Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition
Hot Weather Complainer
Mark - Nice job on the fast workout. Not surprised you felt that in the morning.
James - That sucks. Good luck at the podiatrist.
me - Another pretty solid week, although slightly lighter. It took 4-5 days before the soreness left my legs after the hilly run last Saturday so I didn't do a midweek workout. Probably lucky because the weather was diabolical, so any speed into the wind (and rain and sleet) would have been very tough. Yesterday I did a big workout with 2 5km blocks of race pace. It's the most race pace kms I've done in a long run workout and was a good confidence booster. With 3km to go I had some doubts but ended up doing it, albeit having to work in the last few minutes.
3 weeks until the race, assuming no South Island outbreak. At the moment I feel like all that will hold me back is the potentially warm weather but hopefully I get lucky. It was quite cool when I started yesterday but once the sun was high in the sky it didn't take long to feel warm. Some cloud cover on November 7 would be great.
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
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Steve - that HMP workout looked excellent. Very consistent pace throughout. You should be very happy with that.
James - bummer on the niggle. Doesn't really sound like a stress fracture but the hop test should help you figure that out quickly enough.
Me - decent-ish week. Weather was generally crap with a lot of spring wind around (4 of 6 runs including the track session). Legs were pretty smashed after the Friday track session so Saturday and Sunday's runs were a little shorter than planned. It was worth it for the reminder of what it feels like to really dig deep during a workout though.
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: Maraetai HM, 10 Mar, DNF
Up next: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Steve - nice week. Your long run workout was very good.
Mark - nice week.
My week was lighter than recent weeks due Tuesday's run being very slow .
I missed Friday, I was hoping for a short run around lunch time but had too much work on. I had my second Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine later that day. Apart from a sore shoulder, I have no side effects (the first shot affected me more).
Saturday was five hours of on and off a ladder staining a wall, so 7km was all I could manage.
Today, Sunday involved two bailed run attempts. The first was Sky Stadium ("the cake tin") as my daughter had cricket training there. So the plan was to do 16km while she trained, but the weather was gale northerlies and sideways rain so there was no way I running around Wellington harbour in that. After getting home, I decided I'd do a 23.8km course. which I started in gale northerlies (not as bad as Wellington city) and dry. Which then turned very wet, so I turned back and changed the workout into a 5km tempo.
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
Corey - Oh boy, it sounds like a lengthy process. Kiddos going to live far is heart breaking, I know my mom and dad must’ve suffered cause we all 4 siblings went to live far away.
I left home to work and live on my own at 14 😎
As they age now though, we’ve manage to convince them to move to the same town as my 2nd brother and then my sister moved there as well so they’ll be closer to their children and grand children.
Keen - One thing I forgot to mention is that your diet has minimal packaged/processed foods, consider me very impressed.
Zeb - Oh, an Oreo connoisseur haha. Dunno, they all taste the same to me. Yesterday I had one with double cream. Do not recommend 😐
DW - LOL that’s funny, but we all have stories like that from moments of panic.
Mark - I guess you already know that but if you can’t run at your paces then the group workout is not useful to you.
Piwi - LOL I remember that, I freaked out cause if I remember correctly you don’t boil the milk. But yeah, worst that can happen is diarrhoea.
James - I highly recommend taking a week off to clear out niggles 😁
Me - A week of full rest. I’t not been enough, I’m contemplating a few more very light weeks until I feel like I was feeling back in June.
Gotta exorcise the marathon demons out. The cervical injury is still there, I'll start working with a PT this week and it should hopefully be fixed now that I'm not running myself into the ground. I also got a left calf niggle that is taking longer to clear out.
In other news I did a round of heart checkup exames. All is well. I also did that test that measures your blood pressure every half an hour for 24h and it turns out I don't have high blood pressure anymore.
I guess something was really stressing me out in between the overtraining and not being vaccinated.
I know with both parents having it I will eventually have high blood pressure (it's 80% probability) so I guess I pushed it down the road a bit.
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: no idea
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Flavio - when dud you have high blood pressure? Was it during marathon training? It could have just been systemic stress?
Yeah I'm not sure why exactly, but I was really stressed out through August and September.
I seem to be better now.
Mother of Cats
Flavio - I'm glad the HBP is better for now.
Steve - I really like that Saturday workout.
Marky_Mark - I think that especially when opportunities to race are in doubt, it's good to get an effort like that in.
Watson - sounds like appropriate modifications on the fly to me.
James - I would make sure to discuss the possibility of Morton's Neuroma with the podiatrist, if he doesn't bring it up. Pain underneath the foot in that location could be it (or something else). In my experience and observation, metatarsal stress fractures result in pain on TOP of the foot.
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.
My week (pasted from the other thread because I'm lazy).
54 miles running, 2:40 hours pool-running, and 1000 yards swimming.
M: 80 minutes pool-running and streaming yoga.T: 11 miles, including at track workout of 2x1200, 3x800, 400 in 5:38, 5:26, 3:24, 3:17, 3:15, and 93. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.W: 8.5 miles (9:25 pace) with 4x200 in 45, 46, 45, 44.Th: 80 minutes pool-running and upper body weights/core.F: 10 miles with 3200, 1600 in 13:29 (6:55/6:34) and 6:27.Followed with leg strengthwork.Sa: 10 very easy (9:18) plus drills, 4 strides, streaming yoga.Su: 14 miles progressive, split as first 4.5 miles averaging 9:15 pace, next 5 miles averaging 8:15 pace, and next 4.5 miles averaging 7:01 pace, followed with cooldown jog to make 14.5, and then leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.
Tuesday's workout was ridiculous and comic. It was before dawn, and I felt really wobbly and couldn't quite tell where my feet were on the track (it felt like the track was a bosu ball). I wanted to see how stuff would go if I just stayed relaxed and ran the whole workout, regardless of how slow it went. So I did, and got the splits you see above. Yes - I did my first 1200m at 7:30 pace, and it felt HARD. It was ridiculous.
After that, I decided I wasn't doing Columbus Half this weekend. I contacted my primary care doctor, and scheduled an appointment for this coming Tuesday. I also went and got blood drawn on Friday. That's where things get interesting.
I'm on several different dietary supplements - all prescribed by doctors. I did not take any of them on Friday, because I was getting blood drawn. And...that afternoon the muscle twitches were gone, and the balance issues/vision was considerably improved.
So on Saturday I decided to experiment, and took only the B-vitamin supplement (which doesn't have crazy levels of anything). And...all the symptoms came back - non-stop muscle twitches in my legs, spacey feeling in my head. Only to be gone by Sunday morning. I still feel a bit wobbly, but significantly better.
I'm thinking this may be a step in figuring out what's going on, though obviously I don't have answers yet. It will interesting to see what my primary care doc says on Tuesday.
Additional shoe note: I wore the Adios 6 for my long run today, and also for the 3200 of my Friday workout. It's an improvement over the Adios 5, but still a bit clunky.
Watson - if you're going to get fussy about the weather in Wellington, you might not run much! To be fair, the weather here was not great on Sunday either (Saturday was good). Horrible northerly for my long run.
Flavio - that's smart on the rest and taking it easy for a little longer. Good call.
Darkwave - that sounds like pretty unnerving stuff for that workout. So it sounds like the supplements might actually be part of the problem? Good luck getting to the bottom of that.
Mark - it was very bad. I have kept going previously but being under a cool shower for over and hour is not a good idea.
Darkwave - are you going to only try a different supplement?
sup yall? I had a great weekend and I'm really not super thrilled to be back at work so I'm gonna type up my week then go read your entries =)
70 miles per RA, 69.9 per Strava.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
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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 😁
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 missed this part the first time around. Glad you're figuring things out but man dairy is so delicious. Does cheese bother you?
Corey The kid moving out of the country has got to be tough. With a downsized living situation and no kid around, good luck with all your newfound time. We expect some hundred mile weeks ;
Keen That's got to be both baffling and frustrating. I totally understand not undertaking a large project because of the up-front cost but at some point your just losing too much that you need to do it.
DW thanks for the story, that certainly would be frustrating and a bit of a face-palm moment after the fact. That Tuesday workout sounds scary. Glad you're figuring out what's causing it but that's super frustrating.
Mark Sounds like a good workout. I'm with you doing that weekly is probably too much. I have a clubmate who is coaching now and on his athlete's strava he's constantly posting a quote about how the vast majority of our workouts should be well within our ability to accomplish: they put a drop in the bucket and build our confidence. Then there are a few where we "see god" and find out where we really are and it's ok to fail those. I know it's a quote but I can't remember who said it. Solid week regardless. Is that more elevation than you normally get or have I not been paying attention to that?
James good luck with the foot. That's scary.
Watson Nice tempo
Good week Steve especially the 2x5k
Flavio Yes I am an oreo connoisseur !! but nothing beats the originals. Congrats on the low blood pressure!
edit: Fresh milk is delicious. Being able to reuse containers is also really nice as apparently no one wants used plastics anymore and the ones we buy at the gas station are all ending up in the landfill. So much for the vaunted recycling industry that was so hyped up growing up.
DW - Ugh, so annoying when that happens. It’s like doctors are 6 year olds with ADHD, can they like think about the problem for more than 30 seconds.
I know of so many fumbles by doctor in my extended family alone, thankfully most of the time it only results in an annoyance.
Zeb - Are you still being coached? It sounds like you're back on the wild ride 😁
Yes, cheese is alright in moderate amounts. I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is, but I guess moderate amounts of dairy are fine, I'm figuring out now where that limit is.
me - I've restarted strength training today after a week off.
During marathon training I've reduced strength training to a bare minimum so I could run all the weekly miles and that was a massive blunder.
I should've kept the strength training and only added the weekly running volume on top of that, so that I could be stable throughout the training block.
I'll now try to get back to the level I was earlier in the year during half marathon training and it will take a few weeks.
Running will go to the background as supplementary cardio training.
Mind you the level I was is about 40% of what Zebano is doing, so don't think because I'm pestering you all the time about strength training that I can lift any meaningful numbers (it's mostly bodyweight anyway).
Zeb - Are you still being coached? It sounds like you're back on the wild ride 😁 Yes, cheese is alright in moderate amounts. I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is, but I guess moderate amounts of dairy are fine, I'm figuring out now where that limit is. me - I've restarted strength training today after a week off. During marathon training I've reduced strength training to a bare minimum so I could run all the weekly miles and that was a massive blunder. I should've kept the strength training and only added the weekly running volume on top of that, so that I could be stable throughout the training block. I'll now try to get back to the level I was earlier in the year during half marathon training and it will take a few weeks. Running will go to the background as supplementary cardio training. Mind you the level I was is about 40% of what Zebano is doing, so don't think because I'm pestering you all the time about strength training that I can lift any meaningful numbers (it's mostly bodyweight anyway).
Good for you ! The strength work is more important than the running IMO just because it allows you to be consistent with the running. That said, I quit the heavy weights awhile back and I'm just doing 15 minutes of bodyweight work after every run (except the 20 miler). What bodyweight exercises are you doing? I feel like I need a few new ones just to shake things up. I've considered learning to handstand walk just as a fun thing but I quickly realized I am way short on upper body strength.
Yes, I'm being coached but he didn't know about the pacing gig last week so I threw a wrench into the plans he laid for me. His current plan for me is to keep workouts shorter than normal (i.e. 4xKM@5k this week rather than the 5-6 reps he'd normally assign) and try to push the mileage.
Are you allowed to be an Italian these days if you can't enjoy cheese and whine?
Cobra Commander Keen
Mark - Good on hanging with the fast guys for the workout.
Piwi - We typically get milk from a regional dairy that's within an hour of us. As far above the usual "grocery store" milk as that is, the raw stuff was that much better than the usual stuff we get. I'll definitely get some more the next time I go by.
Steve - Nice week, and here's hoping for good weather and covid news coming up!
Watson - That's an aggressive amount of wall staining, and I don't envy you that at all.
Flavio - Awesome about the heart checkup news! Perhaps at least somewhat due to a reduction in stress? Those upcoming light weeks + PT work will hopefully clear up all those remaining injuries and niggles. Packaged/highly processed foods are something I absolutely avoid. They're typically full of sugar (why would I want extra calories with no nutritive value, I need those nutrients!) and another "class" of "food" that is something I don't consider fit for human consumption. I keep thinking more and more I need to get in to strength training, for multiple reasons. At this point in my training cycle I'm certainly not going to add in anything new, but shorty I'll be looking into a gym (since they have all of the equipment I dont') and also someone to help coach me for at least a while on this.
DWave - Good call on backing out of Columbus, and smart thinking regarding the supplements. One has to wonder if there's a singular cause or some type of multi-variate thing going on. Either way, you know we all want you to get it fixed soon. Also, I'll be copy/pasting my weekly as well. No need to rewrite everything!
Zebano - How many of us are really thrilled to get back to work after even just a weekend? Killer double on Friday! How did the pacing go? One of these days I'd really like to pace an ultra again.
I had a good week, though I think I'm being a tad silly when I wish I had an extra 5k double thrown in there somewhere. Pacing was fun on Sunday, and was the second time I've been able to pace this race (last year was cancelled). Looking up the last race, my time from this year and the first were only 1 second apart!
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
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