Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020
Hot Weather Complainer
Is it worth creating a new thread? Perhaps "Mark's Taper Madness". It's hard enough to keep up with this thread as it is without the hourly updates to the forecast
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
Nah, at this stage the actual updates to the forecast are only daily. It'll be twice daily once it's in the 5 day forecast and Metservice don't actually publish an hourly forecast until 48 hours out by which time I've generally gone down the rabbit hole and come back out the other side.
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"
In unrelated news, OMG THEY'RE REMOVING THE S BEND FROM THE NATIONAL ROAD CHAMPS COURSE!!
I mean, that's worth like 15 seconds alone. That shit was bad enough in flats and horrible in Vaporflies.
RIP Milkman
This thread has been mark's inner dialouge for a couple of months now, you haven't been paying attention thread leader
Also Mark more seriously don't check the weather this far out. They've proven it's just as accurate as predicting the average weather for this time of year, ie useless
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Intl. correspondent
Sigh, if I run a PR on my 10k race on the 11th, it will be completed ignored when Mark runs 2h30 in his marathon
So I've lost quite a bit of weight during this training block and I have no idea why, it seems to me like I'm eating just about the same.
80.8kg this morning, I don't remember ever being this light, perhaps just before the 50K race in 2016. But before that, probably 2002.
I suppose I can go much lighter seen as I can still grab a handful of fat by my love handles.
May I say it's super cool to not be so heavy.
Now if I just learn how to stay at this weight and not balloon up during winter.
Also, yeah, I obsess about weight, Mark obsesses about weather.
Taper has just started with lighter runs tomorrow and Sunday and mostly light race preparation runs next week. Time to bubble wrap myself and wait.
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
LOL Steve, my thoughts exactly. This far out it's worthless but Mark's gotta worry about something when tapering lest he go truly mad.
Flavio congrats on the weight loss, I've been going the other way since covid hit, and I'm trying to figure out how to stop snacking. That should equal a few free seconds per KM in your 10k ! I'm looking forward to the RR.
In other news I had followed a facebook link for a Whoop study and signed up to be part of their control group. I'm supposed to do an 8-week 5k training plan supposedly designed by Mary Cain starting on 12 October. I gotta say I think this is actually going to push me in week 1 but hold me back compared to what I would force myself to do otherwise by week 4. Most weeks are
This is the "advanced" program which they claim will be 30-40 miles per week but for me when in shape 2 hours of easy running is 14 miles... and thus the workouts will each be roughly 8-13 miles each... I guess that's reasonable for a workout but is something I would do when running 50 miles per week. They don't say not to cross train so I guess I'm just going to keep pretending to be a dedicated triathlete and do a bunch of cycling and swimming along with this. My only consideration is should I try and honor their two full rest day schedule or not.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
Bekele is out of the London Marathon....
https://twitter.com/LondonMarathon/status/1312044777324642305
Zebano - 70 minutes is a long run if you run 30 miles a week. I still do 2 hour long runs, but I think the standard for 5Ks is the 90 minute mark. I'm surprised this is advanced, but then again, if I asked anyone who doesn't run, they'd think 70 minutes is SO long for a 5K.
JMac, you're not wrong... but reading the signup I thought it was actually going to be "advanced". I guess I should reserve judgement until I see the workouts but I'm underwhelmed. After stalking the facebook group I found one similar complaint and they told him to email and ask for the "elite" plan which was not available at sign up time. I'm debating if I'm going to do that... the plan starts too soon for that to really be feasible but I think I'll be chomping at the bit by week 3 or 4.
Well, as others know, I'm a huge Daniels fan, and I'm following his 5K/10K plan right now. I actually think it's not nearly as intense as his marathon 2Q plan, which is an absolute beast (but I LOVE). I finish each of his 5K workouts going "that was tough, but doable." I will literally curse under my breath during his marathon workouts.
I'm in the middle of it (with my 10 day break for my stupid injury), but very happy with the progress so far. This is probably my 4th time through it, but the first time I'm really dedicated to following it.
JMac, I may have to go revisit my old logs but I remember doing Daniel's workouts and going ... Hmmm Phase II is stupidly easy, let's get this going... WOAH, phase III is absurdly hard, where did this come from? Every I and T workout left me useless the rest of the day. I eventually got injured in early Phase IV, took a short break, tapered then raced and set a 20ish second PR (20:30 -> 20:10 IIRC). I've since become a lot lot better about running T workouts so I think I could handle those but 1200s@I are just rough. If I had infinite time I would try it again but frankly I didn't love the experience.
Things I've learned from experience, which don't fit into neat JD type workouts:
1. Occasional 20min T sessions are extremely useful, ?x5min@T sessions don't do a ton for my fitness.
2. I personally need some longer tempos at a bit slower than true threshold pace. They really help me and I recover fast from them and JD just doesn't provide enough opportunity for them. Maybe at the higher mileage I'm currently running sessions like 2x2T or longer could fill this void but it's even easier to just ease the HR out of the easy zone and tell myself I have to run hard for 40 minutes and let the pace fall where it will.
3. I peak after just two or three VO2 style sessions. After that my legs go flat, my workouts get worse and I don't race that well, this even happened last spring. When I minimize the number of VO2 sessions I tend to race better. That said, I haven't done specific prep for a 5k in a couple years. <-- this is one of the reasons I signed up for the study. I'm kind of curious what they'll give me for workouts and how my body will respond as a more experienced runner.
So anyway I'm curious what in particular you like about JD? Have you tweaked his plans at all ? For instance I think I could see doing a short sharpening block that was
1. 2 weeks of R work (phase II) for a tiny bit of running economy but I'd keep this short as I don't respond much to this work.
2. 4 weeks of I work (phase III) with one of weeks 2 or 3 being a down week to minimize the chance of peaking.
3. A short taper + race followed by maybe another 2 weeks leading to a second chance race based on phase IV.
Zebano - bummer on Bekele's injury, that is a real shame.
Flavio - tbh if you hit a PR that will be a great achievement which we will all celebrate, meanwhile JMac will just be telling me I was sandbagging all along haha.
JMac - Between my excessive taper posting and your Daniels evangelism, I feel like this thread is getting back to normal... or something familiar anyway.
Mother of Cats
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2. I personally need some longer tempos at a bit slower than true threshold pace. They really help me and I recover fast from them and JD just doesn't provide enough opportunity for them. Maybe at the higher mileage I'm currently running sessions like 2x2T or longer could fill this void but it's even easier to just ease the HR out of the easy zone and tell myself I have to run hard for 40 minutes and let the pace fall where it will
I read Daniels repeatedly for the general theory, though I've never followed a plan. The version I have has a chart adjusting tempo paces for durations longer than 20 minutes - I've found that when I run my tempos by feel, I generally hit his suggested paces for the 25 or 30 minute tempo right on the nose. I personally find I get more fitness boost out of the 25 or 30 minute slightly slower tempo than I do for a 20 minute tempo, which just feels a bit too short in duration and too hard in effort.
If it's 3rd edition do you mind sharing where this is? I cannot find it.