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

Monday was about 11 Celcius when I ran.  Which felt quite cool.  The big challenge with most of NZ is the wind and rain (east coast not so much for rain).  It can get very heavy rain where I am, which really takes it out of me, I will take a dry -5 over heavy rain at any temp.

Sounds ideal for running Watson!! The humidity has come back up here and there are northeasterlies in the forecast for the next few days so I will just have to suck it up and try not to be precious about it haha.

Enric - Good to see I'm not the only Dutch guy in here!

Ran a pretty cold (-6C) easy run yesterday. Had a hard time getting my body warm, but that might've been because I only wore 2 layers of clothing. Right shin felt pretty sore after, didn't really feel it while running though. I guess I'll be having a few days rest now, see how it feels on saturday.

Monday was about 11 Celcius when I ran.  Which felt quite cool.  The big challenge with most of NZ is the wind and rain (east coast not so much for rain).  It can get very heavy rain where I am, which really takes it out of me, I will take a dry -5 over heavy rain at any temp.

Agreed. I did a track session this morning at -12C but sunny and dry which didn't impair my workout at all. But close to 0 and heavy rain would be a top seller for a treadmill for me.

Anyways we have btched enough at the weather. No more excuses!!!

Jmac - When you are running and you are in the propulsion phase, try to see if you’re using more the glutes or the calves for propulsion. I have weak glutes and as such use the calves a lot.

Edit: I took down the joke, I thought it was a bit risqué

As I am from Norway originally it's always a bit embarrassing how soft I've become over the years with respect to the weather. Add in bad circulation in my hands and you will see me running with some sort of gloves if the temperature drops below 50F.

I ended up having a decent week last week, although the 20-miler on Sunday got pretty tiring towards the end. I was nervous earlier this week since my left glute/upper hammy was really sore after Sunday's run, but it all seemed to loosen up and go away after my short easy run with the dog yesterday.

This week is kind of funky with a long-ish (12 miles) easy run tonight and intervals on Sunday, but I figured there's a reason for it so I'm following the program. I also think I'm leaning towards running the full distance in 4 weeks 

Weekly Summary
Monday, Feb 19, 2018 thru Sunday, Feb 25, 2018

Piwi - Looks like the tides turned in the GS-OKC rivalry in the game last weekend  I'm not even paying that much attention to basketball, especially when the Winter Olympics were on, but I somehow managed to catch parts of that game.

Btw, had a proud dad moment yesterday. My youngest son (11) did cross country last fall, but was pretty far away from being among the better kids on the team. A couple of his friends were doing it and he needed a sport to do, so he ended up going to the practices and racing as well as he could. He was excited to hear they were doing off-season conditioning during the winter and he's been pretty consistent about going to the practices twice a week, and the last month I think he's had a couple of turning points.

First, he was among only three kids his age who made it to the top of this really steep street that's not far away from the school during a practice run. There's a race going up that hill (and meandering down again) in the fall , and I think it rises about 650 feet in about 0.75 miles. The last block is the steepest and longest, and by the time he made it to that part one of the older kids had turned around at the top, come down to my son and his friends, and joined them for this last part to the top, all while encouraging them to not give up. He was just beaming when he came home to tell the story to me!

Second, he ran a 5k with me last weekend. If you look on Strava you can see it wasn't super fast or anything, but he finished strong and hung in there even though he didn't think he was going to make it at the end without stopping (he even mention he thought he would barf with about half a mile left).

Third, they ran a relay at practice yesterday, and he felt really good about it as he was able to pass another kid towards the end of his 200m leg. He then decided to do track at school in the spring, and when I mentioned it was very cool that he wanted to do it, and that there would be lots of other events he could try out, he just said: That's ok papa, I just like running!

Gave my first go at a Daniels' H-pace workout.  The H-pace is supposed to be roughly equivalent to your current 5k pace.  On the TM, I went at 9.5mph (or about 3:55/km, which is slightly faster than 3:56/km, my 5k pace from 2 races last summer).  I was aiming for 7x3min intervals (with 2 min jog recoveries) to meet his lesser of 8% of total weekly mileage and 10km (8% equals 3.2 miles).  In the 5th interval my form was starting to detioriate.  2 minutes in, I decided to call it.  I could've muscled it out but from what I read I should be able to do the workout with proper form, maybe not comfortably but not with form breakdown risking injury.  I completed the 7 intervals, doing the last two at sub90 HM pace (4:15/km) without issue.  For my H workout next week, I think I will slow down the pace, maybe to 4:05ish/k (5x1km next week).

I also signed up for a 10k race on the 24th of March.  A portion of the course is shared with the HM course I will be running in May so it will serve a couple purposes.  I should be able to lay down a PR, regardless of conditions, since I've only run one 10k and it's a soft time (I actually have gone faster twice in longer races).

Piwi - Yeah, I guess Norway did ok in the olympics . We didn't mdeal in the men's "marathon" cross country distance though (50km classic style), which always has been a very coveted medal. Also, I might think about bribing my son to see if it ups his motivation to train more, but it might be smart to just leave him alone as long as he's having fun.

Blair - Those workouts are exactly what Daniels calls them, hard. And you would be surprised how much of a difference 5 seconds per mile can make. And if you watch his videos you will see how he stresses the importance of not running too fast on the earlier intervals since you then will probably not be able to complete the workout at the right intensity. It looks like you had the right pace, but if you are not used to this type of workout I would probably start with only 5 x 3 minutes and increase up to 7 later on. It was probably smart of you to dial it down when you did.

JMac - I think once he gets a bit faster and closer to beating me at the shorter distances his motivation to do just that will go through the roof. Hoping track in the spring will do him well.

I managed to get in my 12 easy miles yesterday before the worst rain arrived, although it felt pretty lonely out there. My hammy still felt a bit tight but I'm not particularly sore today so I'm not too worried.