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

Thanks guys.  The dog is a black lab...she was very vocal on the second lap but I think she wanted to be running rather than supporting.  She earned her medal though.

The results are up and my Garmin time matches my official time.  I was 38th overall and 10th in my age category.  Looking back at last year my time would have got me 4th in my AG so I guess the veterans all turned up this year.  The winner was Samuel Wreford in 1:06.25 which is a cracking pace for a smaller race - that would win most NZ half-marathons.

Goal is 1:25:00

Steve - Good looking doggo. My dog hates running, but I drag her out there sometimes. She is more of an off leash and explore type, along with running full sprints to catch tennis balls until her heart explodes. Steady pace running? No thanks. She wants none of it.

Yep, Mia is pretty much the same - definitely prefers short sharp bursts.  When I take her with me she drags me along at the start and then after about 4km I have to drag her...I'll normally do a short loop at the start of a run so I can drop her off or get my girlfriend to meet me somewhere to pick her up.  Last summer she has very little interest and started to hide in the bathroom when she saw me putting my running gear on.  She copes with running in the heat even worse than me!

Mark - awesome performance and PR worth it for sure. It must sting to come so close but remember many of us have outlier performances that we can never repeat, so repeating a similar performance so close is actually great news. And now you have evidence that you don't need gels for a half

Rune - that was a great race and if I remember correctly not run in ideal conditions, 60 degrees is already a bit high for a half. Plus headwind.

Steve - smart race, it must have fell good to execute it so well. You are certainly fit, and lived to fight another day. You will very likely hit a new PR.

Jmac - I keep forgetting just how fast you are!
I'm not in the sub 85 club this year, my half was 1h28 on a short course.

Mark - Great race, and I enjoyed the RR.

Steve - Nice RR as well. Pretty good result given the training interruptions!

Rune - Congrats on the AG placement, especially in the middle of a big marathon training season.

JMac - Good week, and awesome LR.

Last week was pretty good for me, definitely helped out by some cooler weather. Things on that front are likely go to back to "normal" for this time of year for the current week.
The family and I drove a few hours away to visit DW's grandmother Saturday, so the LR was pushed to Sunday. Ended up seeing more people than I thought I would around the lake, including the only other Daniels guy I know of in the general area. I ran most of my miles with him, and getting to talk training was pretty nice.
DD3 woke up super-early this morning, so I pushed my workout to (hopefully) tomorrow to take her with me and let DW get some sleep. That failed since she couldn't get back to sleep and ended up making bows for our girls almost the entire time I was running.

Weekly Summary
Monday, Jul 30, 2018 thru Sunday, Aug 05, 2018

Yeah, her grandmother will be 90 next month and seems to be doing very well both physically and mentally.. My remaining grandparents (both on my mom's side) aren't quite as old or doing quite as well. My grandfather always makes a bee line to hold DD3 whenever we show up to visit.

Thanks for the nice words guys. It was definitely a tough run, and looking at my HR data from the run it seems like I ran just on the wrong side of that fine edge I just hit correctly when I ran in February.

I've been thinking about what type of RR I should write as the race itself was pretty boring. I do think it's useful to give a summary of what leg up to the race though, so I'll start with that.

Before the race I had completed 7 weeks of the JD 2Q program based on a max weekly mileage of 55, preceded by 6 weeks easy and 6 weeks easy + weekly reps sessions to build some sort of leg strength and to get my mileage up. Training has been consistent with 11 weeks in the 45-50 mile range before the race, and only 2 unplanned down weeks since my previous race in late March due to a family trip I forgot to include in my program, and one week where I had a cold. Not sure if it was important for the race or not, but my last three workouts came closer together than ideal, with 3x2 mile tempo run on Thursday 9 days before the race, a 6+6 miles m-pace workout last Sunday (preceded by 11 miles easy the day before), and a 3+2+1 miles tempo workout on Tuesday where I wanted to have the tempo workout on Tuesday to make sure I had 3 easy days before the race. Otherwise I got enough sleep and the only thing I did differently from earlier times is I really didn't eat much on Friday after my giant pasta lunch. This was done on purpose as I have chronic stomach issues and this way I would be sure there would be no surprises during the race.

I got up two and a half hours before the race, ate some toast with strawberry jam, a small glass of milk, and a little bit of coffee. THis is the same as always and it seems to work for me. Drove the 30 minutes to the race site and did my normal routine there. A 1 mile easy warmup run to get my body going and a couple quick bathroom breaks and I was ready to go.  The temperature was 63 at the start of the race, no clouds, and no real shade on the course either. My goal for the race was to run with the 1:35 pacer for a little while and then speed up to somewhere between 7:00 and 7:05 pace and try to keep it all the way in. If I could follow the plan it should be able to get me in under my goal of 1:32:56.

It turned out that the 1:35 pacer was a rookie (unlike the guy last winter) and it was difficult to figure out his rhythm, so after the first mile (7:13) with a rather small 1:35 group I decided to go on my own. Maybe I should have stayed patient and waited longer but I felt like I needed to find my own pace. I soon realized there was not many people between me and the 1:30 group so I just tried to settle into a good steady pace. I passed two people over the net couple of miles, dumped some water over my head at the aid stations at mile 1.5 and 2.5, and could see the 1:30 group up way ahead. In reality, this race was almost a time trial from mile 2.5 and all the way in, which was kind of a bummer. There really wasn't much going on for the next few miles (7:00-7:02-7:01-7:02-7:02), but I made sure to not to crash on the small pedestrian bridge where I fell in February. Once I started getting close to the turnaround point I started noticing two things: there was a noticeable breeze in the air (and despite the name of the race: Summer Breeze when it's held in August and Bay Breeze in February I've never had this happen before in 3 previous runs in this course), and the 1:30 pacer seemed to get closer. I found that kind of odd but thought maybe it had something to do with the twists and turns close to the turnaround point. But at the turnaround point I estimated the 1:30 pacer and the one guy running with him to be maybe just 30 seconds ahead of me, which did not seem right. I stopped just for a second at the turnaround to chug a little bit of water to wash down a gel, and started on the way back.

And I immediately noticed that breeze. Not a strong wind for sure, but very noticeable on my effort. I passed the guy who had previously run with the 1:30 pacer somewhere before mile 8, and I could see the 1:30 pacer up ahead. And I was 100% sure he was not keeping his intended pace. After a slightly quick turnaround mile I tried to keep my pace up but fell off just a little bit (6:58 on the turnaround mile-7:07-7:08), and as I got closer and closer to the 1:30 "pacer" mile 10 dropped to 7:17. When I caught up to him he said he was a little bit off pace (yeah, that was no surprise), but I needed someone to hang with for a little while. That was probably a mistake and mile 11 ended at 7:29. I passed the "pacer" and just tried to keep it together for the end. I wasn't very successful as mile 12 and 13 ended up as 7:33 and 7:29, and at this point I wasn't sure who I was passing as the race now had merged with the slower 10k runners that started 15 minutes after the half marathon. I heard one person right behind me for a while during the last mile but I must have been able to drop him as he was nowhere to be seen at the end.I somehow managed to squeeze out a little bit of "speed" at the end with a closing 6:42 pace. For the longest time I was still sure I could beat my PR (set on the same course in February), but when I got to the last stretch towards the finish line I realized I would just miss it by a few seconds.

Final result was 1:34:44, and although I was disappointed I avoided the huge drop in motivation I had foreseen with that result. When I went for the cooldown run I noticed that the wind had picked up even more, and looking at the results from other people on Strava it looks like pretty much everybody struggled on the way back. So in summary, a race in not ideal conditions, with a pace that (under the conditions) was probably a hair too fast for the first half. Not sure if I can read anything into the result, but I am pretty sure it is the right thing for me to not increase my training paces as JD often suggests you do after 6 weeks of training.