Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2018
Whoohoo Piwi phantastic performance!
Now we can sit back and wait for Flavio's half!
HM: 1:47 (9/20) I FM: 3:53:11 (9/23)
2024 Goals: run a FM & HM + stay healthy!
JamesD
Piwi - Great job on the 5K, & welcome to the (10-year) age group. I think we're the only members unless MetalmanCPA is still around.
My week went pretty well, with a longer long run and 2 miles at tempo effort after 1 last week. Was pleased my knees didn't hurt much after having to stand a good bit last Saturday & Sunday. Maybe the Pegasuses (Pegasus? Pegasi?) really are better for them than the Ghosts now. That would be the reverse of 18 months ago when my knees hurt more in the same Pegasuses than in an earlier model of Ghosts. My 2-mile tempo effort on Thursday was a little slower than I had hoped for, but maybe that's to be expected after several months without any faster running. Felt good, anyway.
Sun - off
Mon - 12.4 miles @ 8:13, longest this year
Tues - 6.2 easy and slow, legs tired but not sore
Weds - 24 minutes swimming
Thurs - 6.6, including 2 @ 6:36
Fri - 6.2 easy
Sat - 6.2 easy to moderate @ 8:04
Total - 37.6 miles
YTD average - 31 mpw
Two questions - First, when you do tempo runs or speedwork, how do you decide the length of your warmups and cooldowns? In previous years, I've warmed up by jogging for about a mile and then running 4-8 strides and cooled down by jogging 1-1.5 miles. It seemed like the warmups I needed varied according to the temperature (hotter=shorter) and the time (pre-dawn=longer) and how fast I wanted to run (intervals & short races=more strides), while the cooldowns varied according to the length & difficulty of the workout (longer/harder=longer cooldown). On my easy & moderate runs this year, it's been taking me longer to settle into a steady easy pace, maybe because I've been running more miles, and I find myself gradually speeding up at the same effort during the first few miles of most easy runs. For example, today my four 1.5-mile laps around the park were at 8:12, 8:02, 7:58, and 8:02/mile pace at similar efforts. Because it's taking me longer to feel right, I've been taking longer 1.5-2.5-mile warmups before my short (so far) tempo runs, and 2.5-mile cooldowns have felt good too. (Finally, the second question) Do those warmup & cooldown distances seem reasonable for tempo efforts of 3 or 4 miles?
Post-1987 PRs: Half 1:30:14 (2019); 10K 39:35 (2019); 5K 19:12 (2017); Mile 5:37.3 (2020)
'24 Goals: consistency, age-graded PRs, half < 1:32
Yes Flavio bring home that sub 1.30 !
Thanks for the nice words guys it means alot as you know we put alot of commitment into training and races are the icing on the cake. My official time 18.29 so will take that !
Mark yes 1st place. The other guy only finished about 13 secs back. He must do alot of Parkruns as he has a 100 club badge on his results.
Jmac the gravel is that fine crushed stuff but was washed out in quite a few places after last sundays storm so pretty rough in places. Lots of these tracks round town here and the organisers dont have to worry about traffic.
James I think older runners need more carefully considered warmups. I tend to start every run slow at about 8.48 to over 9 min/mile pace. This will naturally speed to around 8 min/mile on easy runs after about 20 mins. For tempos and intervals I will do about 2 to 3 miles very slow and maybe chuck in a couple of strides at the end. Cooldown I do about a mile and a bit. Yesterdays 5k I did about 3 mile warmup at 8.48 pace with no strides. That was still enough to pump some warm blood around my body.
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 "
My week
Weekly SummaryMonday, Apr 30, 2018 thru Sunday, May 06, 2018
Piwi - nice week.
James - nice week. I would typically do a 10 minute warm-up before most workouts, maybe longer in colder conditions, and sometimes include a few strides if I have an interval or tempo workout (for hill reps I don't bother with the strides). And typically 10-15 mins easy after the workout too.
Me - well we are in the Goldilocks zone for running here at the moment, not too hot, not too cold, and the weather has been great for the last week or so. It was my biggest week since September last year, and included a 25km long run today which ended up surprisingly quick even though the effort and HR felt very comfortable. I'm feeling pretty good at the moment so will likely aim for a similar volume this week, albeit I might shorten Tuesday's run and aim for ~2 hrs on Sunday's LR. Work is super busy so the running is kinda keeping me sane!
M: weights
T: 14.7km easy
W: 12.5km w/ hill reps
Th: 15.5km w/ short hard efforts
F: weights
S: 15.6km incl 4x1200m track workout
S: 25.0km LR
Total: 83.4km
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"
Intl. correspondent
Piwi - once again great job at the 5k!
me - weather looks like it's gonna be 21-24C during the race, it'll be a battle for survival. Plantar fasciitis has flared up on my left foot.
No backing down now! See you on the other side.
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
Flavio its already wednesday next week here in New Zealand Good luck !
Mark really good week and you beat me in mileage and you are very CONSISTENT. You are as fit as a sheep shearers dog right now.
Flavio - Good luck tomorrow! Hope you can keep the PF in check.
Piwi - Great work on the 5k and the win! I guess we don't get to see you in a Gaga costume then . Nice week of running as well.
Mark - Nice week for you too and a great Sunday run! 15+ miles at sub-7/mile pace is a manly workout.
James - Nice week for you. I see we're pretty close in average weekly mileage for the year as I'm at 32.5 right now. Regarding warmup I've done everything from a mile and up to several miles. I see that Jack Daniels has long workouts for the interval and tempo sessions, probably to make you have slightly tired legs already (5 miles and up). But the faster the intervals, the longer and more thorough the warmup should be I guess.I try to get at least a mile cooldown, but that might depend on how I feel and how far away I am from my house.
I officially ended my running week today having reached my weekly goal of 45 miles. It was a good week overall, with a moderate effort on my Wednesday run, the crazy drills and some strides yesterday (the drills are still hard, but it looks like my body remembered the coordination and movement patterns needed from last time), and all other days easy to fill in. I might do an easy 5-6 miler tomorrow, but that one will go on the books for next week since most of that week will be spent in Panama. I'm also starting with actual reps next week, 2x8x200m, with a longer 800m recovery between the two 8x sets. Although there is plenty of recovery there's a lot of fast running in there. Hoping the progression in these sets will help prepare my legs for some of the harder work that starts in 6 weeks.
5k: 20:32 (1/17) | HM: 1:34:37 (2/18) | FM: 3:31:37 (3/18)
Getting back into it
Well done Piwi, great 5k!!!
Enjoy your Half Flavio
I see lots of good training going on this week For me itis all about tapering now (-6days) so not much going on, but I feel that the legs are recovering very well... let's see what I can pull of next week.
Thanks everybody for the suggestions on my posts. I bought the book (Advanced marathoning) I'll see how to increase my mileage to 50PW, but it's hard with work and a young family (I know those are excuses, but I am already training at 6am ... and travelling a lot for work). Anyway, my next goal is actually a HM beating the 90, so I will try to learn from you to do that in September, and in the process I'll try to bring home PB on the 5K, 10k and in the FM.
I am still thinking about running the HM on the 20th of June... 5 weeks recovery from the marathon it's probably not enough from what I read in your answers, and the problem will be speed (as I would not be able to train much on that), but I would like to get a feeling before actually trying the 90 minutes in September. I am just afraid of injuries, any thoughts?
PRs since re-started in 2013:
5km: 19:43 (Belfast park run Sep-16) | 10km: 40:16 (Belfast Lagan side 10K Sep-18)
HM: 1:30:09 (Belfast city Half Marathon, September-18) | FM: 3:25:05 (official chip time Belfast city Marathon, May-19, marathon was 0.3/4 longer, original time 3:27:20 for 26.5/6...)
Upcoming races:
???
Mark - You are unbreakable. Jeebus running a monster workout and a long run the next day!
Piwi - Very entertaining race report. I’m glad you beat the guy in basketball shorts haha. I once lost to a guy with died hair, it haunts me to this day.
Rune - Panama will be warm as an oven. I’m sure it will be fun. I’ve heard great things about the country.
Marco - Focus on one thing at a time. You’re chasing too much stuff. Just worry about upping the mileage safely to 80km a week and forget about the fast stuff for the next 2 weeks at the very least. Even Mark, our resident speedster took a couple of weeks of after his marathon.
Some people get away with running fast just after the marathon but I reckon that’s because they have big weeks of training (120km+) or they are very lightweight (sub 60kg).
I think there’s a reason all elite marathoners weigh under 63kg no matter their height.
me - back from the half.
1h28:09 (Strava thinks it’s 1h28:10 but I’m taking the Garmin result )
A great result in what I will call my warm weather half marathon PR. Because seriously f** this global warming, we don’t get winters anymore here, and there’s rarely races in winter anyway since the hobby joggers are the ones financing the races when you think about it and they don’t like going out when it’s sub 15c.
It was easy to keep the pace up to maybe 10km.
Around 13K I was doing my best at spitting at the sidewalk as I was passing a neighbor girl, and she was greeting me. I’m sure all my neighbors will now know that I’m a disgusting spitter haha.
Around 14K we hit a slight head wind and the wheels came off. I had initially a small fade.
Quite frankly around 15km when we passed the finish line on the outside I considered DNF for the first time, I was feeling done already.
Around km 17 I hit the wall.
The heat had been accumulating and it’s funny to see the HR data now as it tells exactly the same story.
Again at the turnaround (18km) I considered dropping off or at least jog to the end. I was seeing Jesus riding a beautiful pink unicorn.
Some guys passed me at this point however and I decided to follow them. I had followed them to 8km using them as pace makers. Somehow they had dropped back but now were again ahead.
And so I focused just on trailing them to the finish line. I managed to follow them for a while while my heart felt like it was about to jump out my chest. Eventually they opened a gap but I didn’t care, I was just doing mental math that I was still going to finish sub 1h30. It turns out the course was a bit short (and I’m not really complaining this time). I’m taking it as a PR, I don’t really care much.
Overall I’m really tired right now but happy. It was a suffer fest but still entertaining. I’m more sore on the glutes, abs, hips, back and lower back, and not so much at the quadriceps which means all that functional training is working.
And Hell yeah, now I have renewed my member card for this board!
How could I forget. My girlfriend beat her 10K PR by 2 minutes running 55:30 while also beating her previous 5K PR along the way (26:56)
Rune 45miles off 6 days really good. The speed drills sound like something I need to try. Coffee reduction going well here how about you ?
Marco good to hear you got that book. Marathon mileage is a serious commitment. It does mess with your life once you are over 60 mpw but gets the result. I would say see how you feel 4 weeks after the marathon. You might be fine or injured so wait and see.
Flavio bad news for the guy in basketball shorts as he got beaten by a 50 yr old
Congrats on your half result. The 4.10/km till 15kms and limp home worked ! That heat will cost you too so you are likely faster. Did others get short course ? My Tomtom is notorious for reading short. About 100m over 10kms compared to my garmin training buddies. However on the 5k it was perfect. Maybe because of no corners. Great time by your girlfriend too. Rest up and enjoy the moment. Then back to injury free CONSISTENT training and your next 1.26 half
Wow Flavio great job you really had to push through a lot of pain although on that picture in action on strava you look pretty fresh. I usually look exactly the way I feel: crappy all the way
And you gf is fast wow she must be used to running with/from you
Flavio - nice race. I looked on Strava, it looks to be about 300m short, so about 1:29 on a legit course. The warmth sounded rough, I do not envy you. Every time I race in warm conditions, it's a bad race.Piwi, Mark, Rune, and James - good weeks.Re a half 5 weeks post a full - I think it's very doable. Assuming no marathon injury.My week was good. Although admittedly my intervals and tempo were quite slow reflecting my previous 5 weeks of almost no running. It was my second biggest week this year (admittedly my year has hardly been big volume):
PRs: 5km 18:43 (Dec 2015), 10km 39:59 (Sep 2020), half 1:26:16 (Sep 2016), full 3:09:28 (Jun 2015)
40+ PRs: 5km 19:31 (Oct 2020), 10km 39:59 (Sep 2020), half 1:29:39 (Jun 2018), full 3:13:55 (Sep 2022)
2023 PRs (hope to beat in 2024): 5km 20:34, 10km 41:37, half 1:32:32, full 3:21:05
2024 PRs: 5km 20:25
Flavio - big congrats on the race (and congrats to your girlfriend too). It looked like you faded a bit over the last 4-5km but you had clearly banked enough earlier in the race to be well under the 1:30. Those conditions would be very tough, I only had one race like that (Orewa earlier this year) and it was misery. All the functional training and steady mileage build is paying off and I'm really hoping you stay healthy as you will only get quicker from here.
Your hilarious comment about seeing Jesus riding a unicorn has inspired me to compile a few quotes on the front page of the thread.
Rune - nice week and hopefully there is a decently air-conditioned treadmill for you in Panama!
Watson - nice week.
Marco - I definitely came back too quickly after my marathon last year. I took 2 weeks very light training post-race, and then started building the mileage back up fairly soon after that. In hindsight I definitely overdid it, as I did a half marathon race 6 weeks after, which felt OK at the time but I got ITB issues almost immediately after which took 6-7 weeks to be fully rid of. If I was to do another marathon, I would probably be taking 1-2 light weeks, and then the following 2-3 weeks, build the mileage but with very few workouts and mostly easy effort. Although, that was my first marathon, so a more experienced marathon runner might recover more quickly, and some people naturally recover more quickly than others too.