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

Keen -  really nice week and I've been enjoying your captions on Strava again!!  I'm lucky to have a bit of pace but your week last week was bigger than my biggest week of all time (~60 miles).  I discovered post-marathon that I just can't really hack that sort of mileage (and that was after a pretty gradual build-up too).

Piwi - that's some quality photoshop right there.  I am still too technologically illiterate to even understand how to put photos on my posts on this site.

Steve - yeah I'm with you... Lorde has done well but I've no desire to go to her concert.  My wife was buying Celine DIon tickets a few weeks ago actually, the conversation went like this:

Wife: "My family is all keen to go to Celine Dion, do you want to come too?"

Me: "No"

Wife: "My sister's fiance is coming"

Me: "Good for him"

I didn't even play the 'someone needs to babysit our 1 year old' card which is my usual easy out in those situations.  Needless to say I didn't ask her if she was keen to come to see Machine Head in a few months time.

Enric - nice RR and sounds like a fun event.  Not too many Ekiden events over here although I think there is one in Rotorua towards the end of the year.

Oakland Marathon RR (aka The world's longest marathon)

Before this race everything seemed to be in place for a good time: flat course, great running weather, easy to get to from my house, and I was planning on running the race with a good friend of mine. He's faster than me by a good margin, but his stated goal was to run 3:25 (which for him is 5 minutes under BQ), so we agreed to help pace each other as far as we could. My wife, bless her soul, got up at 5:20 to drive us to the start (she just returned home and went to bed again afterwards), so we didn't have to deal with parking or any of that stuff either. After some quick reconnaissance of the area, a couple of portapotty breaks (I somehow felt things weren't moving quite as smooth as usual on a race morning), a very short warmup, and dropping off our sweats we were ready to go when the starting gun went off at 7.

The first half of the race was pretty uneventful. Our goal translated to 7:49 pace, and to account for courses always measuring a little bit long we agreed 7:45 was a pretty good goal to shoot for. Based on my last training runs I felt comfortable trying to hit anything between 7:40 and 7:45 for each mile. My HR was a few beats high to start but I expected that since it was cool at the start (43F) and the "warmup" was pretty short. And after 5-6 miles it was right where I wanted it to be. I chatted with my  buddy here and there and mentioned to him that I really felt like the effort was right where it should be. After 11 miles we were pretty much right on target with a 7:42 average pace up until then. We both noticed that the mile marker for mile 11 was way late but blew it off since the marker for mile 6 had been 0.15 miles early so we figured the people setting the markers were not among the sharpest knives in the drawer.

But then I realized my fears form earlier were right, I had to go to the bathroom to poop . I was pretty sure there would be a portapotty at an upcoming turnaround, and i was right. I told my buddy to keep going and went to town. Earlier claims of a 1:15 turnaround time were a bit optimistic, looking very closely at my Garmin data it was more like 1:30, but I got going again and felt a lot better. I logged an 8:59 mile, so I lost just about 1:15 on the break though. But I kept noticing that the mile markers were still off and wasn't sure what was going on. Then I noticed a pace group maybe 30 seconds to a minute ahead of me, and since there was no pace group for 3:25, this must have been the 3:30 group. I started doing some mental math and got more and more confused. 11 seconds per mile pace difference, plus me running maybe 3 seconds per mile faster, 14 seconds per mile, 11 miles, 154 seconds, that's two and a half minutes. And I lost only half that time on my break, yet they were ahead of me?? It turns out the mistake on the course, which added something close to half a mile, happened somewhere during mile 10, and probably caused that group to speed up a lot. For those who tracked me, the timing mats that were supposed to be at 12.5 were basically at mile 13.

Either way, I told myself to not stress, to not push the pace too hard to catch up, and just work myself slowly back to this group. It took a seemingly long time, probably because they had to push the pace themselves to keep up with the mile markers, but at mile 15 I was with the pace group. Then I'm thinking to myself, 11 miles left, I need 5 minutes on this group to get to 3:25, which means 30 seconds per mile faster than this group. And I knew from catching up with them that I was not going that much faster than them. Still confused I decided to slowly pull away, and did just that. Everything still felt under control, but the 3 miles right around here (15-17) might have been what doomed me later on as they went by at 7:32 pace.

I was working a little bit harder at miles 18 and 19 but still felt under control. In Paris 2 years ago I started slowing down a little bit right around this point, and I knew I felt a lot better than back then. At a short out and back section, I saw my running buddy about 2 minutes ahead of me, and as long as he was keeping his pace up I figured I was doing ok. I slowed down by about 10 seconds on mile 20, but it had what seemed like a long slightly uphill section, and just a little bit of headwind, so I justified it internally. The truth was that I started working really hard here, but I told myself to keep pushing. Mile 21 was 7:43, so I took that as a sign I was still not done. Then I was at 7:52 for mile 22, and tried to pick it up again for mile 23, but just couldn't, and ended up at 7:55.

And I realized I just needed to hold on for 3 more miles. It was slow and painful, but now I was at least running at a part of the course that we had looped through earlier, so I knew what I was up against. And as my average pace went past 7:45 on my watch I realized 3:25 probably was gone. And then somewhere around mile 25 the 3:30 pacer flies past me, and I'm thinking what an ass he is, he left his group and is coming in way ahead of schedule (but now I see he probably crossed the line right at 3:30). I had ignored the mile markers up until now but I was coming to the realization that this course was going to be long, I just didn't know by how much. And right when my watch beeped for mile 26, somebody yelled, "just half a mile left". I look at my watch, 3:25, and I'm thinking I can still salvage sub 3:30. My legs were dead and I had to really fight to keep going, I didn't look at my watch, and finally I could see the finish line. But I also saw 3:31 something on the official clock and didn't understand anything until I crossed the line, stopped my watch, and realized it said 26.8 miles . Final time was 3:31:37.

I'm still grumpy about the long course, but just happy that this wasn't a race where I was targeting a BQ. I now have a much better understanding of how frustrated people can be when a race course is botched like this. Ironically, this marathon changed the course from a really hilly one to the flat one this year to be more attractive to people trying to qualify for Boston, but instead they  ended up making it a slower course.

Rune thanks for the RR - I really enjoyed it. I find it hard to believe that with todays technology they could still f $ck up the measurements by that much. Incredible at such a large event. 25 years ago one would have just wondered if it was a bad day. But nowadays with everyone having a gps device it jus completely throws off people. I would have been exactly the same. And the paced groups? Thats a nightmare. But your pit stop was phenomenal!

Mark: great pictures especially the last one thats an epic finish photo! But the victory V is really Celine Dion style if you admit it or not. Lorde would have headbanged and put up the horns instead...maybe you can still join your dw, her sis and the gaga fiancé for the concert!!!

Rune - nice job dumping the unnecessary cargo. How come people trust the mile markers, they must be perfectly placed in US races, I don't trust the local mile marker placers with holding a plastic water cup without botching it.

Mark - I agree anything other than a straight ahead on the last 500m is a headache.

That conversation with the wife bhahahahaa. I’ve been on that same situation way too often.

Also that guy just ahead of you on the first picture gives me hope, same build just running way faster.

Keen - That’s a big week running in the farm!

Steve - you are one speedy beast!

Enric - great race report, but now you’ve ruined Gaga for me haha

Piwi - ever find some clever workarounds in the wiring? Like someone wanted to cut corners and stuff?

MJ - longer than 20 minutes you say? who are we kidding 

JMac - Thanks for the link on how accurate mile markers are supposed to be set! People were complaining about the mile markers at the half marathon here as well, and within 2 miles they went from being a quarter mile early to a quarter mile late. If you really have a certified course there is no way that should be allowed to happen.

Mark - Great pictures!

Jaime, CK - Nice mileage!

Thanks for the kudos all. I feel like this was a pretty well executed race, but I still have lots of questions regarding how this could have ended with no bathroom break and all the confusion on the course, but I'm trying really hard to let that go. Just starting to aim for my next goal. My splits were 1:44:25/1:47:12 (as determined by my Garmin), with the split time taken exactly at 13.4 miles. That's about a 2:45 positive split, but doesn't take into account my bathroom break towards the end of the first half. So we're really talking somewhere around a 4 minute positive split. So it's a good improvement over my first marathon where I did an 8 minute positive split. And those 4 minutes mostly come from the last 3.8 miles (which should have been 3.2-3.4), where I lost about a minute per mile. And regarding the intermediate splits reported by the race at what was supposed to be 12.5 and 18.1 miles, those were both about half a mile later.

My legs were really sore yesterday, today it's mostly good, but my left hamstring and glute are both really tight. Hoping it will loosen up enough in a couple more days so I can get in a short, easy run with our dog.

My training last week

 

Steve - you are one speedy beast!

 

Thanks, I've been a bit shocked with the numbers I've been getting recently.  Do you think it translates to a sub 90 in 11 days?  My main worry is the volume is a little down but my long runs are up around HM distance.  I think if I get a good weather day and have a good day I can sub 90, but it won't be by much.

Mark - Cool pictures, and they increase my chances of cheering for the right person next week!

Thanks piwi - my plan for tonight is 60 mins with 2x20 mins tempo pace with a 2 minute rest.  My coach has that rest in there to reduce chances of lower leg injuries that I'm prone to.  I'm only at about 50km/week so I suspect things will get tough in the last 5km of the race.