Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon 2021 Edition
Keen Good luck with the coach. I hope you mesh well.
Piwi called me out I was trying to skate by calling it a fitness check but I've got sub 20 in the back of my mind. Secondary goal is to beat another clubmate who pointed out he has a 5k PR that is 9 seconds faster than my PR. Neither of us are in PR shape right now but he's lost 35 pounds since January and has been strength training like crazy as well as maintaining a simple 30 mi / 50km per week. It's always interesting racing him because he is a natural endurance monster and I'm much more fast twitch with top end speed, if he passes me more than halfway into a race, it's just over. I've never lost to him in anything shorter than a 5k and he's only won one 5k that we were both in but he tends to get me at longer distances though I remain unbeaten when it comes to trail races shorter than 10 miles.
On Friday my buddy warmed up with me but after strides went into the bathroom before we started a 5kTT where I was going to pace him (goal pace 7:45/mi so I figured I could manage even the day after my duathlon) but he fainted in the bathroom so we called it off.
Longboarding sounds great but I live in the wrong area of the country. Doing anything with your son is great.
I will third the recommendation to try running on soft surfaces. My latest injury notwithstanding I feel like my trail running the past two years has helped keep me healthy and strong.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
JamesD
James Good week, especially getting out there in the rain for the long run. How much do you sweat in the Gore jacket? I've always found layering up in wicking material to be better than a true rain shell but YMMV.
The jacket is advertised as letting moisture out, and it does to a certain extent, though I do sweat some in it. That's still much better than doing without, at least until the temperature gets above 70/21. I don't mind being warm, but I don't deal well with cold at all, and rain and wind without the jacket can make me shiver even if it's in the 60s. For me the jacket is a much better value for money than a GPS watch or pricey shirts/shorts.
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
Watson - nice week. That 15% grade hill is nasty and it will make you tough!
Flavio - good luck on the marathon prep. Also good job including km and miles, that should make everyone happy.
Piwi - nice photos. Honestly you look pretty hardcore!
James - another solid week, good to hear the injury niggles sound like they are improving.
Darkwave - ugh, sounds like a pain battling traffic, particularly on what sounds like a pretty established workout spot. I honestly don't understand why people have to be such assholes sometimes. Here in NZ there is a bit of a drivers vs. cyclists mentality - the reality is that idiots are idiots irrespective of which mode of transport they've adopted!
Corey - sounds like tough going on the injury front. Hope it's feeling better soon.
Zebano - very impressive mix of cross training!
RP - yeah. I've done that thing where you can't not get yourself to 50 miles or 100km or whatever it happens to be. Damn OCD! Anyways good week.
RP / Zebano - so I think XC is like a harder version of trail, at least with the course we were on last weekend which was heavily grassed with some softer muddy spots. You definitely have to work harder to push off the grass than you would on a trail, which is softer than the road but certainly not as soft as grass/mud.
Anyway, as of today I've entered the Meridian Hydro Half which is mostly trail, albeit it is good quality cycle trail and 4WD tracks. It looks like a fun event and it will be something a little different from my usual road HM's which should hopefully toughen me up a bit for September races.
Keen - impressive week! I still find it amusing how a down week of 70 miles for you would be a big week for me. You are such a mileage beast.
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"
Keen - couple of race changes for me (sorry, I didn't realise I'd be this bad at XC haha).
Can you delete the two XC races I've got there, and add
August 7 - Meridian Hydro Half Marathon (goal: get race sharp and try not to injure myself on trails)
Mark awesome workout today by you on strava. Good job signing up for that trail race.
Zeb its great to have a friendly rivalry with your mate. It will push you daily and in races. I also have that mate
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 "
Intl. correspondent
Piwi - You need to take 3 weeks easy now, just easy running with some strides here and there and a bit lower mileage to let the body recover.
James - great consistency. Any races planned?
Zeb - Let’s see how the coach will guide you. A real live race, I’m jealous!
RP - I’m not sure JD has good 5k plans, from reading Jmac weeklies he's always utterly destroyed from too much intensity (stuff like 7x1200).
You might benefit from less intensity.
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
Nothing definite yet, but I know which races I want to run if I can get in some faster training without aggravating my hamstrings or hernia. I went six months without any fast running because of the hamstring injury and in the last 4 weeks have only done three short tempos (1.5, 2 and 2.5 miles) at about 10 sec/mile slower than last year's pace for longer tempos. I'm pleased with my base, and I hope/assume that as I lengthen the tempos the speed will come back. Not sure I want to risk any VO2 max workouts for a while, as I think that and a hill workout are what injured the hamstrings last time. If all goes well, there's an October half near where my son will be in college that looks like fun, and in town we have a July 5-miler and a Labor Day 10K that would be logical rustbusters. Not ready to put them on the board yet, though.
Zeb - Let’s see how the coach will guide you. A real live race, I’m jealous! RP - I’m not sure JD has good 5k plans, from reading Jmac weeklies he's always utterly destroyed from too much intensity (stuff like 7x1200). You might benefit from less intensity.
Flavio Did I see in the other thread that you moving countries again??
Get HYPED, it's race season!!! Piwi is absolutely right, it's good to have the rivalry, we haven't run against each other since 2019 so this will be great and I'm more excited for this than I have been for anything in the past year.
I generally agree with Flavio. My slightly nuanced take is that JD phase II is really easy. Phase 3 is stupidly, absurdly hard and is designed to either break you or get you in PR shape and phase 4 is more in line with what I would do for phase 3 but it feels like a taper so you can race.
James interesting that you think hills hurt your hamstrings. I find hills trash my calves (and downhills my quads) but are relatively easy on my hamstring. Maybe that's why I'm a poor uphill runner.
Problem Child
Flavio JMac gravitates towards the harder/more challenging parts of the JD training. After he is destroyed he seems to do quite well for races, but maybe that destruction from the past lead to a few injuries he had. It definitely isn't easy to get the workouts done. You have to have a desire to push yourself from what I've seen so far.
I just had a "3/4 to 1 mm foreign object" removed from the surface of my eye. I'm 90% sure it was grease from doing "jeep stuff" so I'm taking today off from workouts as well as yesterday. It felt like i had a rock in my eye all Sunday and the redness indicated sometihng was in there. Now I just sit here and wait for my "10:00 meeting" to be announced it's actually around 11:30 this afternoon.
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
Cobra Commander Keen
Mark - I thought I had already deleted the XC races, but somehow they survived. I've removed those and added the HM now.
Flavio - Didn't you just get to Italy??? Why packing up so soon?
I've had a little more contact with my soon-to-be coach and am thinking this should be a good fit. At least as much as I can without having gone through some training at his direction.
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 is moving ?
I hope its to New Zealand 🇳🇿
He can coach me for free 😌
Flavio thanks for the sane advice. Its been so long since I ran a half i have forgotten how long recovery takes.
Yesterday I had to still go out and run and it nearly destroyed me. My knees both feel like the ligaments supporting them are at half strength.
RP ouch that must be a relief to get that out of your eye 👁
I had a wood chip in mine a few years ago from drilling a wood frame home while running cables.
It is so annoying and quite tiring having your eye continuously watering and sore.
Ok I will try and not run today I promise
Keen/Zeb - yeah, my wife will start a Masters in Nutrition and Portugal will also be more tax-friendly to me.
We're going by train and stopping along the way crossing Switzerland, France and Spain before arriving in Portugal (Sorry MickJ, no Zurich this time). We hope it's going to be fun though we will need to do 3 covid PCR tests along the way as we cross the borders. Anyway, YOLO, gotta make the best of it now, who knows what's going to happen when the winter comes back.
I'm really hopeful this pandemic works like the 1918 one in that after a strong second year it had a light 3rd year and vanished away.
I've just tried lifting a heavy box we intend to ship over there. Bad idea. Almost threw my back. I hope it stays at almost. When will I learn damn!
Piwi - Whoa, you ran that HM like a champ! I want to run as fast as you when I grow up. Regarding the recovery after a HM, I think the lack of just that might have contributed to my hamstring injury nearly 3 years ago. And those pictures look great. I think it's funny that in the first two pictures your legs look super muscular, and in the third the picture caught the funny angle and moment where it looks like your thigh is the same size as your arm. I've had that happen to me too.
Mark - Sounds like it was the right move to pull the plug on that race. Don't think I've ever done that in a race although I can easily think about a couple of instances where I should have.
Flavio - I feel very confident in my doctor and I think she is dealing with a lot of runners. Right now I just need to take it easy for a little while. But I always need strength training though. And are you moving?
Keen - Good luck with that coach.
Watson - Your parkrun sounds like a good starting point. I can definitely relate to not being in shape.
DW - Sucks when traffic wants to argue with you for no good reason. I had a near death experience a week and a half ago when I was riding my bike home from work. I stopped at an intersection at a red light, got the green, started to go, then a car flew by running the red light at 40mph or more, and I just thought that if I got to that intersection a few seconds later so I didn't have to stop, I would have been right in his path
Steve - Rough with that cramp. I got cramps in my calves in Amsterdam in 2018 and I guess I will never know what caused it. I think it easily could have been any of the following: trans-Atlantic flight 4 or 5 days before the race, lingering hamstring injury that changed my stride, not enough electrolytes, too fast of a pace, you name it. Happened right around the 30k mark as well.
Z - Good luck with the coaching, and good to see you are still swimming some. I'm stoked that our pools are open so I can go there again and have started to put in some ok workouts to at least stay in shape.
So yes, I'm still not running but I can swim and I ride my bike a little bit. At least I can try to take some cool pictures when I'm outside. I am actually seriously considering signing up for the Tower26 workout plan, even though I won't use the run part at all, and will be limited at best on the bike, but their swim workouts are killer. I'm limited with 1 hour time slots but it should be a good start. Based on the first couple of trips I've made to the pool it takes a little while to transition from wetsuit swimming to swimming without one (my body felt super heavy in the water the first time), but the weekly swims I have done in the Bay throughout the winter and spring seem to have paid off.
5k: 20:32 (1/17) | HM: 1:34:37 (2/18) | FM: 3:31:37 (3/18)
Getting back into it
Rune if all you can do is 1 hour of swimming I'd go for it. Also, include photos. I'm totally into people posting photos on Strava.
Piwi I'm pretty sure it was just grease, and once the numbing drops wore off it didn't feel any different. I have a cream and a liquid antibiotic I have to put in my eye moving forward. Thankfully I can still read the Garmin.
Flavio THREE tests? sheesh. I'm one of those people who right now would tell others "hey what was that whole 'we need to do things like Europe does it' talk about?" Just to poke the bear. My state is removing masks and we just had an increase in cases. No one cares though. Literally no one. I thimk more people care about working from home no longer being allowed 100% than anything.
Keen is there going to be any "in person" part of this coaching?
Zebano, Running Problem front side quads, right side more than left but both get sore
I keep waiting for it to "get better" seems like I am so sore after every run, even the short 5 milers I'm not used to that.
Piwi, Watson I'll try to get a few in of some soft surface as you suggest I have a good place I can do that.
everyone seems to be getting in really good mileage great job
PR's
1m 5:38 (2018)
5k 19:59 (2019)
HM 1:33:56 (2018)
FM 3:23:07 (2018)