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

Mark - nice race.  When are the official results out, if you're lucky you have 1s PR.

Cfarr and JMac - nice week.

My race did not go well.

On the drive down, after about 10 minutes from leaving home, I realized I'd forgotten my inhaler.  Did a quick calculation and thought I'd still get to the race 10-15 minutes beforehand if I went back home.  So I want back home and got my inhaler.  I managed to get there at 8:15am (8:30am race start) and was parked about 500 metres from the start.

I had my race shorts on so I jogged to the starting area and dropped off my bags.  I saw a few people I knew and had a quick chat.  I then did another small warmup.

And about 8:28am I redid my shoe, and I was about 75 metres from the start.  I then realized that the race director had started early!

So I then started too quick as I tried to get through the slower runners at the start.  I was doing about 3:45 pace early on, which ended up a first km in 4:00.  Starting too quick is not good for me.

The course wasn't the quickest due to around 3km of grass plus a few small stair climb / drop.  At about 3km I headed up the river, and noticed the wind was stronger than I expected.  I got to the turn around at about 44:00 minutes. A PR was gone at this point, but I still had hopes of at least a 2018 best.

I was hoping that downwind I'd speed up, but I didn't as I was fading by about 10s/km (which is probably more like 20-25 s/km when accounting for wind).

I faded a bit more including the 19th km being 4:31 (is slow due to stairs plus grass).  I slightly sped up near the end.

My watch was 1:30:11 for 21.20km.  So I would have just scrapped sub 1:30 if I'd started at the start.  I don't know my official time yet, so I'll find out how many seconds the race had started before I realized.

Slightly annoying, but I never used my inhaler.

I raced the 10km two years ago, and again had a disappointing time.  I think the grass, stairs, the wind down the river when a northerly, plus a lot of very small undulations makes it not the quickest course.

Chris sounds very frustrating. Is an inhaler something you use alot ?

1.30 ish is still a good solid hit out.

When you say stairs Im reminded of any race round Mt. Maunganui grrrr

Mark your last km was really fast. Any 10k ive done im hanging on for dear life to maintain pace in the last km so good signs for you. Yeah I guess the gun start is something to consider if its a big field. Pulford was 2 mins ahead of 2nd and 3rd. Should have company in the nationals.

Mark - Great job on the 10k and making that national team! I'm definitely looking forward to see how you do at nationals. Interesting that they only went off gun time.

JMac - Good week. The humidity in Florida must have been brutal.

Flavio - Bummer about the cold. Good job saving the streak, though. Feeling better?

Cfarr - Good week! Have fun on that mile race. I'd love to find one around here. At least a different one, since the only one in the area is in the middle of summer and I have no desire to race when it's in the 90's.

Watson - Bummer about the race, everything in the lead-up must have been frustrating. With all that I'm impressed by your time, though.

Took a slight step back in mileage last week - I'll likely try getting into the low 80's this week, then drop down a bit again for the week after.
Absolutely wonderful weather this morning, the best I've seen in several months. I tacked on an extra 2 miles at M pace on to the end of my planned workout. Possibly not the greatest idea, but I couldn't help myself with how good I was feeling in the cooler weather. Odd but awesome thing, my avg HR for the M pace miles was within my easy run HR threshold.

Weekly Summary
Monday, Aug 13, 2018 thru Sunday, Aug 19, 2018

Steve - nice week.  Keep an eye on yourself and you should be fine.

Keen - great week.  Given the weather you've been dealing with I can totally see why you took the opportunity to enjoy the conditions and tack a bit extra on!

Piwi - yeah as niggly as it was to miss a PB by 1 second my big learning from the race was about pacing myself in a flat 10k (I actually haven't run one since my very first race in 2016!).  Should've picked it up at the 8km mark for sure if not a little earlier.  Simon Mace finished 15 seconds ahead of me - his strategy was to go out hard and just try and hold it as he's fast but coming off pretty low mileage at the moment.  For NZ Champs, I'm not sure whether to try and go with him on the day, or pace it similar to the last race but pick it up around 7-8km.  Tactically I think I might just go with him, generally my best races have been the very evenly paced ones and he runs a smart race so given we'll be on the same team he's probably a good guy to have on my shoulder.

Watson - tough race. Starting early is unacceptable. I would absolutely blow up at the RD for that, probably get myself in trouble .

Piwi - time to get the motivation back up! You were doing so well earlier this year, and now you've taken a break. Time to come back.

Flavio - Nice pics. I keep thinking I should take more, it's always good to see the types of environments people run in. Also, I agree with you on NZ. Sometimes I zoom on Watson/Mark/Piwi's runs on Strava and am amazed at how they're in the middle of nowhere.

TAPER IS QUEEN

Haha. Good luck, Mark! I am sure you will crush it!

 

Impressive week Commander Keen!  Loving those 200m reps on the 16.6 miler.  Your body was probably like...WTF! 

Hey Brosendahl, shouldn't you be posting over on LRC? 

Bro - If you go back to page 109 of this thread, you'll see that I predicted that that thread was you! Anyway we had a bunch of advice for you after I made the prediction so feel free to go back and read through that. Anyway, if you can do 22 at 7:44 pace on normal training legs (i.e. you didn't taper for that run), you should easily be able to BQ. The best long runs I ever put up, even in perfect weather, average at least 45 seconds slower than my MP.