Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020 (Read 617 times)

Am I still allowed to post here now that another JMC has joined?

I know it is very late (you have already posted 7 pages!!!) but I decided that I should give a bit of an intro to start the year.

Quick intro: I am Marco, 36 years old, male, married, two kids, a boy and a girl, both aged 8 (twins!!!).

I used to be a proper runner in my teens (but not as fast as many of you guys!!!).

My favourite races were the 800 mt. (PR at 2'06'' in 2003) and the 1,500 (PR at 4'22'' in 2003). as I mentioned last year, when I started university I realised that running would not give me a salary, and that I really needed to focus on my future if I wanted to change my life around. So I stopped running, got a couple of university degrees in Italy and a PhD in Northern Ireland. I have been an academic for a while and then moved into consultancy 2/3 years ago. I started running again in 2013 after about 10 years of stop (during a health check I realised I was at risk if I wasn't going to change my habits and get back in shape) and I decided to run long distances. My first HM was not very well prepared and I finished in 1h 52'. Two years ago I managed to achieve 1h30' (09'   ... I know... ) in the HM and 40' 16'' (again I know!!!) in the 10K. In 2019 I decided to add some miles to my start of the year. I managed a very good Belfast city marathon getting my PR down from over 4 hours to 3:25. Then work and travel took over my life. I tried to keep some training, but didn't manage to beat my PR on the HM or 10k. However, I had fun and managed a few good training sessions. November and December were very low in mileage (but I got a lot of air mileage travelled...)

As predicted last year, my fairly demanding job which gets me on a plane at least once a month and often across the Atlantic got me travelling twice or three times a month. In December I managed a couple of weeks of complete holiday and now I am starting again a full marathon plan (to run the Belfast city marathon on the 3rd of May again.

My 2020 aims are:

- Have 40 weeks of 40+ miles again (last year I managed this for the first half of the year and then let go of the objective...

- Have fun and stay as much injure free as I can (so far in the past 6 years so good, finger crossed)

- Run a full marathon in less than 3h 20'

- Actually get under 40' and under 90' in 10 K and HM respectively.

- possibly get a good 5K under my belt

- improve my body strength (need to get some muscles in the arms as well).

My last week was 42 miles, with a few threshold progressions. This week has started ok, with a good hilly and windy 10 miles (3E, 4T, 3E).

It's good to see all this discussion in the forum, I hope to manage writing more often this year.

Am I still allowed to post here now that another JMC has joined?

Yes but you need to change your title. You're neither Benevolent or the Leader.

Steve, I’m obviously no training expert, but I’d think that you stick to HM training.  Then, in the race, see if you can hold targeted HM pace for most of the race, and then pick it up if you feel good.  That way, you get the best of both worlds:  you test HM pace for an extended tempo, then go faster to chase a time.  But then again, I flummoxed my threshold repeat miles, so......🤷‍♀️

On Running Rogue the other day, Chris was pretty clear in not doing hard workouts back to back - at the worst there should be a day of active rest in between (recovery run, bike, swim etc).

Daniels says it’s OK to do back to back hard workouts as long as it’s a different type.  A week with three hard workouts could be HHEEHEE where the first two hard are intervals and tempo.

So many pages already!!!

Welcome to the new year everyone.

I've been very busy with work and the holidays trying to get back in the daily routine.

Intro

I’m Corey 50 yrs Married since 1992 with 2 children: I have stay at home daughter attending community college soon to be 24 and son who is  a junior at Clemson University soon to be 21.  I’ve lived in many place but have settled in South Carolina where I have been since 2006. 

I was active in HS but mainly team sports basketball and football, I ran 1 year of track mainly shorter distances.  I became very inactive during college and early adult years.   I decided to run a 5k in 2010 and then ran my first marathon in 2011 on very little training had a bit of a break after that but have been actively running since about 2016 but really started geting serious in 2017 putting in some higher mileage topping out in 2018 with almost 2100 miles.

Last year 

It was kind of a bust for me, after qualifing for Boston in Dec of 2018 I started 2019 in "great shape" and with a lot of goals.  I started training in Jan and soon started having a lot of pain in my abdomen after workouts to the point I couldn’t sit up, and it hurt to cough or sneeze, somewhere along the line I also injured my groin as well.  Needless to say my training suffered my fitness level has fallen and mileage was way down from 2018.   I believe I ended up in the neighborhood of 1350 running miles last year and about 350 biking.  I only raced 1 true race a 5k early in Jan which ended up being one of the few high points in 2019 after a few years of chasing a sub 20 5k,  I finaly broke it with a 19:59. 

My qualifying time was good enough to get into Boston 2020 and am currently focused on training for it.

Although my fitness is not where I had hoped to be at this point.  I am excited for what this year has in store.

2020 goals

My priorty right now is Boston...I have no specific time goals. I’m training hard putting in more miles each month and I’ll see what I can do based on my training over the next few months.  Any time goals will be a race day decision but I really want to make sure I enjoy the experience.

My other goals for this year: 

Continue to stay healthy > run 2020 miles

PR in the 1 mile target race is in August          Anderson Midnight Flight

PR in HM  target race is in December             Kiawah Island HM

Have a Great year everyone!

I guess I will finally join before I lose my place!

Jack, age 33, live in NYC. Ran in high school with worse times than I have now, even at the 5K, so I wasn't very good. Tried training for one half marathon in 2013, which I ran a 1:43 in and proceeded to nearly pass out at the end of the race. I needed a volunteer to get me to a place to sit down.

After that terrible race, I took another year off but got back into things more seriously in 2014 when I decided I wanted to train for a marathon. This required me to run a bunch of smaller races as part of NYCM's 9+1 program, which guarantees entry into the race if you run 9 NYRR races the prior year.

I ran my first marathon in 3:12 in 2015. I told myself I would only run one of them because the training seemed so awful, but at the bar that night celebrating the race, I decided I was going to do another 9+1 qualification. After that, I was hooked to running in general.

Here is my mileage history.

2015(est.): 1500

2016: 1281

2017: 1975

2018: 2123

2019: 2635

I've been setting new PRs each year (the beauty of slowly increasing your mileage I guess). My 2018 was great, but 2019 even surpassed that, as I set a PR in every distance I ran.

I'm not really sure what my goal is for 2020. I haven't felt especially motivated, even after taking almost 3 weeks off, so I'm worried that drive I had last year is gone given the huge progress I made last year. I definitely want to get the half marathon time down, and I'd like to take another crack at the 5K time, but the marathon time may be tough to surpass at Boston. Highly doubtful I will run a fall marathon this year.