Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2020 (Read 618 times)

Mark - awesome time.  You were really lucky the race went ahead.

James - doh!  Not what you want to break the monotony but at least you were able to get it sorted quickly.

Me - well, not what a regular race week would look like but on Monday I thought I might be racing on Sunday, then I wasn't, then on Thursday I found out I was racing on Saturday, so go figure.

M: weights, 8.2km easy

T: 15km with steady efforts

W: 13.1km with hills

T: 14.8km with short intervals

F: weights

S: 12.9km incl NZ 10,000m Champs (PR: 32:34, 1st Masters Male)

S: 16.1km easy

Total: 80.0km

My wife asked me in the car on the way home how I was going to manage my training with no races in the near future.  I think I'll probably keep it pretty steady... the reality is that I want to be ready when stuff starts happening again!  Probably no crazy big weeks but the improvement in my 10,000m time in just 4 months shows that there's still improvement to be had from just keeping mileage steady and consistent.  It's weird not knowing exactly what race is next, but assuming things get to something like normal in the next 2-3 months, it'll be NZ Road Race Champs in September, followed by Rotorua Marathon / NZ Marathon Champs.

James-Not really the time when you want a bunch of people going in an out.  Sorry about the flood.  That stinks.  That said, nice 1200 repeats.  Way to get the legs moving.  Same with my 8x1k.  Got out quick slowed in the middle a bit, but then i was able to get moving at the end.

Mark-As i said in the other thread, super impressive.  I'm still hopeful from Grandma's Marathon in late june, but looking more unlikely everyday.  Jealous that you got one race in.

Still getting caught up with the reading.  I'm working in in a homeless shelter here for the next 8 hours, so I'll have lots of time to kill as everyone is pretty quiet during this COVID business.  Guys in the shelter (44) in 2000 sq ft sharing one bathroom and they almost all have health issues are pretty stressed out, but coping well.  Fortunately our local gov't coughed up the cash and we have put all of our elderly homeless (60+) in hotels for the foreseeable future to minimize their risk exposure.  We have Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer and gloves, but no protective gear and everyone in close quarters, so we as staff are less than thrilled to be making <$15 per hour. End of rant.

I will end up with about 89 on the week

Mark - huge congrats both on fitting in a race and how it went.  Excellent!

DPS - stay safe.  I have friends who do homeless work in DC, and what is a tough job during normal times is even more challenging now.

Race report, New Zealand 10,000m Champs, 21 March 2020

I had no plans to do this race at the start of this week.  Finish off the North Shore Run Series at Albany Lakes on the 22nd March, then Southern Lakes Half Marathon on April 4, and Christchurch Marathon on May 31, that was the plan.

Well, plans change pretty damn fast in the current environment.

Monday: the government restricts mass gatherings to no more than 500 people.  Albany Lakes pulled the pin straight away and postponed until August/September.  Southern Lakes were optimistic they might go ahead (with a capacity limit of 500).  We have had only 50-odd cases in NZ so far and almost all of those have been imported so we're not in total lockdown here yet.

Tuesday: I figure Plan B for the weekend would be to do my local Parkrun and try and beat the course record that a club mate currently holds.  Entries for NZ 10,000m Champs were closed already but on a suggestion from a friend (thanks Luke!!!!), I fired off an email anyway in the hope I could sneak a late entry.  Also, my planned Wellington / Christchurch work trip later in the week is well and truly not happening.

Wednesday: the cancellations and postponements for May races started coming in.  First Hawkes Bay Marathon, then Rotorua Marathon.  Not a good omen.  Christchurch is probably done for.

Thursday: I got a phone call from Athletics NZ saying they hadn't printed the bibs yet so I could get in as a late entry for NZ 10,000m Champs.  The event was going ahead as it would be comfortably within the current restrictions.  It's hosted within the final Athletics Auckland meet for the summer and they were pretty confident of being well within the limits and also putting precautionary measures in place.  Some good news!!!  I should add there were only 23 entrants for NZ 10,000m Champs as well... it's an event that has constantly struggled to get any real traction on the calendar (also, 10,000m is a slightly uninspiring event, as I'll discuss later).

Thursday night: Southern Lakes and Christchurch are both cancelled.  Neither was really a surprise as I only rated Southern Lakes as a 25% chance and Christchurch even less than that.  It was still disappointing though... I've been building to those two for basically four months and then... gone.  I know it's trivial compared to what many are going through - it really is - but it's still frustrating to have it happen.

Friday: How am I going to tackle my approach to the race tomorrow?!  My legs were pretty tired this week (I'm at an all-time high for 365-day rolling mileage) so I decided to skip my usual pre-race routine of a short one the day before the race to keep the legs fresh and I took the day off altogether.

Saturday: And then it's race day.  Here I am going to run a race I only found out I was running two days ago.  Normally I would hate that lack of preparation or focus but I'm just grateful for the opportunity.  I've been calling it The Last Race on Earth because at this point... it kinda is.  I'm feeling for all my running buddies who have had races cancelled or postponed, and I know I'm really fortunate to have found something that is going ahead.  I'm also feeling for Flavio who is probably doing it tougher than all of us in Italy right now.  I've just gotta go and run this race like it's the last race I'll ever run - because who knows when any of us will be racing again??

On Saturday morning, there was word the government would make an announcement at mid-day about the outbreak.  Thankfully it was just to introduce a warning level system, not to change any measures currently in place.  Phew.

The goal is just to run my best race.  A PR would be nice but I'm not expecting it given I've had no taper or specific preparation.  Just go out and run.  I'm a real steady-pace runner... get the pace and effort dialled in, and just hold it.

The race:  Now, this was an evening race starting at 8:15pm, and I far prefer morning races - but none of that really bothers me now because... it's a race.  I pick up my bib and... it's 117!!!!  I scored my lucky number 17!  Amongst my many stupid running superstitions is that my bib is lucky if it either contains 17, or the numbers can be used to produce 17.  Yeah, it's dumb.  But I don't think I've EVER had bib number (1)17 before.

My wife and 3-year old daughter are there to support and Miss 3 wants to do a warm up with me, so we jog on the grass for a bit before I go to do my actual warm-up.  Legs are feeling surprisingly good.  Can't worry about the disorganised lead-up... just gotta make the most of it.  It's 17-18C (low-mid 60's) and a little humid... not ideal weather, but there's no wind and... just gotta make the most of it.  It's not a deep field... I'll be slower than the young elite guys, and there's not a lot of other Masters runners, so I'm probably going to be doing this myself - I have no problem with that.

My club mate Mike is there so I have a chat with him, then it's time to start.  For some reason the hip numbers don't match the bib numbers (I got 9 for my hip number), but anyway.  I know to mostly ignore my watch since the GPS overshoots massively on the track (by as much as 10%), and count laps.  In my last 10,000m I lost count and then had to try and backsolve it by assuming my GPS was overshooting by 8-10% (this actually worked).

Despite the small numbers there is a strong elite field, including Cam Graves (who should be under 30 minutes), Dan Balchin, Michael Voss and one or two others.  Unfortunately Caden Shields - who ran the marathon at World Champs in Doha - is a no-show.

We start, and I sit on the back of the lead pack to begin with.  My wife and daughter are on the corner around 50m from the start line and I get a big cheer from them.  I feel I've got the effort right, and the lead pack slowly starts to drift away from me.  I'm not going to try and keep up with those guys.  The first lap is just a little bit quick with the excitement but after that I settle down.

I guess I got myself in the zone because I don't remember a lot of specifics from the rest of the race.  10,000m is 25 laps and it's a tough race especially when you're by yourself.  You just have to dial into your rhythm and totally zone out.  All I'm thinking about is my rhythm, and counting the laps.

My wife and daughter were amazing, giving me huge cheers every single time I came past - apart from once where my daughter was distracted and my wife was like 'hey you're missing your cheers!' which also made me laugh.

1 down... big cheer!

2 down... big cheer!

3 down... big cheer!

After 5 laps, the clock says 6:34.  I figure I can extrapolate that to 25 laps, this is a nice distraction for 100m or so, and I realise that is bang on PB pace.  Cool, let's just keep it steady.

Laps 6 and 7 I started to feel a little flat.  Oh my god, there's still 19 laps to go.  It already feels like I'm having to work a bit.  Ugh.  Luckily this passed fairly quickly.

A few laps later, I start lapping some of the slower runners.

After 12 laps, I can't remember what the pace was but I figure that doubling it and adding a lap is still looking pretty solid.  I can't see the elite guys as they are not far behind me but it seems like it's Graves, Balchin, Voss.

I think I got lapped on either lap 13 or 14 by the elite guys.  I knew not to try and keep up with them but it still gave me a bit of a pace boost and a brief tow anyway.

15 down... 10 to go.  The lap scorers call out '10 to go Mark'.  Cool, I've counted right.

A few laps later I pass the lead woman, Lisa Cross, right near the finish line.  I notice she's auto-lapping her watch.  I wish I'd thought of that.  Then I wonder if it would just start to annoy me, having to do it every single lap for 25 (well, 24) laps.

17 down, 8 to go.

18 down, 7 to go (7 to go, Mark! Cool, I counted right again)

I'm definitely into the work zone now, and even though I know the GPS is unhelpful, the splits are coming up 1-2 seconds quicker per km than they were at the start.  Assuming the GPS is consistently wrong by the same amount on each lap, this means I'm actually slightly speeding up.  However, I'm getting into a bit of a dark place now and I tell myself, if you don't give it everything now, you're going to have months to regret it.

20 down, 5 to go.  I know that means 2km to go, and the clock is a little bit past 26 minutes.  Hang on... I'm well and truly on for a PB now!!  That gives me a real boost.  Big cheer again... let's do this!

4 to go.  Hang in there.  4 laps... that's a mile repeat (thanks, JMac).  I do these all the time.  I think I lapped Mike around this point.

3 to go.  Hang. In. There.

2 to go, Mark... the lap scorers call it out.  800m to go and the clock hasn't hit 30 minutes yet either.  It's just an 800m repeat and I think I can kick it up a notch... time to empty the tank.  I thought about yelling to my wife that I was on for a big PB but I can't remember whether I actually said it or not.  I think I just waved two fingers at them so they knew there was two laps to go.

It's actually getting pretty dark (actually, not metaphorically) around the back side of the track but then I hit the home straight, hear the bell and it's one lap to go.  The clock says 31-something and if ever there was a time to find another gear, this is it.  Time to go full noise.

On the back straight I catch Tama Christensen who has faded quite badly.  He took out first place at Kerikeri HM 4 months ago... I was reeling him in until about the 18km mark and then he just floored it and I had no chance.  Kinda nice to get one back but I don't dwell on it because then I'm on the home straight... the last 100m of racing for who-knows-how-long and I just let rip.  All I'm thinking about is reaching that finish line as fast as possible and... there it is!  32:34!

There's huge elation for the PB and it's even better that I can run straight over to my family and share it with them because I didn't get to do that nearly enough last year.  Over 20 seconds... wow.  Just ran my own race, and went for it.  I'm grateful to have raced, grateful to have had a really, really good race, grateful that I have the two best supporters in the entire world with me and that I can share it with them.  Grateful that somehow I've added a NZ Masters 10,000m title to my half marathon title - it helps that no-one else showed up, but like I always say, you can only race the guys that show up!

Miss 3 is really excited to run and wants to run an entire lap of the track, which she does.  It's way past her bedtime but she just wants to be part of it and I'm both thrilled and proud to see her enjoying it, and sad that there won't be another chance for a while.

When it's time for the medals, she comes to collect mine with me and Pete Pfitzinger (now Athletics NZ CEO) congratulates her for being the loudest supporter there.  That was a real 'proud dad' moment right there.

And... that's that.  With the goal races getting pulled, it's great to have something to show for 4 months of good training but now it's back to training for at least 4-5 months.  Hope everyone else is doing OK out there, it's a crazy world right now.

Official time: 32:34, 8th overall, 1st M35+

Mark - awesome race report, thanks for that. It's super cool that you got a new PR in non perfect conditions.

It's so odd that your watch is off by that much, mine (FR 645) is nearly spot on on the track.

Piwi - I've set my computer timezone to yours but was unable to replicate the issue. I'll wait till Saturday evening and try that again. Timezone issues can be a bitch but I'll slay this one soon enough.

DPS - hang in there, I appreciate your work with the people in need.

James - nice week.

Me - nearly a fat zero of a week. But I'm recovered from the back issue.

Nobody in the family seems to be ill so far, so maybe my screaming at them for 10 days non stop has produced some results. Mom is specially in the riskier of the risky group and I'm so worried.

I'm considering doing laps around the nearby block next week (roughly 630m), at 4am so nobody can see me 

I'm considering doing laps around the nearby block next week (roughly 630m), at 4am so nobody can see me 

And then you post it on Strava, and then we all go nuts at you for not obeying the isolation orders