself and listen to your body.

Is your Mum on Instagram?

There’s really not an awful lot on information about on exercise and training on the post-menopausal body.

Plenty of advice on stuff like dealing with hot flushes (wear layers - no shit sherlock) and products and supplements which may or may not have an effect on any symptoms, but not a whole lot on actually doing active stuff and how our bodies might be different now.

I've just starting reading Roar by Stacy Sims, a training guide for women - it's got a big chapter on menopause. 

British Cycling did this (I appreciate it's not running but some crossover!):

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/scotland/article/20210311--SCTalks--Cycli...

Uphill Athlete (website;podcasts) is good for all aspects of training and the importance of rest (but their female podcasts haven't covered menopause). 

I agree that there doesn't seem to be much info out there on menopause and endurance exercise.

I’m not post menopausal (wrong sex) but I am 70 next birthday and I find there’s no such thing as an easy run any more - any running motion however gentle my legs think it is, produces stressed breathing and high hr. 
And even gentle inclines need careful planning and, occasionally, walk breaks (generally at the point where walking seems quicker!)

Sorry if that’s not encouraging, i harbour a suspicion that the answer is to train more but the bossy bit in my Garmin keeps telling me my recovery time is 3 days, after a 6k run.

Well done to your mum for keeping it up though!

MrsPete started running in earnest 10 years ago when parkrun came to town. Aged 58. Some achilles problems early on made for slow initial progress but for most of the time since she consistently scores a higher percentage than me, who started 40 years ago. She has been complaining about being slow for the last month or so - but today was faster than last week which was faster than the week before...

I ran well today, given that I raced 10 miles on Thursday, and scored 70.7% - she got 76% and was surprised when I pointed that out! She is definitely post-menopausal and runs 5k 3 times a week with a 10k on Sundays.

Any chance your mum is short of iron, B12 or vitamin D?

I am fuelled on HRT, which is fantastic and makes the world a safer place. It means I don't feel post-menopausal at all, but I do feel a bit old (58). I suspect I get short iron now and then, as tiredness levels fluctuate.

Thanks for all the suggestions folks. Very helpful. Good starting points for finding out more

As others have said, there's not a great deal out there on this.  Many sources of information that mention exercise focus on the benefits to health of doing a moderate amount of activity and exercise, rather than training, racing etc.

Stacy Simms, as mentioned, is an exception.  I also saw this article recently:

https://www.runnersworld.com/women/a20856097/menopause-and-running-what-you...

I think much of it is really about how the menopause manifests itself.  Having major trouble sleeping might have a different effect than particularly bad hot flushes. I think that's partly why a lot of the information out there seems so useless (to me).  There's a lot of 'it could be like this' and 'some people find this'. 

Thanks for sharing that article, Cath.  That’s exactly the sort of information I’ve been looking out for.  

So much of the menopausal exercise info available seems to be of the “walk for 20 mins, 3 times a week and maybe go to a yoga class” variety and doesn’t address the issues that those of us who are already more active than that might want to know about (how to improve, how not to get injured, what changes might we need to make to optimise this).

On an anecdotal and purely personal level, I started taking a daily Vit D supplement at age 50, not for menopausal reasons, but because I live at 59 degrees north and it’s just not possible to get sufficient daylight to produce enough all year round.  There is also a higher than normal incidence of M S in the community and the suspicion that Vit D deficiency might be linked.  And I reckoned it would do me no harm.

What happened was an almost immediate improbable of my mood, far more stable and less prone to irritability.  Could be coincidence but for the sake of an inexpensive supplement, it’s worth a try.  If it helps protect against loss of bone density then that’s a bonus

I haven't read through these, but I generally find the rest of this blog helpful so they may well be worth digging in to: https://www.fionaoutdoors.co.uk/category/menopause-matters

Yes, I've found the same with the stuff that's been written about menopause and exercise. 

I'm generally quite wary about supplements but the one I do take is a small daily dose of vitamin D, as the evidence looks pretty strong.  I'm not entirely sure how it's affected me really because I only started taking it a month or so before all this covid malarkey kicked off.  And at the time I was recovering from some weird viral thing that had really floored me for about a month or so. Anyway, given the context I'm reluctant to infer that the vitamin D is the reason I've not had a cold in 12 months!