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

D+: uphill

D-: Downhill

I will be back to Montreal by the end of June.  It's a 3 month assignment.  Gothenburg is a very nice city but  I'm missing my home.

Everyone is a runner here, and next weekend will be that world's biggest half... bu I have no plans to run that fast or that long.

The freaking injury comes from running downhill at the end of a wet, windy and cold Boston Marathon.  As I mentioned in the RR, after the Newton Hills, I sped up but it was short lived, my upper thighs became very stiff and I ran thru that.  At some point my knee started complaining but no way I was going to stop. 

Right now, I don't know if it's my knee or if it's my quad that is wrong.

Re nausea - although I often get nerves before races, I've never really had an issue during the race, except the Taupo Half where I had a decidedly dodgy stomach for the last ~3km and had to dash to the bathroom after the race.  I think it was something I'd eaten rather than race-related though as it felt a bit dicey overnight before the race.

In terms of the pain cave, I actually haven't really struck this on HM's since the North Shore Half last year, when I was actually still getting rid of a cold and definitely overcooked it.  I'm not sure whether it's training, perceived effort, or the fact that once you've had to battle at the tail end of a marathon, 21km doesn't seem so bad.  I definitely was sucking in the big ones during that 5k race last November but that was just usual 5k pain!

James - nothing wrong with a light week every now and then to give the body time to recover!

Jaime - good to see you around and hope that knee injury is not too bad.

Piwi - nice week (and great CONSISTENCY!).  Haha I think you just pipped me this week because I cut my LR a bit shorter than planned.  Yeah I saw some of the winning times... the guy that won the HM was fairly sharp but the 10k times were nothing to write home about tbh.  I wouldn't do that race again, it's a scenic course but actually quite slow and definitely a lifestyle race.  They start the 10km first so the last 2-3km of the HM is horrible trying to weave around 10k walkers.

Me - came down with a little bit of a cold after a crazy busy week at work.  It's not too bad and seems to be on the way out already, but I still cut my LR short (had planned 2 hrs but was more like 1:35) to stay on top of it.  I probably should've seen it coming as Thursday's workout was a bit of a battle tbh.

M: weights

T: 11km easy

W: 13.1km easy with a few hills

Th: 15.5km incl. 2 x 10 min at HMP

F: day off (travelling for work)

S: 15.9km incl. a few track efforts

S: 22km easy

Total: 77.5km

Flavio huge congrats on the sub 40, well paced too. Thats alot of runners in a 5/10k for sure. So did your mate make sub 40....

Mark still a solid week considering you are under the weather. Yeah i remember you saying Hawkes Bay was a bit of a mish mash and slow. The Tauranga Marathon is pretty similar with lots of gravel track etc. I prefer big city Marathons with atmosphere and road running.

My 12 year old is addicted to the online Game Fortnight which he plays on his Playstation. Its got pretty bad and they were talking about it on the news the other night so we are not alone. Ive told him he has to run 1km around the block to earn 1 hours play. Hes run 3kms today so far.....

Flavio - crushed it in that 10k despite having to dodge the crowds, awesome stuff!!

Piwi - sounds like a fair deal with your son haha

Watson - nice week and I've added CHC to the race list.  Hopefully you get better weather than they had last year!

Watson solid week. The fitness will return just keep these weeks going for a few months.

MJ sounds like a worldwide problem with that game. Hes got quite an addictive personality, probably similar to me  . That can be good for running when you run everyday.

Just saw Jmacs 5k result on Strava and he crushed it sub 18 and fast finish. Looks like hes got plenty more to come with PRs in all distances.

Race Report - McNamee 5K

Wasn’t planning on writing a race report, but with a new PR, feel like it’s obligatory .

I spent the good part of the week doing a mini-taper into this race (will post weekly next), but I was pretty burned out at the end of last week. I knew that my workouts indicated I may be in sub 18 shape, but I figured I could go for it in my “peak” race in a couple of weeks.

With that in mind, and the fact that I positive split my last 10K, I decided going in that my race plan was for a 5:50 first mile and hopefully pick it up from there.

Pre-Race

After one too many drinks Friday night (I’m usually very good about avoiding alcohol the week of a race, but this was a special dinner on the calendar for a while), my Saturday was a bit tough. I went to sleep super early though and got a full 9 hours of sleep because I was so tired, so I guess sometimes drinking 2 nights before is good because you can sleep so easily!

I arrived at the race and got my bib. This was a smaller race than I’m used to, so I got to once again warm up with free reign and get to the start line just a couple of minutes beforehand. My legs felt pretty good during my warm up, so I didn’t push the warm up mileage.

The course is completely flat, which is the first time since I started running again a few years ago that I have run a course like this. Also, the weather was perfect: low 50’s and cloudy. I basically could not ask for better conditions to PR, especially since the day was about 20 degrees below average for this time of year.

First Mile - 5:53

As I stated, goal was to go out in 5:50. The horn sounded and off we went. Of course, especially in these charity 5Ks, you see all sorts of people at the front that make you shake your head. I saw one guy line up at the starting line that looked like he could be Santa Claus at the local mall in his spare time with the belly he was rocking. I even saw someone vaping before the start! As expected with this sort of motley crew, people were blowing by me right at the start. I saw the two lead women go out, along with about 50 other people in front. Of course, I knew half of these people were going to enter the pain cave fairly soon and I didn’t sweat it given I had a game plan going in. I felt like I was running moderately hard, but that my pace was creeping around the 5:55 number as we got near the mile marker Immediately, alarm bells started going off and I said “well maybe it’s not my day again.”

Second Mile - 5:45

At this point, I still felt like I was running very hard and yet the pace wasn’t coming down. I did however start passing a significant amount of people at this point. I made sure to keep on the shoulder of one guy for a good 800 meters or so as there was a slight breeze, while also allowing him do all of the work of pacing. I also passed Santa Claus, who sounded like he was trying to climb up a chimney with 80 pounds of toys on his back at this point in the race. As I was nearing the second mile marker though, I started to realize something which seems so obvious now: I should already be feeling gassed at this point in a 5K, but I was nowhere near it. My legs still felt great, and although I felt like I was “working” hard, I realized it wasn’t really that hard for a 5K. However, once the second mile ticked off at 5:45, I figured my shot of a PR was done and I just wanted to come home in sub 18:15.

Last 1.1 Miles - 5:30

Once I realized how good I felt, I decided to slowly start picking it up. I used the lead woman as motivation (yeah it’s stupid but whatever works for motivation I’ll take). After I caught her and passed her, it was no man’s land. The next person was at least 150 meters in front of me, so I knew I had no chance of catching him, so I just started thinking about what my legs felt like in some of those 1200 meter repeats and how they felt then. I knew that I still had enough in me to get to the finish at this faster pace, so I started really trying to give it my all with about 400 meters left. This is where those workouts really helped: if I hadn’t maybe pushed myself a bit too hard the past few weeks, I don’t know that I would have been as successful mentally, because I knew that what I was feeling now was no worse than what I felt in those workouts and I could certainly keep it up.

We could see the clock with about 200 meters to go, and I realized it would require a mad dash to get a PR. I absolutely floored it when I saw 17:30, but my stomach was getting to the point where another 400 meters may have led to vomiting. But, I thought a PR was totally worth it, and just kept going. It’s amazing: at first I saw the clock at 17:40 and said “I’ve got this!” But it felt like the clock was ticking way too quickly and realized with only a bit to go that I was barely going to get him under my PR.

Crossed the line at 17:51 for a 4 second PR!

Takeaways

My biggest takeaway is that I forgot what 5Ks feel like! I had no idea where I should be pain cave wise throughout the race, which led to the interesting pacing throughout. Of course, I’m very happy with a PR, but I think I can do even better taking this new mental knowledge with me and trying to do a bit better on pacing. I’ll still go for a negative split, because every single PR I’ve ever run has been one, but I’ll be a bit more aggressive in the first mile. I was so scared of blowing up or failing like I did in my 10K 5 weeks ago that I was probably a bit too conservative going out. It’s certainly not ideal to have a 23 second difference between the first and last mile: something closer to 10 seconds is what I was shooting for. However, a PR is a PR and I’m very happy! Time to really sharpen up for the next 2.5 weeks. I want to go for another PR, but it’s going to be in Central Park (hills) and most likely much warmer, so it’ll be tough to go back to back.

JMac - nice RR and well done on the race and PR.  You really paced that extremely well and finished with your quickest km of the race.  There is nothing quite like the pain that you get at the tail end of a 5km race!  It is great to see you hitting PB's already after coming back from injury.

Steve  - nice week and I'd echo JMac's comments about not needing a tempo block in every run.  As a general rule of thumb, ~80% (or more) of your total mileage each week should be easy.  In general I'd tend towards fewer, slightly longer tempo blocks, rather than more frequent but shorter ones.  Incorporating tempo blocks in a long run is actually quite a good way to keep them interesting!