Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition
Problem Child
Steve Sticking to the paces, or not falling off from the one you're doing, is pretty important. After hanging out on running forums for (I don't count) 5 or 6 years I finally learned the importance of workouts. If you go out hard for the first three, then drop off miserable for the last 4-6 you've gone too hard and missed the point of the workout. If you hold that pace for 13 and the last two feel extra hard but you're only losing a second or two you're probably doing it just right. Pushing yourself JUUUUUUUUST enough to make the workout hard without overdoing it. If you'd fallen off around number 10 and then dropped to a 4:20/km pace it would be a totally different conversation.
Many of us aren't sure what the hell point you are trying to make and no matter how we guess, it always seems to be something else. Which usually means a person is doing it on purpose.
VDOT 53.37
5k18:xx | Marathon 2:55:22
Hot Weather Complainer
Yep, agreed. It's something I constantly get wrong, usually on the too fast side. I didn't fall away in the last 2 - it felt harder and my pace dropped a couple of seconds so it was within the actual target pace. Maybe I need a lesson where I completely fall away. I guess that's a sign it wasn't the hardest workout - I could go consistently too fast but only feel some minor discomfort towards the end.
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
Watson good luck. It's 30 knots northerly here today so I imagine it's 50 knots in Wellington
Steve the MVP nice 👌.
RP it's nice to run fast even if only for 400m and see elite pace showing briefly. Then you realize what freaks they are to hold that for a marathon.
My legs have been niggly this week. Soreness below the kneecap on tuesday and tight calves. Not helped by a steep run Wednesday where my left Achilles was pulling followed by sore quads Thursday.
Took Friday off and managed a tempo today.
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 "
Steve - nice job on the MVP!
RP - I've heard it said that you should train your weaknesses early and your strengths late. So if you think speed is really a key work-on, no harm getting it in there early on.
Piwi - bummer on the niggles. Hope they come right soon.
Repeats - I tend to build into these with a view of maxing out the last couple of repeats. I've always thought the right balance was getting to the point where you could possibly do one more repeat but it wouldn't be nearly as good.
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"
Piwi Yeah it's kind of crazy to think the pace I run for a 400 is what others run for a whole marathon on a bad day. I had a local runner comment my 400m pace is their 100m SPRINT. I know the feeling of "damn how do you run so fast?" so when I hear it from others around my same level it kind of lets me know I've come a long way and people recognize it.
Have you still been doing weights mixed in during the week? Pushing the pace a little more just to get the mileage in?
Mark I think my weakest part is actually commitment right now. By that I mean I'm not committed to doing an official long run every weekend or weekly mileage, or even speed work so I have to get THAT part working before I'm in a training plan. It was so much easier, seemingly, in 2019 to just take a few months off then jump back into it. Now it seems like I've had way too much time off from what I remember of 2017-March 2020.
Steve It could be a sign of substantial improvement over this last training cycle. I know you don't want to hop into another marathon cycle so maybe a half or even a serious 5k training cycle if possible (weather permitted) could help you keep building on your improvements. I know FOR ME keeping that race mentality going before I was doing marathons helped keep me motivated to do more and keep getting better. Continually seeing improvements and results at races getting faster and faster kept me motivated to keep training.
Ran 2:34 in horrendous conditions. Gale winds and heavy rain. One section the track was essentially a small stream.
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
Quite lucky to even get the race:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/125783947/drivers-urged-to-take-special-care-as-heavy-winds-and-strong-rain-batter-the-wellington-region
It looks like about half of my race ended up doing an easier course. As they ended up deciding the river crossing at around 4.5km was too dangerous. That river crossing was very deep and fast flowing.
No idea how they will do the results.
Watson I had 2 of my local strava mates run it one in 2.44 and one in 2.10. The 2.10 guy said he took the wrong turn at every road section.
Sounds nasty conditions.
RP yes I've been doing strength twice per week for about 4 weeks now. No I haven't been pushing the pace. I still run mostly around that 8 min/mile mark. I did do a tempo today.
2:10 is a good time. The road section near the end was quite easy to get lost.
Somebody got a photo of the river crossing that got too high. The guy in red was a marshall who stood in the river assisting people.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10215789772017058&set=pcb.964904204302431
There was this one too, which wasn't as bad:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2579038735735399&set=p.2579038735735399&type=3
JamesD
Good Lord, watson. If anyone tried to put on a race in those conditions here, the liability waiver documents would be measured in pounds rather than pages. Impressive that you could finish that, regardless of what the distance was.
Steve - Congrats on being MVP. There’s got to be some way of quantifying your combined ability in both sports and accounting for the running weather, something like (runs per wicket) times (kph of your half marathon time) times (TDP(Fahrenheit)/130 if TDP>130 or (25-Temp(Celsius))/20 if Temp<5).
Motivation - For me, keeping track of my progress towards a yearly mileage goal helps with motivation in the absence of upcoming races. Since I wasn’t doing any fast running for the first few months of the year, I did a lot of easy miles and got ahead of my goal mpw pace, so now after each week I can say, “did 40+ miles this week, so now I only need to average 31.2 mpw for the rest of the year to average 40.” That gives me a little progress each week to celebrate.
Things went a little better for me this week. Did another light speed session on Tuesday; the 400s were still very slow at ~88 seconds, but that was 3 sec./lap faster than last week. My regular run Thursday wound up being a semi-progression, as without really pushing I went from 8:45/mile pace on the first loop to a little under 8 on the last, which is the fastest I’ve gone this year on a regular run. I was tired today (life-tired not running-tired), so I skipped my planned tempo and just did some strides near the end of an easy run. Upper hamstrings/glutes are still a little sore, especially near the end of runs, but not as bad as they’ve been some other weeks.
Sun - 7.8 miles in park @ 8:55, TDP 142
Mon - off
Tues - 6 miles incl. 4x400 @ ~88 with ~1:35 rest, TDP 142
Weds - 8.6 miles (1:39) very slow on treadmill
Thurs - 9.4 in park @ 8:22, TDP 154
Fri - off
Sat - 8.5 in park including strides, TDP 154
Total - 40.3 miles
YTD average - 47.4 mpw
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
James nice progress on the 400s and good to hear you have felt better this week.
My week below. Legs were niggly this week but ok now.
James - Nice week and great to hear things feel better. In indoor cricket you get a net score since everyone bats and bowls (batting total - bowling total). If everyone got 0 it would be a tie. So could incorporate that into the formula...I can even complain about the weather indoors, it gets very cold inside the indoor cricket arenas.
piwi - Nice week and good to hear the niggles have gone away.
watson - Great effort in crazy conditions. Some of the pictures from around Wellington and the West Coast have been crazy. Christchurch looked to have just been outside the storm zone luckily. That race looks tough enough in perfect weather.
me - Biggest week since my marathon length long run now I've gotten over the niggles. With cricket on Friday night I moved my long run to Sunday. The speed repeats were a shock to the system and in the first 2 I thought I might struggle to do 6 but I felt stronger as I went.
Piwi - glad the niggles have disappeared, nice week.
Watson - well done getting it done, sounds like a miserable day and the organisers did well just to run anything.
James - nice job on that unintentional progression, often a good sign when it comes together like that.
RP - yeah it's amazing what routine does in terms of keeping it all going.
Steve - solid week. I'm always impressed when people get quality on their LR's, to be honest I struggle with LR's fullstop let alone getting quality in there.
Me - cold hung around mid-week but wasn't too bad and was all gone by the weekend. This morning's LR was a slog with a rough headwind most of the way out that had basically disappeared once I turned around. Hate when that happens. Anyway, one more decent week of training to go and then it'll be closing in on race time. Gotta say at this point I'm looking forward to it, getting to that point where the body is telling me that it's had enough of training and wants to race.