Forums >Racing>The Waltons aka Advanced Half Marathon Training Thread - 2022 edition
Maybe Strava has a Spam checker now, I mean Keen runs 20 runs per week 😂
Does he do them all or do bots do some of them?
3,000m: 9:07.7 (Nov-21) | 5,000m: 15:39 (Dec-19) | 10,000m: 32:34 (Mar-20)
10km: 33:15 (Sep-19) | HM: 1:09:41 (May-21)* | FM: 2:41:41 (Oct-20)
* Net downhill course
Last race: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Waltons ThreadLord
Mark, Steve - I , too, have seen myself recover more quickly from blow-up races. I suspect in my case a fair portion of the blow-up was mental, thus making the physical recovery easier.
Steve, Flavio - My Endorphin Pros are worst when making a hard, 180º turnaround in a race. I have so little faith in them that I slow down a lot for such a turn.
Keen - I think it's cool when races allow older runners to start early so that they can finish before the course closes. Nice week.
DW - I find when I tire, I tend to increase my cadence to keep up my speed. Thanks for the congrats, though it was a course record, not an overall PR, but still rewarding to achieve. Good luck at Broad St.
Ccoakley - Sorry to hear your calf is bothering you. I hope rest is the solution.
Zebano - Good luck with the mile today, and thank you. Yes, the consensus seems to be that my son will beat me at 5 miles as well, given his margin of victory at 4 miles. Yes, I do feel I've recovered from the half (finally).
Flavio - Thanks. Poor wording on my part - 4,500 was to total field size, not the size of my corral. Yeah, I think chasing my son, even if he was getting further away, was added motivation for me.
Mark - Thanks. Yes, 4 miles is uncommon, other than on Independence Day (July 4), but it's a convenient distance for races in Central Park, so the NYRR has a lot of them.
Hasiritai - Nice job breaking 50 miles for the week.
Steve - Thank you. Yes, my son is doing better. I think he's developed the confidence to push himself a bit more and not always hold back so that he can be sure of finishing. I'm glad you're feeling better. Getting the house sold must be a relief too.
James - Understood that running when staying at hotels isn't always easy, especially when the hotel is in a commercial area with no sidewalks.
Piwi - Looks like you're recovering. That's good news.
Mark - Nice week of work you did. I mean, wow.
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming races: Clinton Country Run 15k, 4/27; Running is Back 10k, 5/12
I met up with my RP at the track this morning, and though I ran a hard race just two days ago, I still wanted to get some intervals in. We ran 4 x 1-mile at a bit faster than HM pace with ¼ mile recoveries. Last week, I managed to run only two intervals, so getting four done today was nice and I felt pretty good about it. I did my usual 1½ mile warmup run, which was all it took for allergies to start my sinuses getting clogged. By the end, I felt like my nose was running faster than I was.
A little anecdote from Sunday's race. My RP is faster than me, so I told my son after his 4-mile performance that he should come along the next time my RP and I do a four-mile race since I think my son has a chance to beat my RP. I told my son he should "defend the family's honor." His reply? "Well, Dad, I wouldn't have to do that if you weren't so slow." The thanks I get for sharing all my experience with him.
Intl. correspondent
I told my son he should "defend the family's honor." His reply? "Well, Dad, I wouldn't have to do that if you weren't so slow." The thanks I get for sharing all my experience with him.
I mean, you should be feeling pretty proud about him, that was a great comeback 😂
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: some 800m race (or time trials) / Also place in the top 20% in a trail race
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Agreed. It's great that he has the confidence to say something like that. A year ago, I don't think he would have done it. Good to see him growing up.
Cobra Commander Keen
I do all the runs myself, but will admit to feeling quite robotic during some doubles.
Steve - "The Stick" is a good one. I heard about that from a guy I ran with during my PR marathon and have spread the word ever since. Super-convenient for trips, too.
Strava weirdness - I've noticed before that RP's runs frequently don't show for me, but haven't identified anyone else with this "issue". It's quite odd to me that now 3 people have said this about my runs. Not that I'm living for strava kudos or anything, it's just curious.
Oklahoma weather - Needs to make up its damn mind. Last week I was running shirtless pre-dawn as it was getting toasty (~70F/21.1C). For the last few days I've been wearing sleeves and gloves or mittens.
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
OKC Memorial 5k - April 27
Bun Run 5k - May 4
I too like "The Stick" though I eventually bought an off brand one that's a bit more firm and seems to work better. You should take that through security sometime, it's good for a few laughs.
Strava seems to have adopted some sort of Facebook reordering algorithm which is super annoying. I don't reliably see anyone in particular except the people I physically ran with that day.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
Yeah bizarrely I almost never seem to see Steve's runs unless I go looking quite hard for them. There's definitely some sort of algorithm going on.
Alright: mini race report time.
Grand Blue Mile is the USATF 1 mile road race championships, as such it is USATF certified, ergo no Kiwis were involved in the measuring of this course. The course is a long straightaway of about .6 miles, a left turn, one block, a left turn and straight to the finish.
I had my usual breakfast, worked a few hours and had been planning on getting a burrito bowl from Pancheros but realized I had a free 10" pizza elsewhere. I went with olive oil, fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil, garlic and sausage. After eating half of it, I put it away for dinner before pulling it out half an hour latter and scarfing it down. At 3:15 I left work and started the 2 hour drive to DSM. Long story short, the pizza was delicious, lets just say it plugged up the system. Maybe that was yesterday's food but onto the important stuff.
Weather was perfect. Minimal wind, 51F (10.5C for those of you not in the US). I easily found parking, got my bib and reclined the car seat for a 20 minute nap. At about 6, I started jogging around and my HR felt sky high. I took a few breaks but honestly just didn't feel great. In some ways this is a positive as I've set 3 PRs while feeling this way pre-race. My strides in particular felt forced. I watched both the recreational division and the Women's competitive before making my way to the start line and chatting with my coach and a couple friends.
I set the watch to autolap every .25 miles. My goal was to go out controlled but quick. Push the second quarter to maintain pace, kill myself the third quarter to maintain pace and let the final quarter take care of itself. I lined up four or five rows back, and took off at the gun with a few more people passing me. By the quarter mile mark there was some incredibly hard breathing going on and as I glanced at my watch to see :78 my coach slid past me and I let him go. I slowly started picking people off and as I passed the square where all the checkin and kids games were at I realized I was going to darn slow and I picked up the effort and began passing people faster.
At this point it's worth talking about the number of runners in this thing. I estimate there were only 100 in the competitive men's division and the leaders were way past me, but we had drifted from the middle of the road to the left which created congestion and I had to weave quite a bit to continue passing people. The first left turn happened and the guy in front of me almost stopped 10m latter leaving me boxed in which was super annoying but I found a way through, picked it up and made the next turn. A drum line was playing here and my cadence quickly picked up to match their beat, I passed two more runners and slowed to what I felt was a maintainable pace before lifting my head 3 seconds latter and realizing just how close I was. I picked up the pace, passed another 6 runners and then hammered it home to pass one more, running out of real estate to catch the guy with the USA jersey. 5:31, my best since 2018 and roughly 5 seconds slower than a 1609 equivalent of that time which is a great sign.
In short I ran a solid race with two noticeable lulls where I should have kept pushing and I wasn't mentally prepared to hurt through the middle portion of the race. I think another mile race or two would allow me to fix those issues but honestly it doesn't fit into my schedule.
Officially 39th overall out of 1286, 33rd male, 6th/67 in my age group 5:31 with a 2:45 first half. The men's "competitive division" was won in4:12... damn. That guy could have run in the pro race!
Afterwards I watched the pro races cheering for Alex Teubal who has run with my club a few times and competed at the US Trails in the Steeplechase finishing 3rd among the women. The women's race was won by Emily Lipari and the men's by Vincent Ciattei.
Zebano - Very nice job on the race and thanks for the descriptive race report. I've never done a 1-mile race (they're very rare here). I agree on the aggravation of people pulling up right in front of you, but it was good you found a way around. Excellent results.
Zeb - Heh, that was almost too controlled, 2:45 and 2:46 splits? Get out of here 😂
Great job at the mile race, it's so awesome to race the mile, by the time you start to get tired you're already sprinting in the last 400.
Thanks Fred and Flavio. Flavio, I do actually agree, if you reread my plan I really wanted to full send it and blow up and I ran controlled. I'm not sure how accurate the GPS is but my quarter splits were like 78, 84, 87, 76 which even accounting for congestion means I didn't run strong enough in the middle portion.
Hot Weather Complainer
Zebano - Nice race and report. Either brilliantly paced or ‘too controlled’! But a good marker for a slightly unfamiliar distance.
me - I did Flavio’s favourite 10km tempo 10 days out from the race yesterday and got a big confidence boost. I started out conservative and picked it up in the second 5km for 42:31 (3km easy to start and finish for 16km). I felt comfortable all the way except maybe the last couple of hundred metres. I’ve pulled up nicely so given that the race is downhill and I’ll be wearing cheat shoes, it’s possible I may surprise myself. I’ll use the pacing from last night as my model for the race.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:34:49 6/23
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Nice one!
Just to add to the drama, they have had to move the finish line slightly due to redevelopment along Ardmore St... it's now finishing at a slightly different point in the park. So we'll see what the distance ends up at lol.
Zebano - nice RR. Have never raced a mile but I can see how it'd be tough to really keep pushing at that sort of pace. Great job.
Also, today is the day that Saturday May 7 pops up in the long range forecast (which is a complete lottery at this stage, of course).
Currently cloudy, with light winds, overnight low of 9C / 48F. Not bad but a bit cooler would be nice.