Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 half marathon in 2017
JamesD
Blair - My goal half's size & speed are pretty close to yours. I usually try to get a few rows back from the front but somewhere in the first 10 rows. Assuming you have a reasonably wide first 200 yards or so, like two lanes of a road, you should have enough space. A little initial crowding may even help prevent you from going out too fast. If you're around the 20th fastest of the half & full runners, there will be many more than 20 people who run faster for the first 200 yards than you should (middle schoolers do this a lot in my races, as do people who don't run a lot and overestimate how much their other-sport fitness will help them). If you have 10K runners too, that's even more who you won't want to stay with at the start, so you won't need to be in the first row or two. I think there's more risk of hurting your time by getting caught up in the excitement and going out too fast in your first quarter mile than there is of getting trapped behind others if you start too slowly. You'll have plenty of time, & you should have plenty of room, to pass people.
On strides, what helps me is to do 30 steps jogging, 30 medium pace (MP to HMP), and 30 faster (10K-5K pace), which seems to total about 100 yards. I'll do maybe three of these before a half, a little faster each time. The gradual speeding up seems to set me up well for half pace without being tiring.
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
jmac good luck this weekend. 1.30 will be a nice target in that heat as a MP run tuneup. Once the temps cool you will be really strong. Unfortunately there are not many certified races here. Most are run by event companies and are not tied to any proper athletics organisations.
Mark thats a very interesting list of short courses. What makes it worse for me is my Tomtom watch seems to measure long so I beep after everybody else !
I have had a cold for a couple of days which has given me two sleep nights of only about 4 hours per night but I caught up a bit after falling asleep on the couch yesterday . I may jump into the local Bayrun 5k tonight as I missed all of this series since it started at the beginning of the year. Will see how my energy levels are later.
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 "
Piwi - at the start of the Devonport Half Marathon, there was a guy running near me whose watch sounded like it was beeping every 250m or so. It was super annoying. I was glad he went out too fast and dropped back after 2km or so!!
Hope that cold comes right soon!! I definitely made a mistake running North Shore Half hard while I was still recovering from a cold. It probably cost me a week of decent training.
Anyone had any experience with strange foot niggles?? I have some soreness on the outside edge and bottom of my right foot, just below and in front of my ankle. It came on several hours after my somewhat miserable long run on Sunday and has been on/off since then. Pretty confident it's not a stress fracture as I can hop on the foot OK and there no sore spots to the touch. It's fine at rest but sometimes it's a little sore to walk on (pain 2/10), sometime's it's not noticeable at all. I had a scheduled rest day on Monday, and had a short run this morning (7km). It was vaguely noticeable running (just 'there' rather than actually being sore) but totally manageable and actually migrated more into the arch of the foot - weirdly it was pretty much fine to run on, as opposed to walking where it can be a little sore. A little bit sore after the run but settled down very quickly and is back to 1-2/10 when walking sometimes now (and not noticeable at other times).
I've kinda figured it might be PF or potentially some inflammation around the insertion point of the peroneal tendon. I'm seeing my osteo Thursday (if not sooner) so no doubt she'll probably figure it out then.
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
James - Just the adrenaline of race day gets me going. It must help right, that way I always race lighter.
Halfdecent - Oh, Berlin, I’ve been there a few years ago, we stayed close to Checkpoint Charlie. So many good memories. The city was very flat. Everything was cheap. Good times.
Blair- doh on me LOL, asking and then answering in the same post.
Re: HM warm up, I’ll just do some light exercise to get the blood flowing, might run some 400m or so.
I’m not very fast though. I assume the faster you are the more warm up you’d need.
Mark -
Bro - 50 miles in a week is great news.
Arvind - man, another half. Great job!
Jmac/Mark - cumulative fatigue is a thing, you guys gotta concentrate because during taper you will feel burned out even when running less, but come race day you’ll be flying out there.
Piwi - let us know how the 5K went, unless you fought the couch and lost.
Mark -ah, a numbers guy. I can see we both love data.
Those symptoms sound a lot like plantar fasciitis. You can roll the bottom of your foot and otherwise self massage it, by pressing your thumb against the fascia (bit tendon). It helps to oil that area or use soap so it’s easier to run your thumb.
In my case, the tendon is very, very tender, especially on the left foot.
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 the couch will win Im still sick.
Mark I did have something similar a few years ago soreness on the top/side outer edge of my foot closer to my ankle than toes. I forced myself to keep running with it but a long run really put the nail in the coffin and the next day it blew up red and swollen and was hard to walk on. I cant remember exactly how long it took to get over but it wasnt a quick fix. hopefully your experience is better
Flavio - thanks for the tip. I had a few small issues with PF when I started running and would often roll it using a golf ball so will try that again (a frozen water bottle is also good apparently).
Piwi - I'm seeing the osteo tomorrow so we'll know then. It doesn't seem as bad as your one was - certainly haven't had any swelling or visible bruising. I have an easy run scheduled for tomorrow morning so will likely still give that a go as it doesn't seem any worse today after running on it (if anything it's better than yesterday). Fingers crossed I have just aggravated something while fatigued on a LR and it will sort itself out now that mileage is reducing. Either way I know I am probably in for a pretty brutal osteo session tomorrow (she uses her knuckles on the arch of the foot sometimes - it's painful but very effective!).
PS hopefully it doesn't amount to anything of consequence and this is just me freaking out a bit because the marathon is less than 3 weeks away and I've been training 6 months for it!!
RIP Milkman
Taper madness 101: start noticing everything in your body is hurting. I have yet to go through a goal race without it, but it can get especially bad in a marathon.
I've never had any problems below the knee (knock on wood), so I can't help you there unfortunately. Let us know what the doc says.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Well that was definitely a first instance of Taper Madness on my part. My osteo took all of about 10 seconds to figure out I'd managed to lock up my cuboid bone and after some of the usual fun (e.g. knuckles down the arch of the foot), managed to unlock it. No big deal!
It was actually way more sore when she subsequently got stuck into my adductor, hamstring and hamstring tendon with her elbow. OUCH.
That's great that she worked it out! It's amazing how many things can be worked out with lacrosse balls, rollers, and the skilled hands of a professional.
Just warning you now - taper madness gets worse. I thought it was just people getting crazy that they were losing their fitness, but there is a lot more to it. Your mood is going to be weird. You'll go from thinking your'e tapering too much to not enough, possibly switching back and forth every day. You may gain a little weight and need to watch your diet as you cut down mileage. You're going to still feel bad and tired on a lot of runs and wonder whether you are doing things right. Things that have never bothered you before will now become niggles.
The last part is usually the worst for me. I get a lot of trigger points, which have generally been under control now for months. However, once my running slows down, they tend to come back. Not sure why, but this is a common issue.
That's great that she worked it out! It's amazing how many things can be worked out with lacrosse balls, rollers, and the skilled hands of a professional. Just warning you now - taper madness gets worse. I thought it was just people getting crazy that they were losing their fitness, but there is a lot more to it. Your mood is going to be weird. You'll go from thinking your'e tapering too much to not enough, possibly switching back and forth every day. You may gain a little weight and need to watch your diet as you cut down mileage. You're going to still feel bad and tired on a lot of runs and wonder whether you are doing things right. Things that have never bothered you before will now become niggles. The last part is usually the worst for me. I get a lot of trigger points, which have generally been under control now for months. However, once my running slows down, they tend to come back. Not sure why, but this is a common issue.
Of course, right after writing this, I just spent an hour panicking about my last week of the taper. It'll definitely be low on total mileage (35% of peak mileage not including race day), but I think it makes the most sense as I've only been running 5 days a week this cycle and do not want to use one of my rest days to just add another 4-5 mile run.
Her knowledge of musculo-skeletal systems is freakish (and extremely helpful). She can figure out most problems and the ultimate root cause very quickly. She also figures out things that could become problems and sorts them out too.
I'm kind of adopting the approach of 'trust the process', given my coach has run marathons and coached marathoners, and I definitely can't fault the results we've gotten to date on HM and 10k distances, so I'll probably be OK with running whatever she tells me to run. I've averaged 80km/week since May (and never dipped below 65km) which is a big step up for me, so the consistency has been there in the training and at this point the work is basically done. I think it will be things like weight, niggles, over-thinking the race, and what shoes I should wear on the day that will bother me. Especially the shoes thing.
Yeah Mark its easy to panic and do something silly when all you need to do now is relax enjoy taper and look forward to race day. The work is all done.
You should have a pretty good idea on what shoe to wear. The ones you wore on the long runs with marathon pace involved so a fast but comfortable shoe which didnt give you any major issues like blisters etc.
What Piwi said. I wear the same shoes for the half and the full. My other racing shoes are for 5k and 10ks.
Mark - I may have asked this and forgotten: have you settled on what your goal/marathon pace is?
For the spring next year, I was going to run the NYC Half as a goal race, followed up with Chicago as a fall marathon.
They changed the NYC course though. Although it's much cooler now, as you run over a bridge to get into Manhattan, it's also vastly more difficult since the last 3 miles are in hilly Central Park. It used to be a PR course actually. I'm trying to figure out what I will be running as my goal race (I'll still run NYC Half though due to the new course), but already throwing my hat into the ring for a goal half marathon spring 2018.
I have never run a pancake flat half marathon. Additionally, my 5K and 10K PRs are from Central Park, which as stated, is fairly hilly. I think it's about time I find flat courses next year so that I can see where my true potential is at these distance.