Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020
RIP Milkman
Steve - one thing on giving up on a workout: sometimes I find if I'm in a rut that I give up too easily. One trick I've taught myself is not to give up on a workout unless I hit a pace that is one VDOT below where I should be, which conveniently is 5 seconds a mile, or 3 seconds per KM. I've found I feel like giving up sometimes pretty early in a workout and then surprise myself by hitting my paces.
Watson - sorry about the fall, been lucky myself just with bruises, but running is more dangerous than you think. You can go months with no issue and then bam! raised sidewalk gets you.
James - no hernia for me, I think JTReeves over in the marathon forum had one
Zebano - James hit the nail on the head about the Kiwis. They'll take up 2 pages talking about towns nobody can pronounce, people nobody knows about, and races nobody has certified. You just get used to it. It's like a Kiwi gossip page sometimes.
Josh - wecome. I was on the old RWOL as well, I'm sure we crossed paths.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Hot Weather Complainer
JMac - I know what you mean but it's not something I've generally had an issue with. If anything it's the opposite - pushing through when the better option is accepting it's a bad day. I think I could count on one hand the number of times I've pulled out of a workout. On Saturday I felt like I was working as hard as I could just to hold 4:20/km pace when usually in those workouts I have to work to slow down to the target pace.
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
Very interesting Steve, so odd that you have that experience in workouts yet have been not doing as well in races. You're an interesting case study for any coach!
Mother of Cats
Possibly relevant (or possibly not).
I have quite a few runner acquaintances on social media who will post workouts with comments like "so tough but I battled through" or "I was a warrior today in rep 5." And whenever I read those descriptions of workouts I wonder "if you're fighting oh so very hard in your workouts, then what do you have left for race day?"
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.
darkwave - Very relevant I think. In my session with my coach this week, he was pretty forthright that because he gives me a workout, it doesn't mean I should empty the well to complete it. His advice is mainly about the fact that I'm training in summer for the next race (technically spring, but summer feels like it arrived early this year) and that on any particularly hot days if I'm up against the wall I should consider bailing on the quality part of a workout but keep the volume the same. I don't think I'll use this as an excuse to be soft, but I won't feel bad if I miss. Again though, it's very rare for me not to be able to hold the required pace of a workout.
I'm in a stretch of the biggest weeks I've ever had but the last 2 weeks before the race, I've asked my coach to be extra conservative. After the last 2 races, less is more. Maybe 1.5 weeks because I'll have quite a big tempo workout 10 days out.
JMac - Hopefully this time round the tweaks make a difference and I can have a good experience. I said in my last race report that on the last lap I got myself to the finish line by thinking I'm never racing again. Who knows what sort of psychological damage another bad day will do! I've definitely been training better than I'm racing this year.
Fwiw, a question I ask myself during a workout is "am I physically struggling? Or mentally struggling?"
If the former, I shut it down. If the latter, I keep going.
Fwiw, a question I ask myself during a workout is "am I physically struggling? Or mentally struggling?" If the former, I shut it down. If the latter, I keep going.
This is a good point. I've had a couple in the last few weeks when I've mentally struggled early in the workout, particularly the 8x1km 2 weeks ago, and asked a similar question of myself but it was easy to work out that physically I was fine, and in the end it was comfortable.
Mental struggle can be due to accumulated physical fatigue.
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
Darkwave " so tough but I battled through "
I guess I do feel like that after 5 x 1kms at 5k pace
I just don't post it on social media.
Tempo runs should be tough but not terrible.
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 "
A good workout should be tough but completable. You should have to work hard but you shouldn't feel like you've physically emptied the well.
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"
Yep, as my coach says "you should feel like you can do another rep if you had to".
You know it's interesting. I've heard this before. At the end of a workout, I always feel like there's no way I could get another rep in. When I'm done, I'm done. I guess I'm not sure what going to the well in a workout really feels like because all of Daniels stuff is so prescriptive in terms of what pace to run at what distance. If I can't hit the pace, I call it. Maybe that's my version of not going to the well.
I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on that either. If I've got a workout right, I could normally do another rep but it sure as hell wouldn't be a very good one!
Anyway I'm off to the track tomorrow morning to test this in practice for the first time in a while haha.
Yeah I think that's the point - you could do one if you had to but it would suck and probably completely empty the tank.
Ditto for me with vo2max workouts. Please no more
One reason I cut back from 6 reps to 5 was to lessen injury chance.