Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2019 (Read 641 times)

JMac - I've got those two workouts queued up for Thursday and Monday. I'll have to get up a bit earlier for the increased total mileage, but hey, which do I value more? PRs or quantity of sleep? Obvious answer is obvious.

 

That is some serious suck.  The toughest workouts I run are 2 x 15 min @ 10k effort, 4 x 8 min @ HM effort, or the worst of all, 3 x 15 min @ HM effort.  But I would generally have maybe only a 4-5k / 2-3 mile warmup.

Ouch! The HM effort workouts don't sound too rough to me, but that 2x 15 min @ 10k effort just sounds brutal. The 1k intervals I do can be tough enough, but yours are a notch higher on the effort scale and quite a bit longer. Doing those would be super-tough for me, but it would "only" be ~4km or so for me per interval, but for you that's dang near half of the race distance's worth of work for each interval!

Mark - what is the point of 2x15 minutes at 10K pace? Seems weird to run almost an entire race distance in practice. The only other time you do something like that is 5x1K, but that’s a lot more reps. Wonder what your coaches logic is there.

Honestly I wondered the same thing.  I've seen 3 x 2 miles often used as a 10k race workout, but not this.  As it happened it turned out to be a massive confidence builder.  It got thrown in at the end of a recovery week when my legs were fresh and I was damn close to sub-34 pace for both reps.

One thing I forgot to mention from Sunday... the guy awarding the medals was none other than Pete Pfitzinger (in his role as Athletics NZ CEO).  I'll keep this picture just in case my daughter ever gets seriously into running!

You should have told him that your group of imaginary fans are Jack Daniels fanboys, not his!

I did actually want the medal!

It was such a nice morning here... I had to fight the urge to go running even though it's a planned day off.  That combination of perfect running weather and 'I'm excited to train for the next race' is hard to say no to.

JMac - That workout did feel pretty good overall, but by ~mile 5 of that middle 8E I was thinking "I really wish I could just run fast and get this over with!". I certainly did feel the extra fatigue/miles on my legs when I finally did get to the 2nd 2T. I couldn't *quite* get up the effort level all the way, but I was on the high side between T and HM effort.

Nice that you're getting a bit of a break in the weather. Our highs aren't quite as high as they have been, but our lows haven't really gone down at all (still low/mid 70's). We might get below 70 Sunday, but that's a super-short run day for me, and the temp drop will only be because of a thunderstorm that's supposed to come through.

Sorry all for my absence.  Been going to some dark places during this injury break.  I got to the point where I just thought it's time to give up running because it was never getting better.  However this week, I've managed 3 30 minute easy paced runs and a 45 minute today with no more than minor pain which doesn't get worse during the run.  I'm finally optimistic again and VERY excited about the prospect of running again over summer.  It will be easy paced for quite a while yet while I build back some confidence (and fitness), but trust me, after 3 months of extreme frustration, that really does fill me with joy.

I plan to spend 2-3 months building a big base with real easy paced running, which for me should be 5:05-5:10 per km at the fastest - I have a tendency to get down to 4:50 which is too fast.  Then I can start working on some quality.  This is assuming everything stays on track - I'll be very cautious and swap out runs with the bike if I have any concerns.

It was also my last paid week off after the redundancy, but it ended with a job offer which is very attractive so a good week all round.  It's just a pity I couldn't use some of this time for training but such is life.  3 more weeks off and hopefully I'll be back up and running for those at least.

Phew.