Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020
I was air points to Christchurch too.
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
Hot Weather Complainer
Absolutely gutted. Speaking completely selfishly for a second, I feel like this PB is so elusive! Never been in better shape this far out from a goal race
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
Mark I dont think Tauranga would be faster than Rotorua even though elevation is less. There lots of gravel bits and a climb over a bridge over a motorway. Lots of bends etc.
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 "
Southern Lakes got canned. Oh well, they really did try. Bucket list race will have to wait until next year. Even more glad I managed to sneak this 10,000m race on Sat night.
Thanks for the tip Piwi. Maybe I will do Rotorua. It is kind of legendary.
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: Runway5 / National 5k Champs, 16:22, National Masters AG Champ!
Up next: Still working on that...
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Yeah at least Rotorua is on road the whole way. There's at least 11kms of gravel path in Tauranga. I think Rotorua is slightly slower than Auckland.
That's helpful Piwi. I'd prefer on-road the whole way. Plus it's NZ Marathon Champs and I know Nick Moore and some others who are running it (presumably still running it). Oh well, got a while to figure it out, I guess.
Gotta race this 10,000m on Sat night like it's the last race on earth... because at this point, it pretty much is. Ideally I would've had a bit of a taper but we've really gotta take what we can get right now!
Steve - yeah I'm kinda battling with this a bit too. I was really psyched for the marathon and things were building really well. But, the big test for all of us now is to find something else and stay focused for it. None of the training has been wasted, we've just got to find something else to build towards. This won't last forever, races will happen... we just don't quite know when.
Brew read your first two sentences again, they're dangerous.
You could just as easily type: "Since nobody is perfect, I will never listen to another person". Huzzah! Anarchy! You can certainly celebrate someone's (a corporation or individual) good qualities while also calling out their failures.
Awesome. Chic-Fil-A is also against LBGTQ so maybe we should follow them more. Funny how people pick and choose what aspect of a company they want to mimic.
For what it's worth, here in Iowa all bars and restaurants are carry out/drive through only. Many other businesses such as gyms have shut down. My club's Thursday morning run staggered start which kills some of the camaraderie. All local races for April and May are cancelled which is basically what I expected.
TV Shows ... ugg I'm striking out a lot lately but I've been watching anything related to Norse mythology. For comedy, The Almighty Johnsons is on Netflix and was hilarious. I'm about to get a temporary Starz account to watch American Gods (the book is 100% amazing, one of my top 10 books ever). Ragnarok went back and forth between really engrossing and overly dramatic teenage drama played by 24 year old actors but had some good nods to the original mythology, I give it a 8/10 and I'm looking forward to next season).
For more recent stuff I watch all my Wife's shows: A Million Little Things and Manifest. If you like Fringe, give Manifest a try, it's far less sciency. We've also started watching Overmatched which is an alright comedy about supposedly "normal" (read: stupid) parents with brilliant children which has it's moments but not nearly enough of them.
Sorry to everyone who had their races cancelled. I know it sucks but preventing transmission is really the best thing we can do right now. Good luck with any time trials you choose to do.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
Cobra Commander Keen
Steve - Bummer about it being cancelled, but if you're in that good shape so far out you should be able to maintain a lot of that fitness before building up past where you are now in the weeks prior to the next one.
Mark - How are you with networking? With a proper VPN a person can access the netflix libraries available in other countries. Or so I hear.
TV Shows - Sherlock is good. I'm a huge fan of all of the Sherlock Holmes stories/books, and this show largely does great at putting little spins on the source material and referencing many occurrences that don't actually make an appearance in the show. Until it goes off the rails the last arc or so. I've recently started Firefly during treadmill sessions (a couple Strava run titles were inspired by quotes from the show). Quite enjoyable so far, but there's not many episodes as it was cancelled during its first season.
I feel like I'm being absolutely crushed by the warmer conditions and humidity we've had since the weekend, though I'm sure part of it is just recovering from the 50k. At least there was a degree between the temp and dew point this morning! Looks like we'll get a bit of a cool off early tomorrow morning, then warm back up to more typical very early spring weather.
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
?
3 months til Masters
I would think there would be, but can't find any that don't have like a 1 star rating
DPS - I recall there at least was a treadmill that would simulate the Boston course, hills and all. In this age of everything "as a service" I'd be shocked if you couldn't at least get an app that displays video of various courses, if if it can't automatically control a treadmill. JMac - I was about to sign up for Grandma's when this whole thing really started blowing up around the states, but held off. Currently eyeing a marathon in almost-Canada Washington the day before New Botswana just in case.
DPS - I recall there at least was a treadmill that would simulate the Boston course, hills and all. In this age of everything "as a service" I'd be shocked if you couldn't at least get an app that displays video of various courses, if if it can't automatically control a treadmill.
JMac - I was about to sign up for Grandma's when this whole thing really started blowing up around the states, but held off. Currently eyeing a marathon in almost-Canada Washington the day before New Botswana just in case.
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
6 feet. But I'm going through the half (the plan any way) at 1:22:30 and push from there....so you would really need to hammer to go sub 2:40....I'll just be creeping up from behind on the bridge a few miles from finish.
DPS - aren't you tall? I think I'll just run behind you the whole time instead
RIP Milkman
Remember what we said a month or so ago about never taking for granted that you'll get that chance in a goal race?
Sorry that NZ is now experiencing what we are in Europe/USA. I hope your isolation from the rest of the world does it make it better.
All this talk of TV shows is interesting. Norse Mythology??? It's amazing how we all feel somewhat similar in a lot of regards given you need to be Type A personality to really push hard to get PRs, and yet our TV interests are VASTLY different. I've never even heard of half of these shows!
Watson - on children, totally agree with that. It's amazing the amount of prep work people do for children, and it's especially crazy here in NYC. People read books about what's going on during their pregnancy. Never really understood that, the only thing that interests me is getting a weekly email where it says "you're baby now is growing eyebrows." But otherwise, I don't need to read a 400 page book about everything that could possibly go wrong during pregnancy. Then, there are a million classes to help you prep. Never wanted to sign up for those, but at least now I have an excuse that they're all cancelled.
I'm just assuming that the fact that I've a) raised a dog since she was 9 months old and b) led a 20+ person team gives me at least a good baseline set of skills. The rest of the shit I'll figure out along the way. It's funny especially with dogs: you see the way that people let their dogs get away with murder with no discipline and then the turn into nightmare adult dogs; I think the same will be true with kids (or at least that's what people tell me!)
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Remember what we said a month or so ago about never taking for granted that you'll get that chance in a goal race? Sorry that NZ is now experiencing what we are in Europe/USA. I hope your isolation from the rest of the world does it make it better.
Yeah. I think I might not get a chance until September and that will just be the small Cherry Blossom race that I'd planned to smash my 10km time at. The problem is, it may become a much bigger race than usual with everyone coming out of isolation and winter hibernation (this is a problem because of the narrow paths it's run on in the park, over several laps). I'm strongly considering a time trial on the day of the Christchurch Marathon now. Gives me something to aim to peak at, then I can bring it down and back up for a potential September race. Christchurch have at least made 2020 entries valid for 2021, although I had planned to build up to the full then.
I agree on your strategy of not reading 400 page books about what could go wrong. Obviously I have no experience but it's been done 7 billion times or so, and I'd say you're in the top 1% of capability and preparedness.
All this child and TV talk in my thread....I guess I'll allow it since we may quickly run out of things to talk about.
I think I said about 3 weeks ago that this goal race was in big danger, but based on how I feel now I wonder if I really believed that. It will be a challenge dragging myself out for the long run tomorrow.
I remember someone on the 2019 thread being disappointed with a 5k PR of about 10s. I stated that they should be pleased as every PR might be your last and should be savoured, as injury, life comments etc. may mean you don't get another PR. I never expected this!
Zebano - I'm stoked you enjoyed the Almighty Johnsons - one of the few NZ shows to successfully get exported! I really loved that show and I was disappointed when it didn't get funded for a third season mostly because all the networks in NZ just wanted to fund terrible reality television.
Keen - I know not the ways of VPN wizardry I'd try harder but the reality is I get practically no time to watch TV these days anyway.
JMac - agree with Watson, all the books in the world can't prepare you for the real thing especially when a lot of them conflict. Also, you'll get a ton of parenting advice from basically everyone you know, much of which will also be garbage.
There's only two pieces of advice I'll give you, which I assure you are not garbage.
First, the single most important thing is that you and your wife have a good plan on how you're going to parent. No other advice from a book or a person can beat that. You've gotta figure out what'll work best for you.
Second, there will be some rough nights early on, and particularly either the second night (because bubs wants to feed ALL THE TIME) or the first night after you get home if you've been in the hospital (because bubs is confused about where it is). You survive those and you can survive pretty much anything the kid than throw at you.
Watson- you're totally right - any PR day is always a good day.
Steve - Just cancelled all my travel stuff for Southern Lakes and Christchurch. Luckily, the AirBnB's were all fully refundable, and the flights were mostly refundable too (hopefully I'll be able to get credit for the one that isn't) - in any event I paid for them with Airpoints so it's not real cash. Felt a bit sad doing it but that's just life.
Watson- you're totally right - any PR day is always a good day. Steve - Just cancelled all my travel stuff for Southern Lakes and Christchurch. Luckily, the AirBnB's were all fully refundable, and the flights were mostly refundable too (hopefully I'll be able to get credit for the one that isn't) - in any event I paid for them with Airpoints so it's not real cash. Felt a bit sad doing it but that's just life.
I have a trip to Queenstown at Easter that doesn't look likely but I think airlines are giving credit or all flights? These were very cheap anyway.
Luckily I PB so rarely that I treasure every single one. My last one took 12 years and now I'm 4 years in and really thought this could be the year given how close I've been, and I've had far better preparation this time. That's what will determine whether I do a time trial on May 31 - if I can see myself enjoying it and considering it a PR if I get it, I'll do it. But if I think I'll just consider it fake or cheap if I was to get it, I don't really see the point.