Sub 2:00 Half Marathon thread (Read 2396 times)

Zelanie and Wolfwalker - Hope you guys had some great races this morning.

I ran a local 15K club race this morning.  Weather was PERFECT.  51 degrees, partly cloudy, light breeze, pretty much ideal conditions.

Only problem was I was working hard not to race it.  I have had this in my plan as a Marathon Pace Tempo run for a long time now.  I was supposed to run at my Marathon Pace which is 8:45, and I did pretty well keeping myself in check, ended up running it at an 8:28 avg pace.

The crazy thing is that last year this same race was my big litmus test to see if I was capable of running a sub 2 hour half marathon.  I was shooting for a 9:00 avg pace last year and gave it everything I had.  It was a warm windy day and between some allergy issues and a few other excuses, I bombed the race last year and ended up running it at a 9:27 avg pace.  I even ended up walking up a couple hills at mile 6 and mile 8.  Just two weeks after that terrible experience, the weather Gods shined down on my Half Marathon with some great conditions and I was able to pull off my sub 2 hour goal.  So don't get too discouraged if you have a bad run a few weeks before your big goal race, just put it behind you and keep working toward your goal.

My HRM has been messing up lately and it didn't work so I'm not sure what it would have told me, but I felt pretty good the entire run and didn't ever struggle or anything.  Pretty much what my other marathon pace tempo runs have been like.  I was supposed to run 2 miles before the race and 7 miles after, but I only ended up getting in 1 mile before the race and 4 miles after so just 14 for the day.  I will probably add a couple miles to tomorrows run to try to make up for it.

My streak hit triple digits yesterday and is now at 101 consecutive days.  Total mileage is 797.2 for an average of 7.9 miles per day.  I think my shortest run in the streak is 2 miles and most weeks I have an easy 3 miler in there that is my "rest" day.  Still probably going to intentionally break the streak sometime coming up, but I'm going to try to keep it going at least another couple weeks.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  Nathan

Jan-  So how's the hip feel today?  Hopefully you're cured!  (good call avoiding ice.  That would be asking for trouble) My legs felt better today, thanks.  Not great but much better.  And you're right about the 10k which I ran this morning.  Short RR below.  How'd your DS do in his matches?

Zelanie and Wolf-  May the Force be with you!

keeponrunning-  I also imagine that you'd be strengthening muscles that might get ignored with running.  Me?  I'd break every bone in my body if I were to try ice skating.  Hockey would be the death of me.  Wait, are we talking ice hockey?  I am but now I'm thinking it could be grass hockey......

Edith-  Did I tell you I had a smoothie after I read your post the other day?  I thought, 'hmmmm, what an excellent idea!" and it was.  So glad you didn't die in the heat!  Ok, now I'm going to try and channel ilanarama for pace advice.  I think you've improved since your Sept HM however you have low mileage.  What training plan did you follow for your last marathon?  Compared to that training do you feel better prepared now?  I'm pretty sure you've thrown in a MLR midweek.  I'm thinking, and I'm curious to hear what docjen has to say, that you could go out at a 9:44mm (4:15) pace,  see how you feel at mile 13 and if you feel too good maybe speed up ever so slightly.  Re-evaluate every 4-5 miles after that and adjust accordingly.

Nathan-  That's crazy!  101 days!  I think it would be so hard not to race in a race.  That kind of discipline I just don't have.  See how much progress you made in only a year?  Does this affect your strategy for the marathon?  Are you still sticking with the 8:45 pace?

me-  Gotta go fix some wine and cheese but I'll be back soon to write a short RR..............

docjen-  Nice run!  I hope that forecast holds true.  That would be practically perfect.

RR TLDR:  48:54

RR:  The weather was perfect:  around 52 at the start, winds at 4mph, clear.  Gorgeous.  The race was in Fairfield which has a rep for being fairly windy but not this morning.  193 ran the 10k, 552 ran the 5k.

We got there in plenty of time but somehow I couldn't manage to start my warm up in time so it was an abbreviated .75 miles with some strides.  The start was very strange in that it wasn't marked well at all.  We were told to walk "that way" and when we saw a group of people that was it.  The 'group of people' consisted of perhaps 7 other people.  Kind of made me laugh.  "Are we the only ones?',  'could be'.  The timing mats were a clue that we were in the right spot.

I will not go out faster than 7:50.  I repeat to myself over and over.  After the past couple of weeks of having dead legs and generally feeling bad, I didn't know what to expect.  I was hoping to break 50:00 but had secret dreams of a PR.  I like to dream, OK?  During my warmup my legs felt very heavy.  I wasn't really worried about it but was hoping to feel better once things got underway.  Chatted with the lady next to me who was hoping to run just under 8mm.  Great.  I'll keep an eye on her and try to keep up.

We're off!  The lady next to me takes off like a bat out of hell.  I'm not looking at my watch since 1) it usually take a little while to lock onto the pace.  Like at least a quarter mile.  2)  I wanted to just find a pace I felt I could hold for 6 miles without looking at the watch.  As I was watching that lady fly down the street I was convinced I was running really slowly and there was no way I could keep up with her so I didn't even try.  I finally look at my watch and it said 6:53.  What!?!?  No way.  Ok, I've just ruined another race by going out too fast.  So I slow down and finish that mile at 7:32.  Just before the mile marker I pass Miss Lickity Split who was huffing and puffing.  So I'm not the only one bad at pacing.

Mile 2: 7:39.  Better but still too fast.  Legs are feeling fine, though, which is a good sign.

Mile 3: 7:48.  Ok.  Try and hang on to this pace.

Mile 4: 8:07.  I really wanted all sub-8mm but in this mile there was an overpass that ran over the train tracks.  It felt so steep.  It wasn't long but it was long enough to kick my butt.  It sapped the energy out of my legs.  I really hoped we didn't have to come back that way.

Mile 5: 7:55.  That's fine.

Mile 6: 8:07.  Not the dreaded overpass again!  Ugh.  What's that?  A harbor?  There are boats here?  Water?  Who knew?

Mile .24 (according to Garmin):  7:37 pace.  So I was able to give it a little kick.  The mayor shook my hand (who's that guy?  He was nice.)  He was shaking everybody's hand.

Chip time:  48:54,  29th/ 193 overall, 1st or 2nd/19 in AG,  8th/117 F

I'm quite happy with that time.  It's 30 seconds slower than my PR and a nice surprise.  There's some confusion as to my AG finish.  At the podium I was told I got 2nd in my AG (a lady had a list) but now that I'm going over the results online it looks like I actually got 1st in AG and 1st in Masters.  They gave out nice medals with the actual placement engraved on the back so now I have a 2nd place medal.  I wrote the RD just to get things clarified (it's really not important but I like to keep track of these things).   He wrote back quickly saying he would respond as soon as possible.  I wouldn't doubt it if quite a few medals were given to the wrong people since all you had to do was go up there and say, ' I'm 2nd in my AG' and they'd hand it over.  I actually insisted on asking the lady with the list so I wouldn't inadvertently take someone else's medal.  That was a mistake.

All in all, I really liked this race and look forward to running it again next year.  It was small and well organized.  The 5k started 15 minutes after the 10k and there was no congestion once the two races converged.  Oh, and Jelly Belly was one of the sponsors so I got a bunch of samples of their different products.  Yum!

As usual, this was a little longer than expected but there you go.

Edith -- I'm jealous of your temperatures!  We had one teaser day in the 80s but then it got cold again.

doctorjen -- those sound like made-to-order HM conditions.  Hopefully it stays that way!

miele -- awesome race!  Congrats on the AG award.

gosling -- nothing sucks as much as not being able to run... I hope you can get back to it ASAP.

I'm sure I missed a bunch of people, but I'm rushing -- so hi to all new people!  And I hope those of you who raced today had an amazing time.

me -- That massage HURT!!  I have never had one quite that painful.  But I guess it was effective, too, because my shins feel pretty good now (after being sore and tender for a couple of days); I ran 9 with a friend this morning.  We race at similar paces but she tends to run easy slower than I do, which is just what I need since I'm prone to running faster than I should.  My coach will be pleased, because our pace was perfectly where he wanted it: 75-90 seconds slower than 10K pace.

Cross posting my report here instead of writing a shorter one.  Hope that's OK!

Race Report- Corvallis Half Marathon – 4/14/13

Executive Summary: Debut half marathon complete in 1:56:00, beating my original goal by 4 minutes, but a minute slower than my “revised” goal.  I finished 28/134 in my age group.  I have some training questions in my “post race thoughts” for anybody who is interested.

Background: In April 2011, I weighed 236 pounds and struggled to walk a 20 minute mile.  In April 2012, I weighed 155 pounds and was just finishing C25K, running about a 12:00 pace.  In April 2013, I weigh 130 pounds and just finished my first half marathon.

I started training for this race at the start of the year, following Pfitz’s HM Plan B in Road Racing for Serious runners.  In general, training went very well.  It was a challenging plan for me, and I had to adjust it a bit at the beginning because I couldn’t quite hit the miles he was calling for.  But I caught up with the plan about midway, peaking at 50 MPW like he called for.

My original goal was sub-2, but already by February I was hitting my training paces fairly easily and starting to think that goal was soft.  In March, I ran a 10 mile tune up race at what I thought was an aggressive pace (8:38), but ended up feeling great and having enough left in the tank to run the last two hard.  So I revised my goal to 1:55, but honestly wondered whether that was still a pretty soft goal for me.

However, my training in the last two weeks has been a bit off.  I’ll write more about that at the end.

Pre-race: Since the race didn’t start until 9:30, I had time to do a 1 mile shakeout run at 6:30.  I figured that way I could do a shorter warm up pre-race.  At 8:45, the runners from my local running club met for a group photo.  I’m in the purple.  And yes, that is a gorilla and a guy in a loincloth.

Then I ran another mile with some strides, ditched one layer, and went to line up.  The weather was about 44 and damp but not really raining.

Start: The start was really well organized.  They had pace signs along the side with enough room for everybody to fit at their anticipated pace.  I lined up at my best estimate of 8:45.  The plan was to go out at 8:45 for 2-3, then adjust from there (hopefully faster).  It was feeling pretty cold.  I thought my sock was bunched up around my toe, but when I went to fix it realized that my toe was just numb.  That was not an issue at all during the race, though.

I got off and found my pace without too much trouble.  We looped around campus a bit and even passed within a block of the house where my daughter was born.  I was feeling good, but even then was noticing that the pace wasn’t as easy as I felt like it should be for those miles.

Mile 1- 8:47

Mile 2- 8:48

Mile 3- 8:40

One nice thing about the course is that they have signs with friendly sayings at all the mile markers and in a few extra spots as well.  Here are some examples:

The next few miles were like old friends, because they are part of the running club’s winter route for the social run, and also part of my usual LR route.  We crossed back over OSU campus, through the covered bridge, and head out past the agriculture buildings and towards the hills west of town.  Luckily, the course takes the path *around* the hill, not over it!  We passed the artist that painted the signs along this part of the path.  She was walking around cheering for people.

I had been expecting to inch down into the 8:30s here, but honestly just was not feeling it.  So I figured even pace and even effort was a safer bet. I did sort of expect to warm up and fall into that pace eventually, but it never felt right like it did in my 10 miler.

Mile 4- 8:44

Mile 5- 8:53

Mile 6- 8:34

Mile 7- 8:36

The next mile was all uphill, but a very gradual slope.  It’s about a 2% grade for a mile and a quarter.  I decided to maintain effort and ignore my pace.

Mile 8- 9:07

I knew I had some downhill coming up and that the rest of the course was easy.  Finally things would start to click, I thought!  I saw my DH’s aunt and uncle out at the 9 mile marker.  Their grandson was running, but they had stayed out to cheer after he went by!  Later I realized he’s actually in the group photo, but I don’t know him very well, so I had no idea!

Instead of gradually picking things up and running it home, instead I started to fade.  I kept asking my legs for more, and they said, “NO!”  I don’t even think it was cardio as much as my legs just hurt.  The pavement just felt super hard and I was just working really hard to turn my legs over.  There was one steep little downhill block and I realized that I had to go very slowly down it because I felt like my quads would just lock up!

Mile 9- 8:41

Mile 10- 8:53

Mile 11- 9:00

At this mile marker, there was somebody calling out “you’re doing great, just 10 more miles to go!”  Funny!  Actually, one thing I haven’t mentioned is that crowd support the whole way was fantastic.  There were tons of aid stations, it was well marked, traffic was stopped, and several local runners who weren’t racing today came out to cheer!  That’s a really nice thing about a local race was all the familiar faces along the way!

Now the fade really started.  I had known pretty early on that I wasn’t going to run much under 1:55 today, but still had thought that I had 1:55 pretty much in the bag.  But I was watching that slip away from me and even knowing that, I just could not make my legs move one bit faster.  I will say that I was never tempted to stop or walk.  It wasn’t that kind of fade.

On the other hand, there was a woman who was running near me for most of the second half that spend most of her time grabbing her side and groaning.  Now that was dedication!  She clearly hurt more than I did, and I’m pretty sure she beat me, too!

We were headed back towards campus and I could see the stadium roof!  But it was still hard to imagine ever getting to the finish line.  For some reason I untied my jacket from my waist and then it was a real PITA to hold it with my water bottle in my hand.  WTF was I thinking?

Mile 12- 9:20
Mile 13- 9:22

We were coming in to the stadium!  The ramp down to the field was another one that I had to navigate really carefully to make sure that my legs didn’t lock up.  But then I got onto the field and right away saw my daughter cheering for me!  That cheered me up and I did my best to turn on a little bit of speed.  I felt like I had a bit of a kick, but I look like hell in the video DH shot of the finish!

Yes, I had a smile on my face.  I did my best to smile, wave, and thank the volunteers the whole way.  But look at how hunched my shoulders were.  No wonder I was tired if I was running like that the whole time!  Or maybe it was carrying that damn jacket.

Finish video is here.  You can hear DH and his mom laughing as the poor announcer tries to announce my name.

My pace for the last split was 8:06.  So clearly I had something left, but not much.  Final chip time was 1:26:00.

Obligatory swag photo:

I got my medal and some water, and went to say hi to my family.  I forgot to ask them to take a picture, though!  I was pretty out of sorts, actually.  Then I went up to the finishing area to have some tomato soup and bread.  Just about perfect for the weather!

I hung out and talked to a few people, but it started to rain, and I was getting very cold.  So instead I went out for a nice lunch and dessert with my family.

Post-race thoughts: All in all, I think that I ran the best race that I could today.  I ran it hard, and I did my best.  I also have to say that I am just thrilled that sub-2 gets to be my “starting” half marathon time.  Considering that my main goal last summer was to get a sub-30 5K, and that it took me several tries to get that, I feel very fortunate!

But I do sort of feel like if I would have run this race on the day of my 10 miler, that on that day I would have had a better time.  Since I really like the plan that I used in theory, I do want to take a look at what happened to see if there are any modifications I would want to make if I used it again.

Probably the biggest thing, though, is that I’m a beginner, since I’ve only been running for about a year.  Adapting to the stress of racing, especially at distance, probably takes time.  So next time I will go into it with this cycle already under my belt.

You can see in my log that my last “real” LR was back on March 27.  We had a trip planned for the end of March, so I shifted all of the quality work to the beginning of that week.  But that meant I ended up with back-to-back quality workouts of 14 miles, 7 miles with hills, an 8 mile progression, and 12 miles.

Honestly, my running has been “off” since then, so I’m thinking that last 12 miler was just too much.  Pfitz even says better to skip the quality workout altogether rather than try to cram too much into consecutive days, but I was being stubborn and thought I could handle it since my taper was coming up.

I also took some extra time off because my hip was bothering me last week.  The hip wasn’t a problem at all for me today.  But it just added to the fact that I hadn’t had a really good run at any sort of distance in far too long.  But I needed the time to recover from pushing just a little too hard in late March.

But this plan does hit peak miles a full month before race day!  Is that too far out?  Or not so much, since it maintains intensity?  I just felt like I peaked in March rather than in April.

The other thought is that maybe there was a mental aspect to racing a “goal” race, or to the HM distance in general.  In March, I didn’t have any real expectations at all.  I spent the whole time just about giddy that I could maintain that pace.  Today, I knew I could run that pace, it wasn’t exciting like it had been.  But it also just never felt fluid like it did before.  Does that make sense?

In any case, I’d welcome any training-related thoughts or feedback, for those of you who have hung in there this far!

Zelanie, npaden and Wolfwalker, congratulations on your races!  Wait to go on those times and thanks for sharing your race reports.

I haven't checked in a bit, but training toward my end-of-May 10k is proceeding.  I missed a couple days last week due to illness (the pollen has been going crazy over the last week). I felt good enough by Saturday to get out and do an easy 10 miles.  This morning I hit the track for some speedwork (4x1200 @ 5k pace), and I think I'm pretty much back in the swing of things (even though I only hit my mark on half of those intervals).

Jan26.2 – no hint of pain. Exciting!

stever1966 – good luck with your race!

Lurch – it is cool that you are booking hotel near finish line. Seems like great location for your wife and kid to hang out while you are running.

Doctorjen – it is interesting that you caught that typo. Lover 5 miles! I love running with my wife. Fridays used to be our date night, but because I got into the habit of sleeping early, I feel sleepy early on Friday nights as well. So weekends are our date times now! We run together and go for breakfast after that. We have been doing that for a couple of weekends and it has been fun. I know taper period is not fun. I hope that you are able to stick to your plan and feel very fresh on race day to have a great race. Have fun visiting your son. Good job in getting 12 miles.

Miele – dinner was fun. We got to meet the person who started the race (it was only the 4^th annual race). It was also neat to see local sponsors for the race and to know that all the money raised by the race goes to state park (actually city or county is taking care of the park right now). Glad to know that your feet felt fine during the race. That 1^st mile you ran was very quick! Congratulations in running 10k in 48:54. It is awesome that your got 1^st in your AG!

Jan26.2 – good to know that snow is melting and streets would be clear so that you can run outside.

Keeponrunning – it is exciting that you are going to get one more pair of Kinvaras!

EdithRevisited – running in 85 degrees is insane! Running 13 miles in the middle of the hot day is bold. Great job.

Npaden – great race! Congratulations in streak of 101 days! That is serious commitment. Great job in running 13 miles on TM

Gosling – you will be fine taking the week off now. Look at my logs, I took easy for 4 weeks before the race and was fine during the race. I rode stationary bikes on the days that I was not able to have planned runs.

Bluerun – it is good that your shins are not hurting anymore. Great job in getting 9 at the pace you wanted!

Zelanie – congratulations in running your first half marathon under your goal of sub 2:00 with 4 minutes to spare! You lost 80 lbs in a year and 23 next year. That is amazing. Congratulations! Those were very creative and encouraging mile markers. It is cool that you had few family members cheering for you. About your race plan, if you think you peaked in March and not April, than modify the plan for next year. I particular do not like to follow any formal plan. I look at some plans and make my own and keep modifying regularly. I know we all are different and same thing won’t work for everyone. My plan was to run more than 13 miles few times before the race so mentally I would know that I won’t fade away during the race. I ended up having my long runs longer than 13 miles 4-5 times. Did not cross 13 miles entire month before the race because of my foot, but was confident that I won’t fade away during the race and I didn’t.

Wolfwalker23 – you had an awesome race. Congratulations for running it at 7.47 pace!

Me – we had fun volunteering for the race. Our aid station at 6^th mile and my wife and I were the only volunteering for that aid station in the race with ~300 runners. We had to hike for about an hour to go to our aid station. We were serving water, electrolytes, cookies and pretzels. I do not try new electrolytes during the race and was thinking most of the runners would do the same. But runners drank electrolytes more than water. I was surprised to see some runners stopping to eat cookies! Runners were very humble and a lot of them thanked us. It was a tough race with 1500+ feet elevation and slop ranging from -7 degrees to +7 degrees. Most of the race was on rocky trails. It was cool to see 76 year runner finishing this race under 3:18. He wan deepsea race in his prime. It was neat to see a dad hanging out at our aid station to see her daughter racing. I ran 25 miles for the week.