Sub 2:00 Half Marathon thread (Read 2396 times)

Wow, Zelanie and Miele, congratulations and thanks for the great race reports.  It's the race reports that really get me up and going every day.

And wow, Miele, masters and age group wins!!!! What is masters exactly --  everyone over 40?

WOW, congrats Miele, that's an impressive time for an old lady!  

Great job Zelanie, pretty darn close to your goal time!

Cold and windy here this weekend so I was out sitting in a hunting blind freezing my tail off.  No running for 3 days!

Have a 2 mile Turkey Trot coming up on Thursday.  The fat boy course record is 13:56 and I'm hoping to beat it.  I should based on my latest 5K, but you never know for sure until race day.  I'm actually going to be shooting for a 13:30.

Oops I just accidentally posted, quoting npaden's comment for some reason.  Not sure how that happened.

Bluerun, I lol-ed my way through your race report -- though I don't doubt the headwind was miserable. (I suffered a bit in cold wind during tempo run today, so I can only imagine how miserable it would be to race  four miles on the ocean against a horrible headwind.)  Congrats on the good time at your "easy" pace (or what to ME would be dream-pace -- it's all relative!)

Thanks for the welcomes, guys!

Miele, the age grading tables work as described by Zelanie, and give a means of comparing your performances over several years of running, comparing yourself with older or younger runners, and as there are tables for both genders you can also compare men and women. The tables are revised from time to time as more older athletes set better times.

Congratulations on your success in the 10k, a great run. Every course is different and a faster runner will benefit less from a net downhill course than a slower one, so there is no standard correction. Best thing is to run another 10k, on a flat course!

Wolfwalker, you ran that 20 miler really fast- and into the wind too! Had you planned to go that hard or did that feel reasonably easy?

I am inclined to do that myself, but am trying to consciously slow down my easy runs. I am hoping that will allow me to gradually rebuild my mileage base. Trail running is fun, my son does a lot of it.

Zelanie, Hi! Yes my son is still getting his runs in. He is busy at work these days but gets out early before going to the office. His mileage is way down as he is not preparing for a specific race.

I am hoping to do a 10k then a half in May. The 10k is on a fast course down Yonge Street in Toronto, and I am hoping  to break 46 minutes. That will put me in the top 1,500 runners- it's a big race!

zelanie-excellent HM!! Nice pictures too, I like the last one, made me hungry just now.

miele-wow, very fast 10K, almost a sub 47min. Congrats on the AG win.

me-still being faithful to my HM training plan. Did an 18k in 1:39 on Sunday, and it was crazy cold and windy. Below freezing with 20-30km winds. Came back and my chest and stomach were red from wind burn even through my layers. But gotta love it, nothing beats winter training. Happy running everyone, and a Happy Thanksgiving.

Npaden – I’m approaching my yearly goal of 1500 miles.  I was behind the pace most of the summer, but I can thank Pfitz for getting me caught up.

Edith – Congratulations on the 4:14 marathon finish and 8 minute PR. I'm looking at goal times for my full marathon and that time is faster than my prime goal.

Pcharrier – I’m with you with race photographs.  It’s kinda funny how economics works into it.  The photos my wife and sister take of me are great.  The MarathonFoto ones are lame.  The family photos are free and taken by a loved one who came out to see me race.  MarathonFoto aren’t free and are taken by somebody looking for a buck

As to marathons, have you given any thoughts to a BQ attempt?

Zelanie – Nice race report.  Congratulations on the PR, the negative split and the giant post race waffle! I love your chatty girls.  If I held your paces, I would not be chatty.  Any thoughts of coming down to SoCal in September and pacing me through a sub 2 half at Disneyland?

Bluerun – Nice race report for such an aweful experience.  Did you turn blue from the weather? Curse a blue streak?  There are a million jokes to be made here.  I'll stop now...

Npaden – have fun with your Turkey Trot.  What do you mean by fat boy, and which part of you is fat?

Wolf – Congratulations on finishing a 20 miler.  My marathon training plan has three 20 milers in it.  I’ve done two of them.  One more and then taper time.

Stever – glad to hear that you are still on plan for your HM even though you have some awful weather conditions.

SimonR – HI Simon and welcome to the group.  That’s a pretty killer speed workout.  I’ve seen 6:50 once.  It was the last tenth of my last 5k.

Me – Thank you all for your kind words.  Like a summer storm, the low feelings blew through my life and I’m pretty much back to normal.  I can’t explain mood disorders.  In many respects, the stress in my life is higher now than it was two weeks ago, but I’m feeling fine.

I am learning a crap ton about myself from marathon training.  This week’s lesson is that the most important words in the mid-week long run are mid-week.  Due to both work and household pressure I’d been taking three to four rest days a week and pushing most of the training miles onto the weekend.  Last weekend was a prime example:  I ran 11 miles on Friday night, 5 miles Saturday morning, 12 miles Saturday afternoon and took off to run 20 miles on Sunday.  I made it to 11.65 when my body said no more.  I’m glad I had my cell phone because I called my wife and asked her to come and get me.

So no going forward, I’m not going to compress so many miles into the weekend.  I’m going to run the mid-week long run in the middle of the week and not push it off to Saturday afternoon.

My 10k race report...

Showed up to register with two of my nieces.  Was told registration was closed so we went to store and bought bagels for everybody at home.

Next up is a 15k trail run on Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  God bless.

Edith - Great race report!  Hope you got to enjoy spending time with your nieces anyway.

bluerun - Congrats on a 5 mile PR!  That's pretty quick too!

me - I was able to hit my goal this morning on my Turkey Trot race.  Ended up hitting my goal exactly with an official time of 13:30 on the dot.  That was good for the course record in the Clydesdale division for a race that has been going since 1993 so I'm very happy with that.  Ended up 12th overall out of 400+ runners (and walkers).

Weather was really about as good as you could expect for November 28th, 36 degrees, sunny and a 6 mph breeze.  Got a nice warmup in, just under 2 miles and finished the warmup about 10 minutes before the race.  The 12K started first then we got in line for the 2 mile.  I was pretty confident that I would be able to break the course record of 13:56, but as we were lining up for the start I noticed another Clydesdale runner that is only 23 and who ran a 13:23 at the last race so I now knew that not only did I need to beat the 13:56 time to get the record, I needed to beat him as well.  For the current results the Clydesdale results are age graded so I was confident that I could still win the race from that perspective, but for the course records they are not age graded, just the raw time counts regardless of the age of the runner. 

I got up on the 2nd row wanting to get a decent start and before you know it the horn went off and we were running.  The first 100 yards or so was downhill and had several twists and turns and as usual, the trick was to keep from tripping over some young kids sprinting out at the start.  With the downhill and being at the front at the start at the 1 minute mark my phone announced to me that my pace was way fast, 5:XX something!  I tried to settle in to a good pace, but at the same time I didn't want to let the younger Clydesdale runner pull away from me so I just got on his shoulder and hung there.  We were going faster than I really wanted to, but it wasn't terrible so I just hung in there.  Things pretty much settled in and we were to the turn around in no time.  I was working hard, but not dying yet.  First mile split was 6:33, about 12 seconds faster than I intended, but the downhill at the start was going to be an uphill at the finish and I was thinking I was going to need every second before it was all said and done.

I could tell that the younger Clydesdale runner was starting to struggle a little and I picked him off right after the turn around.  Now I just had to hold on for another mile!  It was work, but I was feeling okay and started working on putting the younger Clydesdale runner behind me for good.  I picked off a young girl next and then was just focusing on hanging on.  I wasn't really in pain and feeling terrible, but I wasn't just having a nice relaxing run by any means.  I was focused on running tangents and the slower runners were actually doing a pretty good job of at least staying to one side of the road so even if I couldn't cut the tangent perfect, I wasn't having to dodge in and out of them running back through.  With about 1/2 mile to go or so I was back through most of the slower runners and walkers and able to start hitting the tangents again.  I passed the top female runner in there and went back and forth with another runner but he ended up getting back ahead of me.  1/4 mile to go and then up the hill to the finish.  It didn't seem this steep going down it at the start, but I was giving it everything I had and not sure I was speeding up or slowing down.  I was feeling pretty good about both getting the record by this time and that I was going to beat the younger Clydesdale runner so I might not have pushed quite as hard as I could have, but I was still pushing it pretty hard.

Up the hill, through the twists to the finish and the clock was ticking down toward 13:30 as I went across.  I thought it ticked to 13:31, but I was pretty happy with that.  I was spent when I crossed the line, I took a few steps and then had my hands on my knees and just tried to catch my breath.  I didn't get my GPS turned off for about 15 seconds after I crossed the line.  Some walking around and I was actually feeling pretty good in no time.  I didn't get my GPS stopped so I kind of have to back into it to get my 2nd mile split of 6:57 which is a pretty big positive split, but the downhill at the start and the uphill at the finish had something to do with that, but I do think I fell off a bit after the first mile.  Official time turned out to be 13:30, the new Clydesdale course record on the 21st annual race.

Thinking through everything, I think if the younger Clydesdale had made a little more of a race out of it I could have maybe shaved a few seconds off, but not sure I could have done much better.  Maybe 3 or 4 seconds tops.  That uphill at the finish was tougher than I expected too.  I ended up being the 1st place masters runner and beat all the female runners which is possibly a first for me on both of those.  The age of the guys that beat me were 16, 14, 20, 21, 15, 18, 16, 32, 20, 18, 21 and then I came at the ripe old age of 45.  

With all of that said, in our running club the shorter distance races tend to be the slower races and often the winners of the longer races actually run them at a faster pace than the winners of the shorter races.  I have no shot at the course records on pretty much any of the longer distance races.  The course record on the 12K race for the Clydesdale division is a 49:26 for a 6:33 avg pace so that's a faster average pace than I just ran for the 2 mile course record.  

It's still pretty cool to have the course record though!