Forums >Racing>A rooking half marathoner seeking pace setting advice for the race
I am training for my first HM and trying to figure out my pacing for the race. Race is on March 30th and I ran the race distance on race course this Saturday. I decided to run hard (@ 85% max HR – 168 bpm) finished it in 9.33 min/mile in 2:05:15.
First half of the course is easy as it has just one hill and it is on the road. The entire second half of the course is on trails including 4 hills. Since I ran around same HR, I knew that I was going to have positive splits. But I was disappointed by amount of increase in the splits. My splits were:
8:10, 8:14, 8:15, 8:30, 8:47, 9:08, 9:30, 10:45, 9:11, 9:58, 10:49, 11:24, 11:20
I felt like I had enough left in the tank and would have been able to run harder during to complete the race distance at an average pace of 9 min/mile. I also think that tapering would help and I would be fresher for the race than I was on Saturday.
Because of the fact that first half of the race is easier than the second half, I am considering going for even splits and not negative split during the race. Since I ran at 9.33 min/mile on Saturday, is it too aggressive to aim for 8.30 min/mile for the race?
Based on this run on 2/9, I'd say you can do 8:30 pace or even faster in a race.
http://www.runningahead.com/logs/f11fc4e0227b46fd8f1c6180ad09b231/workouts/72f21590ea794c61a585f95c434f630d
I'd leave out the HR monitor (or atleast ignore it) in a race.
Happyfeet - thanks for the encouragement.
Because of that run of 7.3 miles at 8.29 min/mile on flat street + last week's run of 7.4 miles at 8.05 min/miles at 3% slope on TM + the fact that I have ran HM or longer distance for more than half dozen times, I will feel disappointed if I wont finish my race around 8.30 min/mile. I definitely am going to ignore HR monitor in the race.
I did not know what that run on 2/20 was, whether it was an interval workout (then the rest duration matters a lot), if it was a straight tempo type run, then yes you should be feeling very confident of a sub 1:50 HM
2/20 run wasn't tempo one. During that run, my goal was to run at 174 bpm so I decreased my speed gradually to stay at that HR.
Pace Prophet
It's really hard to assess race speed from a training run. If you can run a 6-7 mile tempo at 8:30 you should be able to race a half at that pace. Do you have shorter-distance race times from recent races?
You should strive to run your long runs with your splits opposite what you did! You should also not try to hold a HR unless it's one you can do with minimal drift (that is, on flat terrain your pace will be even).
an amazing likeness
If I understand correctly, you've got a course with a widely different make-up from start to finish. If so, you should ignore pace and run for even effort through the first 10 - 11 miles. Your pace will almost certainly fall off while you hold effort, both from the course, and from running at the limits of your fitness for the distance. Then for the last 2 - 3 miles you'll want to take what you can get, based on the course and your legs.
tl;dr version ==> run it even effort and let the pace happen from there.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.