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

The fact that Keen is talking about looking up another marathon already is so uplifting and he’s a better person that I would be after that kind of blow up. 

I can't speak for Keen but when I ran 4h42 in June 2010 the first thing I thought when I finished was that I wanted to get it back. I was super angry and wanted revenge. 3 months later I've tried again on the same 20 miles a week routine and this time I also had the flu. I hit the wall a little bit after the half way point and ran 4h49. I was even more angry.

I have since ran a 3h43 marathon and  a 4h29 and a 4h01 50Ks, all of which were epic blow ups.

The anger is still there, I'll conquer this marathon thing one day and then I'll finally be able to sit back and relax a bit.

Running generally very weird.  I've definitely had the moments in time where running was nothing but a chore.

It's also weird how you can feel like garbage one day and then feel amazing the next.  There is no rhyme or reason.

No word from Keen yet?

Hey, all! Sorry to have seemingly dropped off the planet after the race, I just haven't used a computer at all since my last post. Thanks for all the well-wishes, you guys are simply incredible!

Recap:
I felt fine the morning of, and thought I had successfully dodged a stomach bug that DW, DD1, and DD3 had all had in the few days before the race. It was a bit warmer than I wanted at the start (~51/10.5) with a DP to match, but I told myself everyone just crushed CIM in similar conditions and while it would slow me down a bit I figured I'd still be able to get sub-3.

The race is slightly downhill to start, but after a decent uphill and immediate decent around mile 3 it's essentially all uphill until you get to mile 11, which rewards you with a pretty substantial downhill before largely flattening out around the lake.

Around mile 12 I started to feel a bit off, but I figured it was just a weird race issue and would pass. I crossed the half just a bit slower than I wanted, but I was still ok with it since aside from one hill coming up it was largely flat to downhill the rest of the way and I was planning on a good negative split. Mile 15-6 and I'm feeling worse so I decide to revise my goal to just BQ. We turned into the wind again around the lake, but there weren't many around and I couldn't draft like I could earlier. Miles 18 & 19 things started going downhill faster and I decided I was just going to run as far as I could without walking, then run/walk it in. "As far as I could run" turned out to be just a few steps beyond the small crowd at mile 19. I tried running a few steps after walking maybe 300m and it felt hard to breathe, so I shut that down.

Mile 21 starts a ~1.5mi uphill that includes a lot of the screaming downhill from mile 11. I was still at least moving ok here (relatively speaking), but I took a drink of water and my stomach instantly turned. It took a couple miles but I finally got nauseous enough to throw up just a little liquid (no solids for many hours at this point). I kept going, took a few lie-down breaks in hopes the nausea would pass (it didn't), and kept thinking that I've always heard that stomach issues in long ultras are a thing, but that throwing up almost always fixes it. At mile 25.5 I finally threw up just a bit more (off course again) and my stomach felt MUCH better, but I didn't even contemplate running. The walk in was much more pleasant after that.

I figured it was just the heat getting to me more than other people, but when I talked to DW after the race and told her how I felt she said it sounded like I had gotten the stomach bug, and that DD2 had woken up sick with it the night before but she didn't want to freak me out pre-race by telling me. I was just so focused on race-specific things it didn't even occur to me that I might be sick. By ~4pm I felt just fine (aside from the usual post-marathon leg soreness), which does mirror how my girls felt after getting sick - throw up 1-2 times, feel crummy for a few hours, then everything is OK.

The more I thought about it the more it being a bug than the heat makes sense, given the conditions, my training, and how badly I crashed. My slowdown was massive compared to everyone else, and the heat wasn't that bad when I started walking (it was 75/24+ when I finished). Once I started walking I never caught anyone else who was also, I was just passed continuously. I chatted briefly with a guy who ran the same half I did earlier in the fall and he ran 1:26 there, and he started running again after walking less than a 1/4 mile with me (turns out he's doing the Black Canyons ultra next year). Hopefully this isn't just me trying to make myself feel better!

So, my previous plans of sub-3 in Dallas and running some (dirt/gravel road) ultras next year has flown out of the window. I'm looking at some marathons that are in the winter to early-ish spring range, and hopefully not too far away. The most promising ones are currently Houston (Jan 19. Nice and flat, but 7+ hours of drive time away), Cowtown (March 1. Rolling hills, a bit faster than Dallas, half as far away, more time to prep), and the Chisholm Trail (did this on in the spring, mostly flat double-loop, possibly late enough that it could be warm).
I know 5 weeks to Houston isn't much turnaround, but what does everyone else think?

+1 to Houston.  Just do a mini cycle.  I would also consider flying, although I don't know how far you are from an airport.

+2 to Houston and flying if possible.  Having said that, I've rarely had good races even the morning after a short flight but first went under 1:30 after a 5 hour drive (2 days before the race).

As for turnaround, hard to say.  Do your legs feel like you ran a hard half or like you did a long easy run?  I guess it's somewhere in between?

I don't know about the DNF issue.  When I crashed and burned in a half last year, I started jogging back to the start/finish area not intending to try and finish (the course went past the start/finish with 4km to go then turned back with 2km to go) but the more time went by the more I talk myself into it.  I didn't get injured and clearly wasn't quite in the same pain cave as you and I was proud of finishing at all...but flavio also told me there's no shame in a DNF   I guess it depends on the circumstances.  If I'm lying down and intermittently vomiting (and there was an easy way to get home without walking to the finish), I think I'd choose DNF.

me:  I've had a few good weeks, topping out last week with 75km.  Nice easy long runs of 20-25km and slowly working in some speed.  I did another morning run this morning as we're having yet another work meeting at the pub for xmas (local council is a whole new world to me, it moves slower than CK after vomiting mid-race - hmmm, too soon?).  I know I'm risking my life here but my god it was cold.  Mid-summer but an ice cold southerly, torrential rain and sleet and temperature of 2 degrees C (35F).  We were in the middle of a month long drought but still, it doesn't feel like the sort of weather you get a week out from xmas.

this contained a silly joke about weather.

Steve - cold and snow never stopped us Brazilians from barbecuing and being out there, just saying