Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition
Cobra Commander Keen
For sure. Well now I want some protein. I had a salad for lunch, which when you're running this much, is basically just air. Time to get Shake Shack for dinner
Shake Shack looks similar to our Freddy's. Burgers are a huge favorite, and thought I don't eat it much I LOVE custard.
Mark - Try toasting or grilling a PB&J. It's magical!
When I woke up this morning we didn't have any water - usually this means a water main break in my neighborhood. No such occurrence this time, but I did find the break 1/2 mile outside of town towards the top of a hill. We will supposedly have water again in about 3-4 hours. We'll see. Thus far I've been making do with melting ice cubes. No sense in breaking in to the emergency water supplies for an outage that only lasts a day!
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
OKC Memorial 5k - April 27
Bun Run 5k - May 4
Flavio - interesting in terms of what your nutritionist said. I saw a nutritionist earlier this year who gave me some very helpful advice. The body is actually quite good at adapting but fats are the things a lot of endurance runners neglect as we tend to get a bit too carb-focused.
I try and have some dark chocolate with my snacks as it is a very good source of quality fats. Keen's suggestion around dairy is also good for those quality fats - yogurt, cheese, nuts and seeds etc. are all good options here. Ideally you want to be getting some of those in each meal. We're not talking that 70% dark chocolate either. You gotta get hardcore and go 90%+ cocoa. I'm on the 95% now. It's like eating dirt.
Anyway, breakfast for me is a decent quality granola (high nuts and seeds content) with protein-boosted yogurt and sometimes some berries. Mid-morning snack typically a wholefoods bar and some dark chocolate. Lunch is a toasted sandwich (sourdough is a great bread option) with some sort of meat and some cheese. Afternoon snack is wholegrain crackers and hummus. Dinner is whatever the wife makes, I just go with the flow there but meat and veg of some sort is standard. Probably a bit more carby than Keen but it's well-balanced and it's been working well for me.
Anyways like JMac I tend to also use high training volume (or in my case the relatively high proportion of effort) as an excuse to also eat some junk. Especially now I've cut almost all alcohol out.
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"
Mark your cooking ability is slightly less than my 15 yr old son
Bacon, chocolate, icecream,
You all have my taste in food 😋
I'm not running alot of kms right now so my appetite has dropped but I eat alot of our home grown eggs and fish that I catch. We also have been getting raw milk for about 8 years.
I like the idea of knowing where the food comes from too.
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 "
I am fairly relaxed diet wise. Although my mileage is nowhere near Keens.
My 10 year old has greater cooking skills than Mark.
I used to be a bad cook. I am fairly good these days, it is a case of slowly improving over time.
What has been really good for recovery is the massage gun that I got two months ago, using on the calves.
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
Intl. correspondent
Keen - thanks man, yeah, that still seems low but I suppose you top it up by either grazing or having snacks mid day.
That steak during lunch does seem massive and quite further than your aim of 1 gram per pound of body weight
I did have a burger at Apple Bees a few years ago that had almost a pound of meat and it was a huge meal haha.
Then off course if it’s a t-bone it’s not as much meat.
Protein is known to help with satiation, I’ve been working over the years to increase protein especially in breakfast.
Jmac - a pint of ice cream, now that’s a dream, that reminds me that there’s an Amorino in town, now I must go there to top my ice cream crave
Mark - Some impressive cooking skills haha. You should also be able to cook an omelete FYI
I find 85 and 90% dark chocolate quite tasty.
Piwi - Having being raised in a farm, I place a high value on real food. Once you taste a real apple from the tree, it's hard to eat the less dense, almost pure sugar water apples you find at supermarkets at times.
me - after having reduced dairy as an experiment, which worked quite well for drastically reducing hem and sore throat issues, I now need to slowly introduce it and see which level I can tolerate. I guess I'll start with greek yoghurt.
I also can't tolerate too much fat due to my recent stomach troubles, though I really guess it depends on the kind of fat.
Melted butter and deep fried stuff are really bad for me. Greek yoghurt, meat fat, ice cream and Nutella go down well 😁
I had Lady Gaga Oreos yesterday. They're the same oreos but in a pink packaging. I found silly that it said it was designed with Lady Gaga. But I had to try them anyway 😂
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
Corey - thank you, how's it going, how's the new house?
Flavio its going well although bit hectic everything is all happening at once.
Condo still being finalized shower door and toilet hopefully completed today
buyers home inspection today they also want to move up closing from Nov 3rd not sure what day yet, hopefully week after next
movers coming next Saturday to move all our stuff out
Son got his New Job in Guam he is scheduled to start Nov. 1st so he will be leaving the last week in Oct. sometime. Emotional as reality is setting in that he is moving so far away.
PR's
1m 5:38 (2018)
5k 19:59 (2019)
HM 1:33:56 (2018)
FM 3:23:07 (2018)
mmmm bacon!!
Keen I love the sound of your diet. I've been making breakfast sandwiches lately (english muffin, sausage patty, 1 fried egg, slice of cheese) and wow does that keep me full from 6:30 until after my run at noon which is great. I'm on week 2 of my lunch being bagels n lox!! nom nom. I absolutely love me some smoked salmon and the cream cheese helps keep me full until dinner while the bagel gives me a few carbs (+ capers and red onions are just amazing flavor). Dinner is whatever Mrs Z prepares (usually high carb, things like goulash or spaghetti and meatballs) and then I'm usually hungry enough I have an evening snack as well.
Personally I wouldn't take diet advice from me because I haven't been within 15 pounds of a proper race weight for about 2 years now. Oh well. In the TIMI department something in my diet is upsetting things ala Taco Bell and I think it's either beer or the chocolate milk we've had at the house recently because it went away when I avoided both but I haven't figured out the specifics.
Keen, emergency water rations? Are water main breaks that common down there? strange and a bit scary.
Flavio I thought the Gaga-Os had a sparkly sprinkle on them as well? Maybe I'm misremembering but I didn't enjoy them much.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
Piwi - I'm a huge fan of knowing where my food comes from as well. After my last HM I stopped at a dairy not far off to pick up a gallon of raw milk. Interesting setup. There's a house at the dairy with the front room kinda walled off with a couple big commercial refrigerators there and an ice machine. More stuff like their honey, etc. on shelves. You take however much you want (I brought a cooler and partially filled it with ice to keep the milk cold) and write it on a paper log, along with the cost of whatever you buy. They have QR codes for various payment apps, but also a cash box with ~$100 or in case a person paying cash needs to make change (like I did). There's not a single person around, it's all on the honor system. This same dairy brings some chocolate milk to the finish of that race. Next year I'll be asking them to bring a couple plain ones for me. I'm just not a huge chocolate fan (unless it's super dark) - it just tastes too sweet for me.
Flavio - I try not to snack too much if I can avoid it (I'd rather just eat a bigger meal), but have some minimally processed beef sticks or jerky that I'm rather fond of. I've certainly heard of people having issues with liquid fats before.
Zebano - The emergency water is more for storm-related purposes - tornados (thankfully have been quite scarce the last few years) or ice storms. Water main breaks in my town are oddly uncommon, though. There isn't a pressure control on the water coming out of the tower (located less than 1/4 mile from my house), so breaks in my neighborhood are quite common. In the past few years there has been one in my yard and two in my neighbor's to the north - the city blames this on "a sub-standard water main installed by the neighborhood developers". Of course that doesn't account for the breaks elsewhere, like the one from yesterday 1/2 mile outside of town. They didn't get the water back on until 10 last night, but apparently there's another one somewhere now and they're shutting of water again to deal with it.
The city refuses to install a pressure control system because "it's too expensive to be worth it", yet I can't imagine that's the case given the massive volume of water that is lost when there's a break, combined with the costs of repairing all these ruptures.
Mother of Cats
n the past few years there has been one in my yard and two in my neighbor's to the north - the city blames this on "a sub-standard water main installed by the neighborhood developers". Of course that doesn't account for the breaks elsewhere, like the one from yesterday 1/2 mile outside of town. They didn't get the water back on until 10 last night, but apparently there's another one somewhere now and they're shutting of water again to deal with it.
Ah...memories. I used to live in downtown Washington DC, in a basement condominium (they are a thing here). The water main from the city entered the building at my unit, which had access to the building cut-off valve. Then the pipes would go up to the higher units, with each having their own cut off valve.
About 2 in the morning one day, the pipe burst. In my unit, and just on the city side of the building cut-off valve, meaning that I couldn't shut off the water myself, the city had to do it (with my unit flooding in the mean time).
Fuses had blown too so I was in the dark frantically calling the Washington emergency water number. And when I finally got someone on the line, I was incredibly frustrated that he couldn't seem to understand where my home was, and had never heard of my fairly well-known neighborhood (Dupont Circle).
After a few minutes of frustrated discussion, he said:
"Ma'am? Are you in Washington DC? This is the water emergency line for Washington State...."
For you non-USers - Washington DC is on one side of the country, and Washington State is on the other....
Everyone's gotta running blog; I'm the only one with a POOL-RUNNING blog.
And...if you want a running Instagram where all the pictures are of cats, I've got you covered.
Ah...memories. I used to live in downtown Washington DC, in a basement condominium (they are a thing here). The water main from the city entered the building at my unit, which had access to the building cut-off valve. Then the pipes would go up to the higher units, with each having their own cut off valve. About 2 in the morning one day, the pipe burst. In my unit, and just on the city side of the building cut-off valve, meaning that I couldn't shut off the water myself, the city had to do it (with my unit flooding in the mean time). Fuses had blown too so I was in the dark frantically calling the Washington emergency water number. And when I finally got someone on the line, I was incredibly frustrated that he couldn't seem to understand where my home was, and had never heard of my fairly well-known neighborhood (Dupont Circle). After a few minutes of frustrated discussion, he said: "Ma'am? Are you in Washington DC? This is the water emergency line for Washington State...." For you non-USers - Washington DC is on one side of the country, and Washington State is on the other....
So, the club track session last night was tough, but good. Amazing how much harder I worked when I was trying to keep up with Darbs and Mark B, compared to my usual solo track sessions. We did 3 x 800/600/400/200 with 200m jog recoveries and 400m between sets. I miscounted on the first 600 and ended up doing 800 instead, so I was pretty smashed by the end of the third set. We split into 2 groups of 5 and I was with the quick group. The pace was pretty hot and by the final set there were only 3 of us left. Might not be any races soon but it was definitely much closer to race-level effort, so mission accomplished.
Still don't like doing hard workouts in the evening though. The guys are going to make it a weekly thing I think, not sure I'll do it every week though.
Problem Child
Marky Mark Good job on the workout. I totally understand workouts with groups being different in a good way. I did them solo for so long it almost feels natural. I've also done so much speed work OFF the track doing it ON a track feels weird. Also...."fast group" doesn't have to be mentioned when you're in the group.
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
Mark nice job seeing out that workout. Hanging with the young fast guys
Darkwave that was a funny story although I'm sure not at the time.
Corey sounds like it's all coming together. I really miss my kids when they move away too. Piwijunior moved to Australia for a year. We missed him so bad we had to go visit. And my daughter at university in Christchurch is another that we have to visit often. She's staying with us right now which is cool.
Keen our milk outlet has a dispenser machine which you feed $2 coins into. We take large stainless steel tankards in and fill them. The creaminess of the milk is amazing.
I remember copping some criticism over raw milk back on the old forums as some said it was risky to drink ( Flavio but we are still alive 8 years later.
Nah they were the old fast guys. Darbs is a year or two older than me (he came 2nd at Rotorua Marathon this year) and Mark B. is a few years younger (but still Masters age). Our club is very masters-heavy haha.
JamesD
My week was thrown for a loop by a gradually worsening ache in the ball of my right foot under the 2nd & 3rd toes. Had a somewhat similar issue in the other foot two years ago that went away with some prescription anti-inflamatories. It seems to hurt a little more when I wake up than when I’m walking around, and I don’t feel it when I run, so maybe it’s not a stress fracture. I have an appointment with a podiatrist (who runs) on Monday. Looks like I may be in the pool for a while. If so, I won’t have any excuse not to do strengthening exercises.
As for my diet, I try to get lots of protein, including lots of 2% milk. A breakfast cereal with added protein is probably my most unusual thing, and I’ll eat some at night sometimes too. DW cooks lots of chicken, salmon, & beef. She likes salads & vegetables but not carbs, so I have fruit at breakfast & when I snack (usually 2x/day). I often run without digestive trouble an hour after finishing breakfast. The only times my stomach complains are on the few occasions when I run in the afternoon not long after lunch, and I think higher temperatures may contribute to that.
Sun - 6.2 miles in park @ 8:24 faster than it felt (which I guess is good)
Mon - scheduled off day, took son to Atlanta for baseball playoff game, foot ache worse
Tues - 14 minutes swimming, 17 pool running, 3 more swimming
Weds - 30 minutes pool running
Thurs - 17 minutes swimming, 20 pool running
Fri - off
Sat - 20 minutes slow swimming, 25 pool running, 2 more slow swimming before calf cramps
Total - 6.2 miles, 56 minutes swimming, 92 minutes pool running
Rapidly declining YTD average - 43.3 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