Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition (Read 448 times)

Keen great job on that time trial once again.

My son was good enough to get into top teams but was then one of the weakest in those teams. It then became not fun culminating with him not been played at all in one final and the coaches son teasing him. That ended our soccer days.

Zebano glad to hear you are nearly recovered. Nice hobby to share with your son doing the swimming. I may be going to table tennis 🏓  tonight with my difficult 15 yr old son.

Yeah its funny watching little kids chasing the soccer ball around. Some of them are just looking at their own running form and not the ball. By about 8 years old there are some pretty organized teams though.

Darkwave great mileage although sounds like the norm from your previous marathon blocks. I just can't seem to cope mentally or physically with miles above 60.

This is why I'm not planning any more marathons at this stage.

piwi and darkwave - Yep, I'll open it up a bit next time but as you say, it's a fine line!

Mark - Training in that sort of weather all the time would get so draining.  Thankfully I only had easy/recovery runs.  Mission Bay is such a good place to run (when it's calm).  As soon as I got out of the car the smell of the sea hit me, I love it.

Flavio - Yep, my coach has openly told me he knows I'll go faster than what he wants so he deliberately slows it down.  I've been trying harder than usual this time because I know I'll pay if I go too hard.

darkwave - Wow, that is such a big week.  You should use Flavio's Strava tool and shock us with km one week.

zebano - I did notice my heart rate was very stable and even dropping towards the end.  This has been the case in a few of the extra long runs now so I'm wondering if the monitor in the watch is faulty...also, nice week.  Great that you got so much in while managing that heel/achilles.

Keen - Massive week.  As my mileage increases, I look at weeks like yours and darkwave's  in awe.

Victoria University Cross Country Relay

Around 3.5-3.6km

Time around 16:50 (have not seen official results yet)

https://www.strava.com/activities/5259646740

I was in our masters 35-49 Gold Team for Trentham Harriers, which is the better of the two teams. Our third and fourth quickest 35-49 men were not running, so as the sixth fastest it meant I was in the team. At least 6th fastest if you look at last years times...

As you may be aware, November to March my volume was tiny due to a large injury (broken elbow and shoulder tissue damage) which has now recovered well, and then some exams.

April training was ok considering my lack of fitness.

The race is a long way from Victoria University, it is on the Kapiti Coast at Queen Elizabeth Park 2, which is basically a bunch of
very short and sharp mounds/hills, with walking/running tracks which are a mixture of long grass (mostly), gravel tracks, and sand (least).

I got there almost 2 hours before race as my 10 year old daughter was running the under 12's (2km) an hour before my race. Plus we had a buffer due to substantial road works on the way there, which we got through quicker than expected.

The 2km under 12's race is a shortened loop of the full course. I watch the start, head across to the midway point, and then back to
then end. She came 24th out of around 40 boys and girls.

About 30 minutes before I start my warm up drills.

The old course was about 4km. This years it's different and is about 3.5km, maybe 3.6km.

And I then run the course. So basically most of the first km is flat and is the same as the old course.

It's then up a hill, which is quite steep and seems to take an age. My Strava elevation is clearly wrong, but if you look at my paces in
both the warm up and race you'll see the hill.

It's then down hill overall, but with little rolling hills, and one steep hill just after 2km. The tracks is moderately wide so passing people in the race won't be an issue.

I'm running along, and get to the only obstacle, which is a large metal gate, the kind that is used for opening/closing for cattle. I climb over and carry on a small hill which might be the second steep hill but my memory is not great here.

As some point it's down a small hill that's sandy, and then it's long grass on the way home.

I did the warm up in 19:27 and had 3.6km. I found it fairly hard, possibly it was too hard for a warm up.

I do a couple more very small warm ups with strides.

I'm running third in the relay.

I see Mark (running second) and for a short while we're not sure whether Brian is in the starting area, but we then see him.

The race starts. This relay has multiple competitions at the same time, being under 20's, seniors, 35-49 and 50+, for both women and men's teams.

At around 11:20 the first runner (Wellington Olympic) finishes leg 1. I don't know who he is, but he's moving and about 40 seconds
ahead of the next runners.

Brian is one of the stronger masters runners in New Zealand, so he's pretty quick. Although he hasn't ran much recently due a hernia operation plus a comeback injury. Although he's had a reasonable month running so he's probably still pretty good.

So Brian comes through in about 7-9th overall in around 13:30.

Mark takes off.

By the end of the second leg, Wellington Scottish are in first place. That club has so much depth that often their 'C' teams are very good.

Mark comes through in just under 15 minutes for his leg, which is a good time.

Last year I was around 5s/km slower in races than Mark, so I should do mid 15's...

So I take the baton (which is chipped) fine, so no dropping the baton, which is possibly my highlight performance.

I start at low 4's (per km) pace which is perhaps ever so slightly quick. But not too bad as it's possibly slightly downhill.

The start/end area is a paddock. I then hit the gravel and head on up.

The hill starts earlier than I remember, and is steep. So I get the 1km beep at 4:31.

The next km has the hill, then some downhill and a bit of uphill.

Quite a few people pass me around here.

On the whole course, I only end up passing 4, and they'll all slower teams (woman 50+ and one woman under 20) who are on the second leg.

I do 5:02km for the 2nd km.

Ok, hopefully I can speed up. I've gone from 15:something to thinking about being 17:something in the space of 2km!

I go over the big gate, up the little steep hill and down the sand dune. Based off my memory which is fairly sketchy.

Third km in 4:55.

The last 500-600m is fairly easy. Just long grass and pretty flat, the last 200m is straight and flat so I can see the finish.

I do manage a small kick over the last few hundred metres and pass the baton to Josh.

Josh is quick and has been training well. He's the biggest elevation guy I know on Strava, the week before he hit 4500m!

At around the 52 minute the top three men teams finish. Surprisingly it's Wellington Harriers who win, pipping Scottish on the last leg.
Olympic, who hard the extraordinarily quick first leg come in third.

I somehow miss Josh finishing, he did 13:02 on his watch, which is a very, very good time.

So my team's times were about 13:30, 14:50, 16:50 and 13:02 so I was well and truly the slowest.

I do a small cool down jog, my daughter comes with me and chats. She's a bit happier with her race than I am with mine.

Soon our masters 'B' team finishes, the fourth runner ran a few seconds slower than me. So at least I wasn't a terrible choice for the 'A' team.

I stay a little longer, but decide to not wait until all the teams have finished. Our masters women are one of them, they start their last leg at around 63-65 minutes.

Take homes:
- Tiny training volume over five months hurts fitness. Stating the obvious here.
- It's my second race post October injury, and that other race was a trail. Racing definitely helps me, so I have some coming up.
- I was still recovering from the previous Sunday's run.
- On the positive side, I'm quicker than 50+ woman
- The 43km trail raced with 2km elevation is going to be hard come July.

At the start of the drive home, I go past Josh, who is running home. That ends up being around 34km with 1200m elevation which must have been might tiring post the race!

Watson - nice RR.  It's quite fun that there is a gate you have to cross as well (although I can't imagine gravel in XC spikes is much fun).  You have had a pretty extended period of downtime so it will take some time to get the fitness back, I wouldn't read a lot into the result.

Cross country season here starts on Saturday - I've only done one XC race since high school so we will see how it goes.  It is a straight grass course though!

Keen - very impressive week, o mileage king.

Darkwave - I like the more holistic approach taking things over a fortnight.  It's easy to get stuck in a week to week view of things.

Zebano - good to hear you have a good training partner at least for the swimming!  I can't help but feel that could end up very competitive haha.

Nice RR, Watson.  I've only run one race in the last 18 months, and I'm coming around to the view that any race you finish uninjured and not walking is a good race.  I guess this is typical in relays, but I would have trouble warming up before the start of the race and then waiting half an hour for my leg.

James I totally agree with your outlook

Watson nice report and good reality check even if those are unwanted sometimes. I love that your daughter ran and consoled you after and kudos on a successful baton pass!

Mark It was competitive for a few days, then some of Spawn2s fitness returned and he just started smoking me... that said, his aerobic system is terrible so I recover way faster than him and by intervals 8 or 9 I'm keeping up pretty well.  Another way of looking at that is he's probably going way too hard on the early work. Regardless, it's a lot of fun for me and it's really helped me push past a general fear of having my face underwater for long periods of time.

RP I don't know that Phase 4 is quite a taper though it is easier than phase 3. It's worth remembering that JD's coaching background is as a high school coach (in addition to his PhD) and I think that's reflected somewhat in that this is designed to have high school kids peak for big races at the end of a season and stay sharp through district/regionals/state. My suggestion would be to do at least 2 weeks of phase 4 before doing a time trial (ok, maybe it is a taper). The nice thing about a 5k, is that if you dork up the pacing you can turn around and do it again a week latter (or even 3-4 days if you really want to).  Regarding 5k -> Marathon conversion... yeah it's not awesome but it's way better than nothing and you seem to be a strength based runner with a history of marathon success so it's going to transfer better than for someone like me whose more speed based and aerobically underperforms at long distances.

can you find someone faster than you to pace you? That always helps me a lot

RP I agree with Keen. Just go out and do one now to see where you are at then you can see your improvement after the next one.

I had to really almost force my mate to do one in his marathon buildup. He really had no base number to go off for his training. He lacked confidence at the faster stuff. I paced him in the 5k and he was talking about 4.20/km and he finished a couple of secs outside 20 mins.

That actually equated well with his 3.13 finishing time last weekend in the marathon.

Keen I agree 35 is not what it used to be. People are fitter and in better shape ( if they try ) with all the new training,  nutrition,  stretching, physio, etc.

Steve - my daughter is 10.  It is under 12 based off age at 31 December 2021, so she is one of the younger ones.  Next age down is under 10s.

Woops, I misread.  That makes her result all the more impressive against bigger kids.