Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2018 (Read 704 times)

MJ/Enric - sub 20 5K, sub 40 10K and sub 80 half right? I’m sure Mark would agree…

Keen - great week and LOL at the workout descriptions

Steve - that’s very impressive with only 200m recoveries and 6 reps. You certainly are a speedy beast and once you work on that endurance that will certainly translate to a PB in the half.

MJ - We can never know, past performances in running are no guarantee of future performances, unfortunately 

My half PR is so old now I'm not even sure I can still claim it.

Steve - definitely a solid workout and a promising sign.  200m is not much recovery at all and would've made the last 2-3 reps tough.  I normally do that workout with 400m rests (also on the track which gives me a bit of speed boost and is good for the ego haha).

Flavio - I can't help but feel that seems a little unfair 

Keen - nice week again, you have really been putting in the work.

Jaime - nice week!! Funny you ask, they have just updated the series standings. See below for my analysis (I had some free time at work, and I'd rather get this thought through now so I'm not playing it through my head the night before the race!!).  Sorry if this is boring for everyone but for me this is like when you're trying to figure out if your team will make the playoffs except I'm actually the 'team' here haha.

Series standings

With 1 race to go, I've gone from being well behind Brad to actually dead equal thanks to placing well ahead of him at Coatesville (he was injured and took it 'easy' - he actually told me he only bothered finishing the race to stay in the series).  Points are based on relative placings - you get 1 pt for every person of the same gender you beat in a race.

1st = Brad Luiten 1,607 pts

1st = Mark Paterson 1,607 pts

3rd Chris Trent 1,605 pts

4th Timothy Judge 1,596 pts

There are two other important things:

1. Waterfront counts for double points (hence possibility of tied points between Chris and me or Brad if he finishes 1 spot ahead of either of us).
2. Waterfront is likely to attract a bigger field than the other races including a number of runners doing just this 1 race - and probably some decent runners like Stephen Lett (again), Julian Ng and Aaron Jackson too.  These 1-off runners won't have a chance in the series standings, but could impact race placings and therefore points - if 1 of them was to finish in between Brad, Chris and I it could impact the relativities.

What this all means:

• The top 3 will probably be the top 3 but everything is up for grabs.  For 4th place to sneak in would require one of us to have an absolute shocker or a DNF (this is by no means impossible either!)
• Brad and I are in a straight head-to-head.  Neither Chris nor I have ever beaten Brad in a race when he's been fit (the closest either of us have got is around 1 minute behind him).  If he is fit he should beat us and take 1st. 
• There is potential for tied points for Brad or I with Chris if he finishes just ahead of either of us.  I don't know how they would deal with a tie-break. Head-to-head results across the series would be the fairest option, since it is a five-race series after all.  This would favour me over Chris as I've beat him in 3 of 4 races (ditto Brad over Chris). 
• Depending on how the tie break works, Chris might need to be 2 spots ahead of either Brad or I to leapfrog us.  This is where guys like Stephen, Julian and Aaron could play a significant part.  Stephen would probably be ahead of all 3 of us, but Julian had a really good 1:18ish race on a similar course in December which would put him right in the mix.

The tl;dr version: 

1. All the series podium spots are up for grabs and it will come down to the Waterfront Half Marathon - lets be honest that is a pretty cool way to finish a series with basically everything riding on the final race
2. I need to ask how they deal with tie-breaks
3. Steve, any cheering you can provide would be greatly appreciated (and of course reciprocated!)
4. Even if I just PR'ed last weekend, there is no shortage of motivation for this race!! Although given I seem to race better when I'm more relaxed, I should probably stop thinking about it haha.

Steve - Definitely wait for the weather.  If it's windy, you'll want to manage your pacing.  Otherwise it's just a steady 4:12-4:13/km to allow a bit of safety if the course runs slightly long.  They have had 1:30 pacers at all of the series races so far, if Gene Rand is doing it he will probably be almost bang on 1:29:50 so the other option is to just stay 30 seconds ahead of Gene haha.

My strategy at Coatesville was to go out with the lead group and see if I could hang on.  I will probably do the same at Waterfront, knowing that if I can't quite hang with the lead group then there will hopefully be other quick runners I can work with.  The objective will still be to run the fastest race that I can - if I do that the placings will be as good as they can be.  I'll definitely be aware of who is where but it won't change my overall strategy, other than maybe late in the race if I feel like I can catch someone if I go really deep into the pain cave.

Yeah I have heard some pretty variable stories with pacers, but to be honest if Gene is doing it he would be one I'd absolutely trust.  He's extremely experienced and pretty much a guaranteed bet to run a consistent pace and come in 20-25 seconds ahead of the goal.  He's a sub-2:50 marathoner and averages probably like 150km/week.  He's also very easy to spot as he has big tattoos on both arms and will probably be wearing a yellow YMCA singlet!

Re: Pacers,  I only tried once to hang with a pacer.  That was a try to get 1:30 in a HM.  There was a lot of traffic at the beginning and the guy was 30 seconds slower after 4Km. Then he sped up trying to get back quickly to his target and many of us were dropped.

Had he do it gentle, I think I would have hanged longer.  It's not the same to try to keep 4:14/km, than run 4:00/km for 2Kms and then slow back to 4:16.  I finished at 1:32 that time.

OTOH,  A friend of mine paces 4 or 5 HMs a year and he is very consistent.  He relies a lot on his watch (there is an app for his Garmin so one can adjust with Km markers).  He aims to be very close to the goal and encourages the runners to sprint at the very end. He's frequently thanked by runners

Piwi - Bummer on the achilles! I get injured the less I'm running, so maybe you're catching some of the bug I have.

Mark - I always like your race reports/summaries. I have absolutely no idea who any of these people are, but it's like reading your personal running diary about all of your adversaries and who you need to catch. "Billy Bob came down with the flu last week, so I think I can catch him, but you always have to worry about Slick Steve, because he comes out of the woodwork in Half Marathons and can move up 3 spots easily."