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

Corey - I googled the Kiawah Island weather forecast for Sat morning and it actually looks reasonably good, IMO.  Temps are pretty much perfect at 8-10C / mid-high 40's, and the chance of rain at 8am is quite low (3%) although increasing by late morning.  The wind is more likely to be an issue with a moderate NE, but I just googled the course map and it's also not a biggie as it will even itself out, you will just have to manage your effort on those first 8 miles which are largely headed east.

If you really feel the cold, you may want an extra layer but honestly I'd say you're better off just taking a pair of cheap gloves that you can ditch if it gets too warm.

Marky: I remember that you are the resident guru of weightlifting, and I have some squat-related questions for you. How much do you squat related to your body weight? I got a squat rack a while ago and am able to do proper squats with a barbell, and move up in weight; previously I just had dumbbells and the weight was pretty light, at 35 lbs each for 70 lbs (32 kg) total, and I weigh 165 lbs (75 kg). Now with the barbell I am up to 135 lbs (61 kg) (3 sets of 10). I feel like I could keep increasing gradually, but wonder if it will be beneficial for my running. I am hoping it will help with form and speed, and these will translate into better efficiency, which in turn will help with the marathon, my primary distance.

Also, I have become obsessed in the last few weeks with pistol squats. I am light years away from being able to do one, and I'm not sure I ever will be able to do a complete one (ie, all the way down). It seems to me like these require more balance and flexibility than strength, and I am hugely lacking in the flexibility area. When I try one holding on to a post, I get a lot of tightness in my hamstring of the extended leg that is the limiter for getting further down. Are you able to do them properly? How long did it take you to be able to do them properly?

Anyone else who has opinions/experience on these topics please also feel free to chime in!

JT - hey good to see you!  I haven't spent a lot of time over on the sub 3 board this year but it's been great to see the likes of you and JMac hit really good PBs (and as I recall yours was in pretty tough conditions too?).

As a runner, what you want is the strength and power gains (which should translate to form and efficiency), but not the muscle bulk.  You need the basic technique and conditioning down to start with, which is where a lot of reps at a really low weight (or no weight) is great initially, but it sounds like you're well past that.

However, to get strength, you really want to be doing sets of 5-6 reps at something close to maximum effort.  This maximises the intensity of the lifting which is what builds strength and power.  At 10-12 that is more into the hypertrophy/mass building range - the muscle has a lot more time under tension, so you get microscopic tears which then cause it to grow back larger.  You'll be getting some strength gain from that for sure, but the physiological and mental effort gets diluted over a lot more reps so it's not as significant.

I'm ~73kg and I generally top out around 65-70kg on my squats these days (1 warm-up set with the bar only and then 3 sets of 6 albeit I might start on 60kg for the first work set).  I probably take squats a little easier than I could/should because for some reason I tend to get tight adductors the following day if I go heavy.  Mo Farah was a big advocate of weight training but I think even he topped out around 90kg/200lb.

You might want to try dropping the reps and increasing the weight a little.  The other thing that is key with squats is getting enough depth otherwise your glutes don't fully engage - you want to try and get your upper leg parallel to the ground at the bottom of the motion.

Honestly my pistol squat technique is not great either, I don't get hamstring tightness (it's generally my quads that burn) but I certainly can't get all the way down and often use a wall to stabilise myself so I can get some extra depth.  Flavio may be able to chip in here as he got pretty good at them for a while.

Anyways hope that helps!

JT - hey good to see you!  I haven't spent a lot of time over on the sub 3 board this year but it's been great to see the likes of you and JMac hit really good PBs (and as I recall yours was in pretty tough conditions too?).

 

As a runner, what you want is the strength and power gains (which should translate to form and efficiency), but not the muscle bulk.  You need the basic technique and conditioning down to start with, which is where a lot of reps at a really low weight (or no weight) is great initially, but it sounds like you're well past that.

 

However, to get strength, you really want to be doing sets of 5-6 reps at something close to maximum effort.  This maximises the intensity of the lifting which is what builds strength and power.  At 10-12 that is more into the hypertrophy/mass building range - the muscle has a lot more time under tension, so you get microscopic tears which then cause it to grow back larger.  You'll be getting some strength gain from that for sure, but the physiological and mental effort gets diluted over a lot more reps so it's not as significant.

 

 

I'm ~73kg and I generally top out around 65-70kg on my squats these days (1 warm-up set with the bar only and then 3 sets of 6 albeit I might start on 60kg for the first work set).  I probably take squats a little easier than I could/should because for some reason I tend to get tight adductors the following day if I go heavy.  Mo Farah was a big advocate of weight training but I think even he topped out around 90kg/200lb.

 

You might want to try dropping the reps and increasing the weight a little.  The other thing that is key with squats is getting enough depth otherwise your glutes don't fully engage - you want to try and get your upper leg parallel to the ground at the bottom of the motion.

 

Honestly my pistol squat technique is not great either, I don't get hamstring tightness (it's generally my quads that burn) but I certainly can't get all the way down and often use a wall to stabilise myself so I can get some extra depth.  Flavio may be able to chip in here as he got pretty good at them for a while.

 

Anyways hope that helps!

Mark: Thanks a lot! This is very helpful indeed. I will try to move towards fewer reps and higher weight. I do recall hearing that Mo was doing squats at 1.5+ times his body weight; and he certainly did not add too much bulk in the process!  As far as getting down far enough, I am good in that regard; the thing I need to work on is ankle flexibility as my heel still rises up in the last bit of the descent.

I think (and hope) that even with incomplete pistol squats, the gains you get from increased single-leg balance and stabilization are still significant and should help with running form and economy. I'm going to stick with them!

Mark - a meta-joke, oh boy, we have raised the bar on banter on this board!

JTReeves - I'm actually not very good with pistol squats, most I can do is down to 90 degrees I reckon, on the right side.

But there are variations on single leg squats that you can do that will bring a lot of gains.

Full squats are still important, but when we are running we have just one leg on the ground.

There's the Bulgarian squat:

The airplane squat. I do the easier variation, where I don't raise the back leg as much, and the hands are down, not to the sides. And I I have a kettlebell on either hand, or both.

And there's also single leg Skater Squats, but I do these without any weights on my hands and I use a base that is about 12cm/5in from the ground (the guy on the picture is using a much lower base)

Jmac - this is how I imagine you on the throne (BTW I highly recommend his blog http://www.onceuponasaga.dk/, he's traveling to every country in the world without flying. 166 down already).

Piwi - Good to hear about progress with the calf.

CFarr - The local forecast looks pretty good to me. Do you have a light, breathable, jacket that's water resistant/proof? I'd be tempted to have one of those with me, though an industrial size trash bag with head/arm holes cut in it could be good as well. Maybe cut the front all the way open, then tape or pin it closed so that it's easy to take off when the time comes.

Weights - Something I know I should do, but just haven't been able to make stick yet. Kudos for those of you who have.

Got in my first snow run of the year today! Granted all the flakes were super-tiny and melted as soon as they touched anything, but they were there. We could be getting a lot more snow and/or freezing rain this afternoon and tonight, so tomorrow's LR will likely be on the treadmill. Movie suggestions, anyone??
I don't know if it's my unusually interrupted sleep this week or what, but my run motivation is severely lacking. I'm thinking I'll give it another run or three to see if that improves, but if not I may take it easy for at least a week or two and see where I'm at after that.

10km tester today and no problems apart from the fact I have a mega sore throat. Wont really know if my calf is ok till later this week.

I used my new Garmin 235 today snuck it out of the bedroom ( it a xmas present ) but my wife caught me haha. Anyway I used it and it was great much larger font etc. The heartrate is a first for me and I can see myself getting addicted to that.

I used lap pace which my last watch didnt have. It only had average or current. Lap pace is your average over current lap ? Thats what I want. I like knowing what Im running now for the current km.