Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020
HR stuff - FWIW, I never get close to my max HR when racing a mile. Even though my mile times are superior to my 5K times, my HR is just very slow to rise. But....I agree with the general premise that one would at least expect the HR to be rising during a hard short effort, not stay steady and flat.
I agree on the HR starting slowly for some or sometimes (sometimes my highest HR is the first mile in a race and sometimes it's my lowest HR), but even without a drift (let's just imagine there is no drift for shorter distance - 800m or 1600m - which is still kind of impossible) you would never run all out effort at a recovery (or GA or close to it) heart rate for any distance of 400m or longer - there is just no way for it - period - end of discussion.
paces PRs - 5K - 5:48 / 10K - 6:05 / HM - 6:14 / FM - 6:26 per mile
3 months til Masters
Steve-All things considered that is still a really good time in a non race. Way to go.
Piwi-Rolling with the big dogs. Way to get in the KM's this week.
James-Glad to see you running and trying to keep healthy.
Mark-I just don't get the psychology of faking KOM. It is a app that means nothing. To be a decent runner and to cheat repeatedly (I looked at a bunch of his KOM and he has the super how HR on almost all of them)...i just don't get going out day after day and cheating to pick up meaningless titles. A real Kip Littleton level head job.
Jealous of of you Kiwi's being able to meet up in the real world and say hi.
Waston-Glad those hammies are coming around.
Flavio-Keeping up the strength training is the key to better recovery
DW-Nice week. Same with me on the leg imbalance. I'm actually going in to get evaluated at a sports clinic with an actual doctor who is a is a former Olympic Trials Marathoner. I keep having issues with my left knee and have very different wear patterns on my left shoe bottom. I've been doing exercises, but going to try to narrow it down to is it a quad, hammy, calf issue..hip mobility or who knows what. Hopefully I can figure it out, but my lower left back is the thing that has made me stop running multiple times.
Me- I live in Minneapolis and it has been a hell of a week. I have good friends in the protests, friends working with the homeless who had their camps destroyed by the city during the week, and friends who write for the local news papers who got shot with pepper bullets and smoke canisters. My wife is due in 2 weeks with kid 2 and we are 3 miles from all of this, and we have been fine, but it is pretty stressful. I have been very worried about having to go to the hospital with her in labor while all this is going on. All i'll say is all 4 cops should be in jail. Meant to run 88 miles on the week but with some doubles due to busy life and some bad math while doing some different loops, ended up just over 90. Going to drop significantly next week.
Day/Date/Distance/Time/Pace/Notes
2023 Goals
Marathon Sub 2:37 (CIM) 2:41:18
10k Sub 35:00 (Victory 10k 34:19)
5k Sub 16:00 (Hot Dash 5k in March (16:48), Brian Kraft in May (16:20), Twilight 5000 in July and August (16:20/16:25 Both heat index 102-103F)
Sub 1:16 Half Marathon City of Lakes Half Marathon 1:15:47)
Sub 56:30 in 10 mile (Twin Cities 10 mile, Canceled due to weather, 56:35 as a workout)
2024 Goals
Sub 2:37 Marathon
Sub 1:15 Half
Sub 34 10k
Sub 16 5k
PR's
1m 5:38 (2018)
5k 19:59 (2019)
HM 1:33:56 (2018)
FM 3:23:07 (2018)
oh I won't make the Zoom call this time either.
Dps - super week. Is your injury issues simply that 90 miles per week is too much? Would dropping to 60-70 miles per week for a while help? Best of luck with your safety. Tough times in Minneapolis, and most of the United States.
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
DP nice week once again. I hope things settle down in your town soon.
Corey great job even with the long run cut short. You are better off cutting it short than running under fueled or not feeling great.
Another great Zoom meeting thanks to Steve. I love having a laugh with you guys on there and having a whole different interaction to written only forums.
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'm tapering down toward a june 21st time trial marathon. I have had knee issues on a off for years as a result of a care accident. It comes up too when I'm running 30 - 50 miles a week. Pretty sure it is a mechanic issue. So I need to strengthen and get some balance. It is a 3-4 on a scale of 1-10 now but it has been a 8 or 9 in the past. Finally have the insurance and money to finally get it sorted. Since we will max out our out if pocket with the baby, the PT and assessment will be 100% covered by the insurance.
Oh wow a ton going on here, mostly the strava cheater. What a schmuck, that type of crap ruins it for the rest of us. I have a couple of local speedsters 2:30-:45 marathoners who own most everything around here, but I both know they're legit but it makes it sweeter when I take a segment, even if only for a couple of days.
Speaking of HR, does anyone have suggestions for a good arm based HR monitor? Preferably one I can use while swimming as well? My watch does the optical thing but after half a mile it usually jumps from 130 -> 170 despite no change in effort so I assume it's constantly picking up cadence. I recently turned it off.
Leg balance - I too have this (right leg is both stronger based on my single leg exercises but spends more time on the ground and is more often injured). I I strength train (or used to pre-Covid) how do you translate strength to stride? Are you literally thinking about it/ watching the watch while running?
Sorry I missed the zoom - my family has just had a super active outdoors -weekend with our new Kayak and no offense to you all, it was was both something we needed and way better than staring at a screen.
My week
59.5 miles -- super annoying to be .5 short of 60, but I tell myself I run the runs I plan with small adjustments for life/how I feel and let the miles fall where they will.
Mon - 8.7 mi trail 8:45 / mi, muggy and muddy
Tue - 4.1 AM, 4.1 PM (both 8:30/mi) + 7x9sec hill sprints
Wed - 4.1 AM (8:40/mi), 2.7 mi @ 7:30 PM (supposed to be a tempo but felt like crap and had to get the car to the mechanic)
Thur - 12.3 mi @ 8:50 - super muggy. Ran first 9 too hard, stopped for a soak in a stream before the singletrac at the end before putzing to the finish.
Fri - OFF
SatAM - 10 mi as 7.5 trails then 2.5 of hill repeats, did yard works, took the family kayaking
SatPM - 8.7 @ 8:30/mi same trail as Mon, even muddier but felt strong, hung out with ultra runners attempting 100 miles after.
Sun - 4 @ 8:55, went boating & kayaking for rest of day.
Solid week, sadly very little quality. That said vert is really starting to not bother me much and I'm just feeling strong. Of note, I was sleep deprived most of the week. I'm making slight schedule changes next week as a friend wants to do track work Tuesday morning and I consider running hard with someone else worth the hassle of it not fitting my schedule very well. I feel like I need to do some sort of multi-pace workout to just touch on all systems next week. I'm also considering a 5k time trial at some point since I'm feeling stronger than I have since 2018 and if I can find a day with cool weather it's worth taking my shot.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
I took it easy-ish this week after my ankle really hurting last week. I have continued to run, but have done most runs at between the high end of easy and low end of recovery. I totaled 58.5 miles this week, which is about 15 less than I have been running. Stayed on the treadmill all week for lower impact. Have a business meeting out of town tomorrow, so I'll be up early to get in miles on the road and we'll see how the ankle behaves.
I have biked just a little bit this week as well. I bought a cheap road bike yesterday just for fun, but also in case I need to take time off from running because of my ankle. Each day has improved for the most part and I actually ran today almost pain free...but this morning before church, it was really tight and achy. So, I don't know. I'm trying to be smart, but I'm also kind of dumb.
Total Distance: 26.7 miles
Cobra Commander Keen
Bummer, missed another meeting due to not checking PMs over the weekend.
DWave - Nice week. Good call out on the 20 sec/mi pace differences and the difference in classifications. In looking up a local segment time, I saw one similar run from few months ago - a kid who graduated HS last year posted a 15 mi LR at 6:25/mi. Titled it "nice slow and easy long run". Not only was it his fastest HM effort ever, he set "perceived exertion" to HARD.
Mark - Good week. And that guy's CRs are definitely out of line - thee's no way his HR actually declines while running at those paces. Sad that people feel the need to resort to such things.
Flavio - Mileage isn't all it's cracked up to be, it's good to see you posting so many runs.
DPS - Killing it on the mileage again! Hopefully things calm down near you.
Zebano - Good week. Mine have been lacking in quality for quite a while now as well.
Felt pretty good about this past week, though it again lacked any semblance of quality work. Did a semi-structured Interval workout this morning (snagging a CR in the process), and plan to do another this week and maintain 2x/wk going forward. Overall I was pretty happy with the workout paces, especially given my lack of quality recently. Though I find it interesting that my now 2.5 year old marathon PR could be used to submit for Boston next year (which of course wouldn't get me in again), I'm looking for a marathon to run this fall/winter. Also thinking about jumping into a nighttime 50k next month just for kicks. Need longer long runs for that, though.
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
Hot Weather Complainer
Christchurch Half-Marathon Time Trial - Race Report
Rather than go into too much background, I'll link to the Race Preview here.
The forecast for the day was basically perfect with expected temperature at race time of 3 degrees C (37F). It dawned a little colder than that and was around -2C (28F). Most of the course has tree cover so there was only a few small ice patches to negotiate. The course was in Hagley Park, where I do a lot of training, and which is part of the course for the Christchurch Half-Marathon. I measured out a lap of 2.61km which was around paths with no road crossings and which I expected to remain reasonably quiet at 8am on a Sunday morning.
I had a reasonably good sleep, and woke at 5am as usual for an 8am race. I had my traditional sardines on toast (which disgusts most people including my partner) and took a banana with me to have in the last 45 minutes. I also stuck to the tradition of a pre-race shower to wake me and warm me up on a cold morning. I arrived at the course at about 7:20am and walked a lap to mark out the start line 270 metres before the finish line (and for my mate who was doing a full marathon 460 metres before the finish).
I had a short warm up with some strides before we headed to our respective start lines. There were a few people around but not many, and it had been dark when I arrived but slowly started to get light. With cloud cover the 8am start would be reasonably dark. I pinned on my race number (the only one I had kept, from the Waterfront Half-Marathon in 2019. I said to my marathon mate (Darryn) to give me a wave when he was ready to start. As discussed on Zoom, it was quite surreal at the start, very quiet and I'm sure less adrenaline than a usual race. I waited for my watch to find the satellites, turned on some music to try and pump myself up (I don't usually wear an iPod in a race but I did for this one) and at 8:01am, I was off.
The first lap felt strange - here I was finally racing after 9 months of build up after my glute injury and it felt a little manufactured. I tried to stick to my goal of 4:15mins/km for the first 5km but hit the first km in 4:07 so I tried to back off a little. The first 5km felt like it took quite a while and I was feeling okay, not puffing very hard. I went through 5km in 21:06 which is slightly ahead of goal pace but not outrageously quick. Around this time I went into lap 3, and prepared to grind knowing the middle laps would be tough mentally.
It was probably in the third lap when I first felt like things might not be going my way again - I remember having bad patches in the first half of several laps then feeling better on the back half. There was a slight breeze which I ran into in the first half of the lap but barely enough to have any impact except make my eyes water (it was a cold breeze). During the 4th lap I knew for sure I was struggling and for the first time I thought that maybe I was better off finishing at 10km so I would have a quick recovery to shoot for the next race. I quickly told myself not to be ridiculous. I had told my partner to come at about 8:45am - I think 45 minutes in the cold was enough to ask of her. I saw her at the end of the 4th lap and she knew from my face that things were getting tough. I think every lap the thought of stopping crossed my mind but I really wanted to stick it out.
I went through 10km in 42:22 which is bang on target but I wasn't even thinking about that. I also tried to tell myself that in February I'd done a 10km in this park in very hot conditions mostly on grass and finished in 42:23 - I figured I should feel great compared to that with 3 more months of training and much nicer running conditions. I knew though, that I was about to go to some dark places if I wanted to get through this. I wanted to not drop below 4:30mins/km pace but I was really just hanging on now. My partner started walking a lap in the opposite direction to me which gave me a few boosts. Also during the 4th lap I passed Darryn for the first time, who now had 2 friends with him helping him along. They gave me a cheer and Darryn gave me some abuse which was another good boost.
At the end of the 6th lap my partner and another friend had arrived and gave me a clap - that was the last lap I considered stopping on but with them there that disappeared as an option. From 10-15km I had dropped to 22:18 which wasn't a complete blow up, but it felt like it was!
On lap 7 I passed Darryn and friends again who again provided some good support and laughed when I said "I'm f%&ked". I also saw my other friend approaching on his bike then noticed my partner on the back of a tandem bike which was hilarious - she would NEVER do that with me. I was hanging on to about 4:30 pace by now and once I went into the 8th lap I knew I was going to hang on all the way no matter how slow I got. 15-20km went in 22:28 as the slow down continued. With 2km to go a girl ran into the loop in front of me so I focused on chasing her through the middle of the last lap and passed her after about 1km, then turned towards the finish line and used up everything I had to do the last km in 4:22 to finish in 1:31.51.
At the finish I was wobbly and couldn't walk straight, actually stumbled and decided to just lie down for a while. My partner checked if I was dying, but I just needed a few minutes.
So since my PR in 2016 I have had one good race where I felt good all the way and paced it well - admittedly that is my slowest time out of all the races as I had very interrupted training. I haven't had a running coach since 2016, and an old school friend of mine founded a company of running coaches so I'm going to use him for the next 2 months and see if he can help me find what is missing. I think I'm close to breaking through but I need to try something.
Darryn managed to finish the race in 5:19 after going to some very dark places. Another group were doing the same as us and one of their supporters gave him a pep talk and an energy gel with 7km to go when he was in big trouble. An amazing effort by him to stick it out and he was fully deserving of the beer I had waiting at the finish line.
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 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Zebano - yeah that's what I'm talking about. A bunch of the segments around me were previously owned by a 2:30 marathon guy who doesn't live around here but ends up stationed at the air force base from time to time. It was super satisfying to get some of those segments off him. There's also a bunch right on my doorstep that a friend and clubmate set several years ago when he was training super hard and ran around 2:20 to win the Auckland Marathon - if I could ever get any of those I'd be stoked!
Anyway good week and I wouldn't worry much about the 60 miles, if you're sticking to the plan and adjusting a bit based on feel, that's exactly the way to do it. A much better runner than me once told me that you don't magically become a better runner just because you hit 100km for the week!
That definitely sounds like cadence lock on your watch, I use the Garmin Fenix 5S which is a good watch but I'm not sure if the wrist HR works for swimming.
DPS - impressive week - despite the madness over there! All the best with the pending arrival. Crazy time to have a new baby arrive but at least you know what to expect!
Corey - nice week. Tough one having to cut that long one short but sounds like a good call.
Mrakers - nice week and hope the ankle continues to improve.
Keen - a night-time 50k for fun? Us runners sure have strange definitions of 'fun' sometimes. Congrats on that CR, too!
Steve - thanks again for organising the Zoom call, it was great to chat to everyone.
Me - back in the office today (I'll probably be in the office some days and working from home some days) which meant I got to run on nice flat Tamaki Drive for the first time in probably 10 weeks - pretty much everything since then has been hills of varying degrees with the odd track session. Honestly, it was so nice to just... run. It was just a cruisy, easy-pace run but to be able to lock into a nice rhythm and maintain it without hills was awesome, even though I had to battle the headwind coming home.
Races - OK. Let's do this. Looks like our move to Level 1 is not far off, and with it the prospect of full races (some smaller races are already starting back up at the current 100-limit). Steve, chalk me up for:
The 10,000m is an event some local Masters guys are running at the Lovelock track over in Mt. Roskill. They ran one last Saturday and got a reasonable turnout with a few sub-33's and one sub-32, all Masters guys that I know, so it will be a really fun hit-out.
National Road 10k Champs looks to be getting moved to early November which actually works out OK if true, it means 3 weeks recovery from Rotorua then 3 weeks to get some pace in the legs. It's the week after Auckland Marathon which might stuff things up for some runners 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: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Mark I am keen for the 10k event at the Mount Maunganui half marathon 29 August. That gives me 3 months to get some fitness back after my injury. Goal would be sub 39 and hopefully an age group place top 3.
I can cheer Mark on after I'm finished as we start 15 mins before the half.
Steve nice race report and gutsy effort.
Piwi - great news, I am just checking out Airbnb now haha. Will be good to catch up.
Steve - nice RR, thanks. I was thinking about it some more, and I reckon laps would've made it difficult. I definitely found that when I was running a 5km TT last month doing 1.25km laps, and certainly from the 10,000m race I ran in March I can remember how it can get in your head when you know you've got a lot of laps to get through.
Good call on trying a running coach. There might be one or two really simple adjustments you could make that would help you get that breakthrough. You've definitely got the platform there from your training and 2 months should allow you to capitalise on that while also having enough time to make some beneficial adjustments.
There will probably be some very good Air bnb deals at the moment.
Race magic is worth about 10 s/km for me. So that's 3-4 minutes.
Also Steve has not raced for a long time. I definitely need to race to get race for.