Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition
Hot Weather Complainer
I just tried them on with a view to wearing them for a short recovery but they are very tight width wise. Length is fine but I feel like if I run in them they’ll rip. Has anyone found the size to be different to the usual shoe?
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
Interesting shoe chat. How much am I risking injury by doing one workout then a half then a full in them? What are the chances they’re not right? They do feel amazingly light.
I'd say very little. To Darkwave's point, I think you're actually more likely to get injured if you wear them more often!
I do find the width a bit snug when I put them on. Don't even notice it when I'm running 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"
Another week in the bag. Ended up being amusingly similar to last week, with a decent long workout, a decent track session and the other usual stuff around those two. Fingers crossed next Sunday is Run the Point 10km so this week will be a bit lighter. Not a bad thing as after two or three very solid weeks it feels like a slightly lighter week is called for.
JamesD
It may just be a Nike thing - my Turbo 2s are shaped like the VFs/Nexts, and they're tight widthwise in the midfoot, loose in the heel, and plenty long. They felt fine to run in, though.
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
Mark great job you look to be back to your best.
Steve I've been overloading on Next % YouTube reviews. They are quite narrow through the middle. Do you have wide feet or pretty standard?
James that was a good score on the Turbos. I've never tried them as they are hard to get hold of over here.
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 "
My week a cutback week. I needed it but feel ready to go again now
Flavios heartrate actually dropped at the same pace towards the end of his time trial. He left some in the tank Way to go.
HM: 1:47 (9/20) I FM: 3:53:11 (9/23)
2024 Goals: run a FM & HM + stay healthy!
Intl. correspondent
James - Kudos, you are on a roll, super impressive mileage of late, over 8 hours of running!
Steve - I’m now fairly certain you will run your next half at least one minute faster just for not running with the bricks. Kudos for those hill running sessions, those will pay big dividends further ahead.
Mark - your average is creeping back up to 90km per week, how do you feel fitness wise? Close to PR shape?
Shoes - Nikes are rocket shaped. If I want to wear a Nike running shoe I need to buy it 2 sizes larger so that it fits the width, but then of course there’s 2 thumbs left up front.
Piwi - having cut back weeks when self coached requires a lot of discipline, kudos for that!
Mick - I suspect my heart rate monitor is gone. So many times when I start a run it goes way high to 5k territory but I’m barely starting to warm up.
And this is the second race where it drops on the final part of the race. I’m certain I was on 5k heart rate levels in those last 3km, that should have been close to 165 at least.
me - thanks everyone for the well wishes, the time trial went really well today. A real break through.
Race report is after the weekly. Also fuck Strava for adding 2 seconds to my time I have manually corrected the table
What: Half marathon time trial
Where: Bologna/Italy
How many participants: Just me, fuck the Italian government for banning races.
Final time: 1:21:59
I'm going to start by listing again the factors for and against me running a PR today:
For:
1 - I've been running 50 mile weeks for a while now versus under 40 miles a week on the previous race (1h23:30)
2 - I've been running a ton more elevation (Porto Alegre and Ravenna were dead flat)
3 - I've done longer and harder workouts
4 - Most importantly, I've finally managed to get under 80kg, I'm at lest 2kg 4lbs lighter than previous races and that should make a world of difference.
Against:
1 - It's a time trial. I reckon I'm at least 3 to 4% slower on a time trial as compared to a race, without anybody to chase I just can't inject that last gear.
2 - there will be no water replenishment
3 - I'll be racing in relatively warmer temperatures than I have trained. It should still be cold though with temps under 10c 50f by the time I start the watch.
In the end item #3 in the against list didn't materialize as the temp was close to 1c roughly 33F. That made item #2 not as important either. The time trial factor though…
This was a long training block, in the end it turned out to be 20 weeks. I was lucky to get a 5K time trial in during the training period so that I'd get at least one "race" out of it should things go south at the end of the training block.
I've used the Hansons advanced half marathon plan as inspiration with some heavy modifications. Notably the cruise intervals (6x1mi, 4x1.5mi, 3x2mi and 2x3mi) were done at half marathon pace instead of 10k pace. And I've done all the workouts for time, not distance. I find that this way there's no point in running it faster than it needs to be since you're just getting yourself to run longer and suffer extra.
I've also adjusted to 10 minutes per mile in the plan, and since I'm usually running close to 8 minute miles 5 min per Km, I'd get to run a bit more mileage than the plan.
All in all I've managed an average above 50 miles for the last few weeks, as compared to around 40 miles per week during the previous half marathon training block for my previous PR race in Scandicci in February 2020.
I did take a down week around the 5km time trial, and there was another short week a while later due to a cold. This has been a tough period in my personal life having lost 2 dear aunts over the last 3 months and another aunt who just left the hospital after covid treatment. It seems she survived for now and didn't have to be intubated, but her oxygen saturation was 91 for a few days, she will likely take months to a year to recover fully and she's no spring chicken at 75.
The Tempos topped up at 36 minutes roughly 9km some 17 days away from the race. On the last big workout I opted for a shorter 30 minutes instead of the planned 40 minutes as I figured the fitness was there and from there on it was just a fight to arrive healthy and injury free on "race" day.
Race week and taper were largely uneventful in large part due to not having germ carriers (aka kids) and also a nationwide lockdown means we can't even leave the city.
I did consume my napolitan pizza as has become tradition, much needed food to keep the immune system strong and the belly happy.
Race day arrived and I woke up around 6 am. I remember the weather forecast was negative 2 temperatures (30F) so I figured I'd better watch those UFC fights and start the time trial around 8am when the temps were on the better side of freezing water temperature.
Ever since moving to Europe I've been watching the fights the next day as they're usually set to make the US west coast happy and they start at midnight here in Europe.
The good thing about watching the fights the next day is skipping ahead on the boring fights heh.
It's t-shirt weather for running but I had to walk some 15 minutes over to those buildings, so I put on a long sleeve on top. Mask is on (mandatory when outside and not running), keys on the back pocket and off I go. A short walk later and I was arriving close to the buildings but had an urgent need to pee. A thorough scanning process starts and I find some low trees in a park nearby which serve the purpose.
Much lighter, I walked over to the "start line" and did my light mobility routine which involves hip rotations, shoulder rotations, wrist rotations, high knees and butt kicks. Mask goes to the left high arm, I start the watch and off we go. Maximum concentration to avoid running too fast. The first 5km are a bit too fast but I'm getting the hang of the pace.
For the record I wanted 3:55 per km.
3:57, 3:49, 3:50, 3:53, 3:54
I'm feeling great at 5km and I know I should be feeling great. I want to have a similar feeling when I arrive at 10km.
There is a 15km/h wind. It's really annoying and it's a head wind for one of the long sections in the rectangular course. Of course that means I'm running into the wind going in the other direction. It's an annoying wind and I hope it does not do cumulative damage since I'm going to be doing 26 laps around these buildings. I hope the fact I'm a heavier runner still means the wind is not as much as a nuisance as it'd be to the bantamweights in the forum.
Of course being heavier also means carrying more weight
Kms 6 to 10
3:53, 3:56, 3:57, 3:54, 3:56
And I arrive at 10k feeling relatively well. This is going great. I want to start hurting around 16km 10 miles, I know I should be able to hold on for dear life for the last 5km.
Km 11 to 15
3:49 (oops), 3:54, 3:48 (oops), 3:59 (OOPS), 3:50 (oops).
I'm either all over the place with pacing or the watch is going crazy.
To me it feels like I'm running the exact same pace and I gauge effort by my cadence. Around 12.5 I start feeling it a bit, but so long as I don't lose my hips I should be alright.
Km 16 to 18
3:53, 3:54, 3:50
I should be running a more sensible pace here but I'm going by effort and the effort feels right. At 16km I know it's just a 5k ahead.I'm starting to hurt a lot, but it's around 17.5km that the hurt really arrives. I'm in the pain cave. This makes me smile, this is late in the race to be in the pain cave. I'm suffering aerobically mostly, my breathing is heavy, hips are locking a little by little, but the cadence remains. I'm only concerned about the cadence at this point. Since I know I'm not really able to increase the stride, so long as I can keep the cadence I should be alright. From around 10km in the race I know that if I run sub 4 kms I have the PR in the bag. When I reach 18km in sub 1h10, I know the PR is close. At this point I'm looking at a potential 1 minute PR if I can keep the pace. This is all the motivation I'll ever need to dig DEEP.
Km 19 - 3:55
Hell yeah, I'm keeping the pace, 8 minutes to go, come on, come on!!!! This is the km I figured my mind would wander and I'd lose the pace, but I didn't. Just keep the cadence.
Km 20 - 3:54 - 1:17:43
Holy Moly, this is going to be 1h22 low. Can I just like speed a little and get under 1h22? My hips scream NOOOO at me. Quads scream too. My lower abs are also screaming at me. At this point I want to keep cadence so I invented this mind game where I focus on arm carriage, forward backward, forward backward and keep the hips in place like a pendulum. A bit over 1K to go.
Km 21 - 3:55 - 1:21:38
God damn!!!! I'll make it sub 1h22, just god damn sprint. I was doing countdowns every since a mile to go, 1km to go, 700 to go (it seems so far yet it's less than a lap around those buildings), come on it's the last lap, so close, 350 to go, it will beep 21km soon, forward forward!
It beeps 1:21:38, I owe to myself to disconnect all those nerve endings signaling catastrophic failure is imminent and just sprint sprint sprint!
Last 100m : 21 seconds 600 milliseconds. A bit weird since I had to press STOP at exactly 21100, so I was looking at the watch for the last 5 seconds and I saw 1h22 approaching fast, it's not very smart to run fast ahead while looking to the watch but alas, I press the stop button just at 21100, 1:21:59.
If anything the GPS should have measured longer since it shows me doing a lap inside buildings on one corner.
I'm of course extremely happy after this very successful self coached training block.
It's a fact that I'd blast under 18 minutes had I run a 5K today. Alas, I didn't, I ran a Half marathon distance which means a good week of recovery (Since I'm no Keen nor Zeb) and then perhaps a couple of hill sprints and 5k workouts towards another 5km time trial further ahead.
A lot of the success I'm finding in the half marathon lately is heavily reliant on strength training, which is helping me to still have my hips and lower back to support me in those last few kms. In the past I'd lose my lower back around 14km and it was pulling myself ahead with my arms from that point on.
I'm hoping a sub 18 minutes 5K is coming up next as it's been so elusive for so many years now.
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 Great job on the time trial, with a new PR! Nice race report too.
PR's
1m 5:38 (2018)
5k 19:59 (2019)
HM 1:33:56 (2018)
FM 3:23:07 (2018)
Congrats Flavio. Mentally super strong. Great that you see the benefit of the strength training. I am too lazy to do it but totally see that there are benefits to it. I almost beat you this week on the mileage
Flavio wow this is one of the most impressive runs I've seen on these forums. I was thinking you would sneak under 1.24 but I underestimated the Flavio talent and determination!
I like the bit where at 17 kms you start to hurt and know that is late. Its normally by 15kms.
The strength training had done wonders.
Huge congratulations
Mick I'm too lazy as well. I try to justify not doing it because I've been surfing or had a physical day at work but it's not the same.
Just popping in to say congrats Flavio on your half time trial; that takes some serious mental toughness to pull off! Very impressive.
2:52:16 (2018)
Flavio did this without carbon shoes too right ?
Damn might not be able to buy them now
Flavio can you outline your strength routine please.
Mother of Cats
Flavio - excellent excellent job. Really impressive. I enjoyed the report. Agree with all others on how spectacular a performance that was.
Re: the benefits of strength training late in a race - I've found that as well. And in particular, I've found a lot of benefit from my habit of running 60-90 minutes and then going immediately into a yoga class and having to do all sorts of balancing poses and lunges on tired legs - it really teaches you how to keep it together when tired.
James - is the groin issue at least improving any? I was hoping there would be some progress.
Marky_Mark - great running titles. How was Falcon/Winter Soldier? (I am a Marvel fan girl, but way behind on my TV/movie watching)
Piwi - glad the cutback week did its magic.
Mick Jogger - nice week - the Tuesday title made me laugh.
Regarding the Nikes - I'll admit I hadn't had too much fit issues with them - but then I have a triangular shaped foot, narrow through the mid-foot but needing some toe room. The toe box could be a bit better, but other than that they fit fine. I guess I'm lucky.
***
My week (with added shoe notation just because)
64 miles running, 1500 yards swimming, and 2 hours pool-running
M: 50 minutes pool-running and upper body weights/core.T: 12.5 miles in Adidas Adios 4, including a track workout of 1600, 4x800, 2x200 in 6:22, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 3:01, 42, and 42. 4:50 recovery after 1600; 2:2x-2:3x recovery after 800s; full recovery for 200s. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.W: 11 miles very easy (9:17) in Adidas Adios 5 plus drills, 6 hill sprints, 2 flat strides, and streaming yoga.Th: 3 miles very easy on treadmill (9:33) in Skechers Go Meb Speed, 50 minutes pool-running, and upper body weights/core.F: 12 miles on the treadmill in Adidas Adios 2, including a tempo workout of 3x1 mile in 6:36 with 1:00 jog between, followed by 2 miles at 7:08 pace. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.Sa: 10 miles very easy (8:58) in Nike Streak 6 plus drills and 6 hill sprints, followed by streaming yoga.Su: 14 miles progressive in Adidas Adios 4, split as the first 4 averaging 9:06 pace, the next 5 miles averaging 7:46 pace, and the next 5 miles averaging 6:48 pace (and then a 1.5 mile cooldown). Followed with leg strengthwork, 500 yards recovery swimming, and 20 minutes pool-running.
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.
Flavio - super impressive to PR a half time trial.
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