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

Wolf -- I'm sure there must be one somewhere, but I couldn't find it!  I emailed the RD to ask.

Hi folks!  I finally got in to the doctor today, and he thinks it's patellar tendonitis.  Apparently my kneecaps tilt outwards when viewed from above, and my stride is heavy which puts a lot of pressure on the knee.  I start PT next week and should learn more, but should be able to start a little bit of running on flat, soft terrain soon.  I'll probably wait until my first PT session, which should give me more info.

TaraC – you had an excellent run. I am curious to see your finish time for Boston half.

Wolfwalker23 – thanks for the encouragement. Reading it made me feel good and I thought I am ready for the race right now! 90 F is too hot! I hope it would be cooler later in the evening and you can enjoy your 5.6 miler

Jan26.2 – its good that your running is going well. Have fun over the weekend.

Zelanie – sorry to hear about your patellar tendonitis

Me – didn’t run on Tuesday and not going to run on Friday and Saturday as my leg is bothering me a bit. But I am not really concerned about it and feel ready for the race.

How are you all?  I've been enjoying just running for fun and keeping my head down, and haven't checked in here in a while.

Wolfwalker - where you live does it get cooler at night?  One of the things I don't like about where I live now is that in the summer it stays hot at night for a long time, even after dark.  I was used to it at least cooling off when the sun went down.

hector - good luck this weekend!  I know you're going to have a fantastic race.

Edith - I think you did the right thing resting up.  This close to your race, there's no training benefit to trying to run hard on tired/sore legs.  I've been trail running as much as possible in the last couple of weeks, which has been great.  Starting to see a lot of ticks, though.  Blech :-/  I usually don't carry my own water, etc. during a marathon.  I have carried a disposable water bottle for the first few miles, though, if I thought the aid stations would be crowded, and then just threw it away at an aid station when it was empty.  One thing I've practiced and practiced during my long runs is drinking on the run - especially when I run goal pace miles.  I've finally reached a point where more goes down than up my nose or on my shirt!

Jan - hope your weekend with your family is fantastic!

miele - I'll be waiting to buy your book :-p  My husband makes wine, so we usually have something good in the house.  I'm a serious light weight, though, so I don't drink a ton.  My favorite is a black cherry pinot noir he makes for me!

bluerun - I don't think I've been back to say congrats on your fantastic race!  Hope your are recovering well.

Zelanie - glad you got a direction to go to work on healing up.  Patellar tendonitis responds pretty well to PT and exercises usually.

nathan - thank goodness you missed the dog poop!  I fall on a fairly regular basis because I'm a big klutz.  I was very pleased last weekend, because on a trail run with 2 friends, I was the only one who didn't fall!  No where your range yet, but i appear to be streaking again!

Tara - holy cow, I can't believe you can time trial that fast!  I find it hard to push myself without company (and, as miele has noticed, I tend to run faster when I have someone to talk to even during normal runs.)

pcaharrier - when is your 10K?  I need to run one because my PR is really old since I haven't run one in a while, and I've PR'd at every other distance since then.  Sounds like 45 minutes might be in reach.

me - I've still just been running to run.  I feel pretty well recovered from the marathon.  Yesterday morning I ran with my group, and a faster friend was there.  We did about 10 minutes for the first mile, and then I let him push me and we ended up with 6 miles in 52 minutes, so averaging 8:30 or less for the last 5.  It felt good, and we could still chat at that pace.  We even stopped for a bit to admire a little snake on the path!

Tomorrow I'm running a 5K, but it's not clear to me if there will be much in the way of runners there, or just walkers.  This is a city wide fitness challenge thing, and my office has a team and twisted my arm into joining.  Mostly, since you have to log your miles, they wanted to count my miles!  My boss/program director is planning to run it, so I guess I am too.

My garmin seems to be dying.  It's 6 years old, and has logged thousands of miles.  The battery was starting to have a shorter life (it made it through my marathon, but was showing "low battery" from about 18 miles on) but now it has started to shut off randomly during runs.  Has anybody ever had their battery replaced?

blue-  I just read an interesting article on competitor.com about hill work.   Wait.....I'm going to try and find it and paste it..... http://running.competitor.com/2013/05/training/a-simple-hard-way-to-run-faster_6459 .  I don't know if you're injury prone from hill workouts but I found it interesting and maybe something to consider.  What was your HM time again?  I want to say 1:43 but I'm probably not remembering correctly.  Good luck with your mile time trial on Sunday!  I always think about doing one of those but then never do.  Glad you're able to run more, too!

hector-  I guess my goal for the 10k coming up in two weeks is to get as close to my PR as possible.  Then for the 10k which is 2 months after that I definitely want to shoot for a PR.  Good luck Sunday!  You're going to do great!

Tara-  Now that is a smoking fast race sim!  I'd say you're more than ready for your upcoming race.

Wolf-  The rest intervals were 400s.  I might make those shorter once I feel more confident with the pace.  As it was, I needed every step of the 400s to get ready for the next round.   You're doing some fantastic running in some hot conditions.  It cools down nicely here at night and still hasn't gotten obnoxiously hot yet so I'm mightily impressed by those who can do well in the heat.

Jan-  Are you kidding me?!?! 6:44 pace on hills?!?!  You've come back better and stronger than ever.  You've definitely got a PR coming up.  I'd love to run that pace going downhill.  Have a wonderful time this weekend with the party and many congratulations!  About my 10k training plan.  I kinda made it up.   One speed workout a week while maintaining 40-45 mpw.  The LR being 10-14.  IF everything goes well, I'll add a hill workout or a tempo.  But that won't happen until at least 3 weeks from now.  I'm afraid of overdoing it again and having to back off.  That sucks, as you know.

Zelanie-  That's good news!  Now that you know what it is you can deal with and get back on the road hopefully soon.

Edith-   With all those water stops and the fact that there will be only 600 runners, you'll be fine not carrying your own water.  It is annoying, I'll admit.  Rest up!  Try not to go crazy.  And do not fall!!!!!  Be very, very careful.  Only 9 days..........

doc-  Ok.  Wait.  Black Cherry pinot noir?!?!?  Why have I never heard of this?  But is it made with Cherries or is that more a description of the taste?  I'm intrigued.  Sounds like you're feeling good and ready to beat your boss in a 5k.  When I thought my Garmin was flaking out I found a service on eBay which replaces the battery (I have a 405).  I didn't use the service since my watch seemed to snap out of its funk but it seems to have positive reviews.  Here's the link:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Garmin-Forerunner-405-405cx-EXTENDED-Battery-Replacement-/190674467062?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c651578f6

Hope it works.

kenyan-  You haven't been around for awhile but I think you have a HM this weekend, too.  Good luck!

me-  Ran 5.5 easy today.  Then hit the gym.  I was tempted to do some short hill sprints but thought better of it.  I'm looking forward to all the race reports and time trial reports.  Enjoy the weekend!

Hey guys, I've x-posted my race report.  Enjoy....

Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known!" - The 2013 Ogden Half Marathon

Background

This race had been on the calendar for a while and bore a great deal of significance for me. Having just picked up running again last august after a 7 year layoff post-college, this is the first race that I would call a 'target', a way of saying 'I still got this!' and hopefully a solid benchmark for bigger things down the road. While putting a training plan together over the winter and crunching data from workouts and smaller races, I projected that I could hit around 1:55 in a best-case scenario and set that as my aggressive goal, with 9:00 pace (high 1:57s) and 2 hours as my more conservative goals.

The training itself was a mixed bag; the second part of feb and most of march were pretty solid; I ramped up my long runs to 10-11 miles and had some solid tempo work. Then april was mostly a trainwreck. Between low energy/motivation from being busier at work and the Wyoming winter messing with my head and coming back in full force, quality workouts were fewer and farther between. I also developed a big mental block with my long runs, with many of them turning into death marches and me being unable to get back up into double digits over the last 6 weeks. I did rebound a bit in the first part of May and become more consistent, turning in a solid workout or two….so a ‘reverse taper’, if you will, Despite the gaps, I knew I still had reasonable fitness but was concerned how I would fare over 13.1 miles, having been unable to hit the distance in training and gone through considerable struggles to even get close to it. Thus, I revised my goals and set 2 hours as my aggressive goal, with my conservative goal being to more or less get through in one piece and not embarrass myself.

Pre Race

The day's adventure began at the curious hour of 4am (as only a curious sort of folk would be up then). My wife Andrea and I had come down from Wyoming the night before to stay at her friend's place, which was relatively convenient to the finish. I made the 10-15 minute drive to the finish area to board the shuttle busses to the start, blasting some good ol’ White snake on the way. Suddenly I feel more awake! The traditional Utah long distance affair has runners sequestered at the top of a canyon at some ridiculous hour, then engaging in a mad dash to the bottom, with an occasional speed bump thrown in. It's a unique challenge to take advantage of the downhills while staying in control and not frying your quads. At the start area of such events, you are greeted by thousands of people congregated around fire barrels to keep warm, along with the more common site of portapotties stretched as far as the eye can see.

Today would be a popular day for the fire barrels indeed, with the weather forecast calling for showers and 40 degree temperatures at the 6:45am start time. I alternated between huddling around the warmth and pacing around with some dynamic stretching thrown in, taking note of the commentary of another participant about the amusing logic of preparing for a distance race by standing still for an hour.

A light rain had been falling on and off, which picked up considerable in intensity about 30 minutes before the race and would be with us for much of the duration. After waiting until the last possible minute to strip down and drop my gear bag, I headed to the start, parked myself by the 9:00 pace sign and bounced around pretty much continuously to stay loose.....today was definitely a day in which I did NOT dread the start.

So it begins

We finally get underway and I cross the start line about 2 minutes after the gun and start my GPS. I told myself that I would keep today as hands-off as possible and limit the checking of my watch so as not to mess with my head, learning to run by feel. I stuck to that and ended up checking only 3 times during the race; after the first mile to make sure I didn't do anything stupid, at around halfway to check my progress and plan accordingly, and once the finish banner was in sight. It was a fairly packed start and I found myself moving steadily up the field while trying to keep in control. A 9:04 mostly flat first mile confirmed the early lack of stupidity. Near the end of this mile and into mile 2, we also had our only significant hill of the race; a gentle slope of about a quarter mile (nadra swears it's a half mile, but I'd give it 600 meters at most). With that easily out of the way, we followed a flat to gradually descending path around a beautiful reservoir for the first 4 miles - albeit with not so great visibility on this day. I continue to steadily pass people, feeling relaxed and good.

Early splits:

Mile 1 - 9:04

Mile 2 - 8:51

Mile 3 - 8:49

Mile 4 - 8:42

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

A bit before mile 5, we turn away from the reservoir and begin a series of steeper descents through the canyon. I worked on staying relaxed while opening up a bit on the downhills and letting gravity do its thing. The legs start to feel a little heavy around miles 7-8, but I otherwise feel good and am still running well on the downhills. I do check my watch just past 6 miles and see 52 and change, which was a minute or two faster than expected, but I was still feeling good at that point and happy to have the cushion. I should also note that there really isn't much in the way of crowd support in these earlier miles, but the aid station crews were quite spirited, even with the weather and for the most part - very efficient and kept things moving. Being a large race, there were always people to run with, which also helped a ton.

Splits:

Mile 5 - 8:13

Mile 6 - 8:23

Mile 7 - 8:21

Mile 8 - 8:25

...and never mind that noise you heard, it's just the beasts under your bed, in your closet, in your heaaaaad!

As the miles wore on, I was definitely tired, but still able to keep my head in the game and keep a strong pace. There was always a looming sense that a meltdown was right around the corner, as had been the case on most recent long runs, but I had been able to stave off the negative thoughts thus far and things seemed to be working out. Just before mile 10, we flattened out and came onto a bike path for a couple miles before the last stretch. The clear highlight of the race occurred here, as we ran through a tunnel with a fairly large puddle covering most of the path and a group of runners in single file in the meager dry space to the right - at a pace a bit slower than I desired. As you can probably guess, I was totally 'that' guy and charged through the puddle, passing close to 10 people and probably earning a couple dirty looks in response (it's always nice when the XC background rears its head :d ). Along this stretch, crowd support picked up, which was a nice boost. I was too tired for any real surges at this point and just worked to maintain.

Splits:

Mile 9 - 8:11

Mile 10 - 8:09

Mile 11 – 8:31

Bringing it home

From about 11.5 was really where I had to dig in to keep myself running. It seemed that my training inconsistency had finally caught up with me. I could perceive that I was doing well and didn’t want anything to mess this one up. Even though I had to slow down considerably and began to get passed (I think most of my splash victims would have the last laugh on this day), I was able to keep running and thus avoid any time-snatching walk breaks.

Just past mile 12, we emerged from the bike path onto the streets of Ogden and took the final turn toward the finish with just under a mile to go. Ogden has one of those unfortunate finish line setups where you can see the finish line way off in the distance mocking you from half a world away. I was giving it everything I had just to keep shuffling along at this point, so I put my head down and pressed forward. As we drew closer (but still a ways off) I allowed myself a glance at the watch and was pretty shocked to see 1:52:XX. It was hard to judge the distance to the end, but I thought I might have a shot at my initial aggressive goal of 1:55, which perked me up a bit.

Once I got to within striking distance and the crowds began to thicken, the adrenaline started to take hold and I tried to muster what I could for a kick. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas and I had the dubious privilege of suffering every runner’s worst nightmare; a cramp on the home stretch….in front of everybody. With about 200 meters to go, my right calf seized up, causing me to grab it and dance around in a Charley Horse jig. I tried to immediately begin running, but was overcome with pain, which turned it into more of a drunken limp. I take a quick peripheral glance to make sure there are no TV cameras zooming in for a ‘human spirit’ moment, then shuffled forward for a few seconds. Fortunately the pain subsided into a general stiffness, allowing me to resume running to the end, though obviously without much ‘kick’ left (My wife said she was right by the finish and missed the cramp episode but maintained that I looked strong coming in. Wives are the best!).

I crossed the line unceremoniously and hit my watch, registering at 1:55:22. My GPS had the course at 13.31, but the thing can be jumpy and I’m reasonably confident that the course was accurate. I’d estimate that the calf incident cost me about 15-20 seconds, so absent that, I was dead on with my previous aggressive goal that I had dismissed as out of reach. Obviously I was pretty pleased all around. I thought it was a pretty perfect tactical race except for fading over the last 2 miles, but again, I think that’s where the lack of solid long runs came in.

Final splits

Mile 12 – 9:03

Mile 13 – 9:31

Last .31 – 9:48 pace (stupid cramps crampin’ my style)

With all the factors involved, it’s going to be hard to translate this race into future workouts/race predictions. It helped that it was cool and cloudy, but in turn the rain definitely made things difficult. Obviously the amount of downhills helped a ton too; I think my splits reflected how goofy it was at times. But downhills can also mess you up if you don’t run them properly. The one big positive to take from this race will hopefully be the confidence in future long runs. Being able to complete the whole distance without (voluntarily) stopping was a big deal for me and was unexpected.

Having just found out that I made it into the St. George Marathon in October, it will be back to ramping up the mileage again in the next couple of weeks. I’ll probably reassess where I’m at sometime in the late summer and try to get some performance goals figured out. I think 4:10 would be very doable by then if I put the work in, but hopefully I’ll be able to approach the 4 hour mark as well.

miele -- I'm not injury-prone because of hills, per se, I'm injury-prone because I treated my body like crap for ten years.  But the hills in Jerusalem did a number on my shins, so I'm avoiding hills until they're 100% back to normal.  My last half was 1:44:48 -- they adjusted the times, I got a second back, hooray!

Edith -- I know the feeling!!  I went for a walk with my dad last year when I was injured, and he couldn't stop laughing because I was counting the runners who passed us and tallying up my would-be homicide victims.  If only I were joking!  It's good for you, though -- it will pay off come race day.

Kenyan -- congrats on the race!  Nice job.

Wolf -- ah, the lungs I nearly cough up on numerous occasions?  Gotcha.    Hope your long run goes well.

me -- well, it was raining when I woke up today.  The only track to which I have easy access is 32 laps to a mile (I kid you not), and I have zero interest in that, so my time trial was going to be on the roads.  Slick roads scare me, because I am too fragile to afford a fall.  But I have been stressing myself out over this time trial for so long that I refused to postpone it, I just accepted that I'd have to be super careful.  And I actually ran a sub-7:00 mile!  6:50, with splits of 1:41, 1:42, 1:47, and 1:39.  I wish they were a bit more even, but then, the ground wasn't completely flat, so that might have something to do with it.  I just can't believe I ran a sub-7:00 mile the first time I tried it; I nearly killed myself trying to run a sub-8:00 mile a couple of years back, and it felt SO much more difficult.  Probably because I didn't have the fitness for it, but I'm too stubborn to have admitted that.  In any case, my 6:45 goal for the mile in September suddenly doesn't seem so ludicrous.  Still scary, but not impossible.