Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2018
Hot Weather Complainer
Thanks guys. I have no answers as to what happened. I got to 10km exactly when I wanted to (slower than previous races).
I planned to PB then think about full marathon. But thankfully this thread has 8 months to run. I need to prove I can do it to this group!
My build up was perfect. I can't think of anything. Although when I was at Auckland airport earlier apparently it was 21 degrees. There is no f**king way that was 21 degrees! It was scorching (and it's not like we don't get hot weather in Christchurch).
Nice to be home with a bourbon, albeit a little shocked and confused. I'm so glad I finished.
Oh and I appreciate the idea that I was smart to stop at 15km...but in reality I had no choice. I couldn't stand up! Some memories are coming back. I remember after 14km thinking I would get to 15km before I dropped out. So I battled through that km with the view that it was my last.
I've seen my time now. Yesterday I'd have been ashamed to know that would be my time but right now, I feel okay with it.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:34:49 6/23
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Steve - it definitely felt warmer than that to me at home this afternoon too!! But, aside from your excellent choice of beverage, I would say that sometimes you just have a bad day for whatever reason. A couple years ago, I had a great run at Auckland, then turned up to Queenstown 3 weeks later and ran a full 6 minutes slower for absolutely no apparent reason. I was battling from around the 12km mark. It sucked, but, sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days so don't dwell on it too much, figure out how you can set yourself up to go better at your next race.
Flavio - I think its Ng as in Ning but without the 'Ni'. I went to school with a guy with the same name,
Piwi - I think the last 3 weeks have taught me that being in marathon retirement is probably a good place to be (for me, anyway)
3,000m: 9:07.7 (Nov-21) | 5,000m: 15:39 (Dec-19) | 10,000m: 32:34 (Mar-20)
10km: 33:15 (Sep-19) | HM: 1:09:41 (May-21)* | FM: 2:41:41 (Oct-20)
* Net downhill course
Last race: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Mark, you're right. I felt more gutted about ChCh last year when I missed by 60 seconds. Today I was done. I was going home with my first ever DNF then somehow got to the finish. And now I'm even more determined to actually do what this thread is about. It was warm but not enough to give me a real excuse. Just a bad day. And to top it off, half cut, got home, text from boss about an issue. Told him I've spent half the day vomiting, then explained that the error was at his end, not mine. Just now discovered, yep, I messed up, not him. Worded it in a different way when I texted him telling him I've solved it though...now back to the bourbon.
Oh, and just realised I'm being a downer.
MARK YOU ARE FRICKEN AWESOME. Celebrate hard mate, what an amazing day
Mark: As said, great competition - I really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing. You took it from Chris on the last miles. Amazing. Enjoy it as long as you can.
Steve: I am not sure what this means in terms of the Gaga competition but we will have to wait for Flavio to analyse your splits on Strava. Good luck Btw: still a really good time somehow, not sure how you managed to do that with the time on the bench and the slow jogging and everything else you did during that time. Respect!
Piwi: You ran a respectable half yourself. Not bad those pinkish shoes of yours (Nike Zoom you said?)
Me: Bummer just realized that I fell short of the 60km mark. 3 miles short of the 40miles, but I did the Jack Daniels Quality sessions back to back and am just not yet at a point where these feel easy enough to run an additional day.Have to check what Jack suggests for next week.
HM: 1:47 (9/20) I FM: 3:53:11 (9/23)
2024 Goals: run a FM & HM + stay healthy!
Intl. correspondent
Steve - don’t beat yourself too hard. You knew coming in that you might lack in endurance and you gave it your best shot for glory.
You bonked hard. It could be many reasons. All you can do is go back to training, up the mileage a bit, next time you'll get it.
MJ - Steve is kidding with us, the reason he does not want to remember is because he raced it in a Gaga costume.
me - hit another milestone running 80km in 7h25 + 2 days functional training of 1h.
Piwi - Ok, after 5 years on this board I can’t take it anymore. You will not reveal the real story behind your screen name.
So I will have to set the truth free!
For those of you who are unaware, Piwi was a child star in a kid band called Trem da Alegria, their hit song was Piwi Abacaxi, a song composed in his homage.
Here's Piwi with his band colleagues. He's the one to the right.
Here’s video proof, you can see all the hysterical fans. Note the chorus keeps repeating the name of the main star, Piwi Abacaxi (pronounced a-ba-ka-shee) (Piwi’s stage name).
Abacaxi is a Portuguese word that means gorgeous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80OPDUQB9xo
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: some 800m race (or time trials) / Also place in the top 20% in a trail race
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Steve - Sometimes you just have a bad day and it can be hard to figure out exactly why, or maybe it’s a combination of small things. I had a training run 3 weeks before my marathon that was supposed to be 12 miles m-pace, and for some reason it was super hard. I pulled the plug after 10 and was gassed. On race day that pace lasted me for 23 miles.
Flavio - Happy we finally know where Piwi comes from
I think our buddy Enric was supposed to run Rotterdam today but I haven’t seen anything on Strava yet, nor on the official results.
5k: 20:32 (1/17) | HM: 1:34:37 (2/18) | FM: 3:31:37 (3/18)
Getting back into it
Flavio, small mistake: Piwi is the girl on the left!
(I hope I never pass by Te Puke otherwise he's gonna give me a good beating - he's faster than me too )
Guys you really made me look bad today. I logged 17km and thought phew that was good and then I see Rune Flavio Piwi and Jaime all in excess or at 20....plus the half marathonists and Enric....way to go...
Haha very good Flavio. I think I use this nickname too much as a search of my business recently had a google map pointing to my house with Piwikiwi as the business name some guy also rings me up asking for Piwikiwi with an alarm problem.
Flavio nice hitting 80kms thats real mileage.
Mick the pink Nikes are Zoom Streak. The elites wear them in marathons as with the Adidas Adios most Adidas sponsored elites wear them. Interestingly both have about 8mm drop so maybe low drop isnt so popular with the top guys.
Dont worry about less mileage than us. Its better to get used to what you can cope with first. I struggled to run 20km runs in the first couple of years but during marathon training a 20km run wasnt even considered long. It had to be 26km +. My 12 year old is doing boxing classes in Te Puke so I will get him to beat you up
Steve hope your hangover isnt too bad today.
Mark I hear you on marathons. They take alot of training and recovery. Im in no hurry to run another. Ive run a few races which Julian Ng has been in. I think he started back when i did. He improved to sub 1.20 quite quickly.
55+ PBs 5k 18:36 June 3rd TT
" If you don't use it you lose it, but if you use it, it wears out.
Somewhere in between is about right "
Flavio - really nice week at 80km. And thanks for the history lesson!
Piwi - yeah Julian is super-consistent on his mileage. Pretty much 70km every week without fail. He was a little slower yesterday than I would've expected but I think he ran cross-country trials the day before.
MJ- yeah those back-to-back workouts can be tough, might take a while to get used to. As Piwi says, don't worry too much about absolute mileage, just focus on consistency and gradually building it up over time.
Steve - uh, sounds like a tough day all around! Work drama is about the last thing you want in that situation.
Me - body feeling OK after the race... right post-tibial tendon is a bit niggly but it's done this before so I don't think it's anything serious and the calves certainly feel miles better than they did after getting pounded on the Coatesville hills. Will take an easy week this week for recovery. Then plenty of time to build up for Taupo in early August. On reflection, the endurance gains I got from marathon training and the marathon last October have been really key in my last couple of races, although it took me probably 3 months to get over the post-marathon fatigue and injury fallout! I'll look to keep including some decent long runs in my training... maybe not 35km but probably up to 30km.
Well done to Keen - just saw on Strava that he did a 38:56 in his 10km. Very steady pacing throughout and then picked it up over the last 1-2km.
I'm feeling surprisingly good today and even the legs don't feel too smashed - post race has been a high injury risk time for me in the last few years so I plan to be very careful in the next few weeks. An injury now would really be depressing.
I'm trying to work out my next race - there aren't a lot of good road race half-marathon options except the Christchurch Marathon obviously, but that's out because of a mates' wedding. Wellington on July 1 is an option - this race has potential for weather to be a major factor though. When I used to live there I ran the harbour a lot and the wind can get to levels in places where close to walking pace can require a full sprint. Another option is a Sri Chinmoy in Hagley Park in September. That seems a long way off. Once I've got my legs back I think I'll focus on some long easy runs for a month or so.
I'm feeling far less disappointed than I would expect for such a debacle of a race. I think if I'd not finished I'd be hiding from this forum in shame so I guess actually finishing is making me feel okay about it.
Great race report Mark. I also wasn't a fan of that strange grass bit at the first turnaround - it was a recipe for rolled ankles. The sharp turns at the finish would have been a pain at full speed but "luckily" that wasn't an issue for me. I gave you a yell the first time I saw you but didn't have it in me the other times. I think I saw you scanning the 1:30 bus for me at one point, I was just tucked in behind them at that point. I'd had a sizable lead over them early but they eventually went past at about 8km. I remember thinking about 10km that even though I was gone maybe I could hold 4:30 min kms and get a respectable time of about 1:32 but that quickly became a pipe dream. 6km has never felt further than it did when I pulled to the side just after 15km. In the end I started breaking down the remaining kms - I figured if I get to 17km I could surely do 4km. Then at 18km when I had to stop again I couldn't imagine doing another 3km. At 19km I started to think it was possible but it was only after the last turn into the finishing chute that I knew I would get there.
Thank goodness winter is here! Now I can complain about the cold weather instead.
Steve - Wellington is a total gamble on the weather. I've never done it, but know plenty that have. There's been years where the weather has been near-perfect, and years where it's been as windy as you describe (I know seasoned marathon runners that just decided to walk instead... in the half!). If you've got to shell out for flights it's a risky prospect. I don't know what the Sri Chinmoy races in CHC are like but I did a Sri Chinmoy half in Auckland Domain a couple years ago, nice event but very small and mentally it is just punishing doing an 8-lap course. I'm doing Taupo next in early August which is generally quite quick and a nice course (unless the weather is disastrous, which it was in 2016). I was looking at different mid-year races and I believe there was one in the SI on the same weekend.
*checks Google* - yep South Island Half Marathon in Ashburton on August 5. Looks like a mid-size event, reasonably quick course, winner at 1:14 and a decent number of sub-90's suggest it's possibly worth a look. Early August gives you a good chance to build a platform too by working in some longer easier runs over the next little while to build endurance and then starting to add some workouts in too. You'd be surprised how much you can build your fitness over that sort of timeframe. In some ways ~4 months of decent prep probably sounds like a lot but in my financial analyst world I would look at it as investing some more time to de-risk the outcome. You could very well PB at a race in June but with a little more time you give yourself a chance at a really solid PB at the right event.
Yeah - I was trying to spot you in the 1:30 group early on but it was pretty crowded there! With the turnarounds in the course I actually saw a bunch of people out there I knew who gave me cheers - friends from school/uni, guys I played cricket with, a previous boss... I was really in the zone and didn't actually have the (spare) energy to acknowledge many of them but I was really grateful and actually pretty humbled by all the support. There is something about the crowd that Running Events races draws - really great camaraderie.
Yeah I did Wellington in 2007, just the 10km after being sick for the week leading in, and it was perfect. I did the half in 2008 in gale force winds and driving rain which started just before the start. We had to stand at the start for 10 mins in torrential rain - first race I've ever been soaked right through before starting. I was in good shape and finished strong with a decent headwind for the whole second half and ended with 1:33. I think a sub 90 may have been on the cards in calm weather that day.
The Hagley Park one also has 6-7 laps I think but I've done that so many times I'd be okay with it. It is a small one though and I thought about doing it in previous years but thought a PB there might seem a bit "cheap". After yesterday, not sure I think that anymore!
I had a look at Ashburton, might consider that one. It's at the right time for me to allow recovery and creating a better base.
Keen congrats very nice time and splits in that 10k.
All this racing maybe I should sign up for something !