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

Should be a good weekend of racing. Corey is up first, then Mark from the future in the Eastern Hemisphere, then me.

Keen - I remembered something you said, which was trying to encourage me to do ultras. That will NEVER happen. I enjoy running for times and competition, and I don't see how ultras will do that. Sorry to say, but ultras to me are where runners go to die (not saying you are doing that, but I get that feeling from a lot of older runners). I plan on going out in a blaze of glory, Piwi style, rather than moving over to ultras.

Flavio - I'm so excited by your training because I've been around this board for 3 years and haven't see you PR, so it's exciting to see you have some potential out there! Just stay healthy and things are looking good for 2019.

I realized all of the dates on the front page must look weird to you non-US folks since they're backwards, but TOO BAD, this dictatorship is being run from the US and damn you all if you think we will conform. USA! USA! USA!

_{(said while secretly wishing we would move to the metric system because it makes so much sense )}

km per hour for wind

Mark - this one is slightly different as it allows you to run a lap all out and then rest for 30 minutes while the other runners run their turn. I hope it turns out fun, I saw some videos from last year and the banter was hilarious.

Jmac - you are right, my last PR was back on April 2016. Since then I’ve been fighting a war against my weight and losing badly.

That said, I cannot change any of that so I’m focusing forward now.

I believe I’m finally doing most of the right things.

The dates don’t bother me as I work for American companies for roughly 15 years now, there are times I even forget words in my mother language.

And we all know that the best date format is YYYY-MM-DD.

Keen - Contrary to my stupid previous belief, I’m not running into the ground by running faster workouts. In fact I have the same niggles as before, when I ran slower pace and higher volume.

We use km/hour for wind speeds when referring to a hurricane. I don’t recall ever any Brazilian talking about wind speed during a race. It was either the wind was too strong, or not a factor.

me - yesterday's workout was a failure in that I could hit the volume but not the pace. It was supposed to be 5x200 + 4000 in 16 minutes followed by 5x200. The initial 5x200 killed my legs and during the 4000 even though aerobically I was not that bad my leg turnaround just wouldn't get quicker.

And a quick update on how things are going.

I believe I'm finally doing most of the right things (after 9 years, better late than never).

I'm doing strength and conditioning with functional training, I finally have a coach to oversee my training and think it through, and I'm following all the recommendations from a nutritionist.

Functional Training

The functional training has been key in keeping me injury free. They've been doing continuous and incremental work to strengthen my core, especially oblique abs, then glutes, then hamstrings and lately there's been a lot of work on the latissimus dorsi (aka the one in the back just below the scapula). Strength has always been a key weakness with marathons destroying me and half marathon races typically requiring 4-7 days of complete rest to recover. I used to have a lot of issues with the quadriceps muscles and lower back pain. Most of that is now gone. A lot of the niggles with calf are also gone or at least more manageable. I hope to eventually graduate and have "regular man strength" which to me means being able to do 10 pull ups in one serie. I also have long term goals of improving dorsiflexion on both sides (a regular cause of niggles), improving squating ability, and being able to hold a crow pose for 30s.

Running coach

The running coach has been tremendous so far. It's one of those things like before-after you own a car, you have no idea what you're missing. For a very long time I avoided having a coach either due to the cost of it or because I figured they wouldn't be of much help, as at the time I thought they were only good for real beginners or for very fast people. It turns out thinking through the training plan with micro and macro cycles (modularization) is excellent. I will hold my thoughts on this one until I can show real result improvements but the feeling is that I'm going in the right direction, if only, for the variety in training (I used to run the same pace all the time).

Nutritionist

The nutritionist has been great to help me figure out what I've been doing wrong. I have started since last week to take pictures of everything that I eat. I intend on building a complete log with pictures of my meals, notes from the training session done in that day, if I had a bad night of sleep, and if I had crazy cravings during anytime during the day. He built a sensible meal plan for me and I'm trying my best to follow it, though I have skipped some recommendations during the last month and paid for it.

The one thing he changed more drastically was greatly increasing the amount of protein I consume during the day, which seems to be linked to the sense of satiety. He has since last week slightly decreased the amount of food I consume everyday, which off course I'm not happy about but I know I need to do it.

What has not been gone so well

The one thing I have not been able to do very well is sleeping. Especially during the summer (no AC) it has been hard to sleep well, which is key to recovery. Let's see where this goes. My anxiety has also spiked up at times, which is something that consumes a lot of energy.

Sorry about the long blob of text, I hope this can be useful to people facing similar issues (lack of speed, weight gain, plateauing in results).

Flavio - really good post.  It's important to take a step back and look at what's working and what isn't working in training sometimes.  Awesome to see the functional training, coaching and nutrition are working for you.

Speaking of weight loss, I've dropped from 73kg to 71kg.  It's kind of weird because my training volume has been very consistent since December and I've basically been eating the same.  Probably that gastro bug I had a week ago played a part but I had definitely dropped a little before that too.  Don't seem to have lost any strength on the weights so I'm calling it a win!  It's really weird how there was just this stepchange out of the blue, but if it gets me 1% extra speed then I'm cool with it.

JMac- aside from racing, I think probably the most satisfying aspect of running is really nailing a good workout.  Good omens for Sunday!  It's still looking like it's gonna be warm here so it's definitely not going to be a particularly fast one for me - but it is a good test for Waterfront nevertheless.

Flavio - Awesome post! I like seeing your point of view on the various aspects involved with the coaching.
Upping the protein intake should also help with recovery - your body should be better able to rebuild after those hard workouts.

JMac - Nice T workout! Those last T miles were actually quite speedy.
Food cravings: I've found that timing my meals helps with this (as well as stressing protein/fats over carbs). If I can delay breakfast until 9-10 or so (post-run I typically don't have an appetite), lunch at 1-2, then supper around or a bit after 6, hunger doesn't get to me too badly.
Looking forward to seeing what you do in the race this weekend.

Mark - Awesome that you dropped a bit of weight without any apparent negatives.

We're having some crazy winds here! Last night a storm rolled in and winds have been 30+mph / 50+km/hr ever since, and will probably continue until sometime tomorrow. As much as I want to get on the roads for my workout tomorrow I may get on the treadmill so I can execute it without undue influence by the wind.

Work FINALLY sent out the email about the internal "lottery" to get an entry into the OKC Marathon in 6 weeks. In reality there's no lottery, since as far as I know everyone gets an entry.

Marco - the books say if it's less than 10 days no adjustments are needed.

Hi Marco I was out for 2 1/2 weeks and I feel like I just started running again after a few years away from the sport....I hope you will do better than that.

Flavio what do you mean with the sausage - remember you were the one who attracted that dog - so stop running around with the salami in your pants to show off Size doesn't matter (I know its always the short guys who say this).

The race on Sunday sold out so they've published the start list already.  Looks like a pretty strong field - there is a young guy Lachlan Haitana who should probably win comfortably if he is on form albeit he's been running a lot of shorter stuff lately, as well as Brad Luiten who has been running well lately and has picked up a bit of pace. Then there are a couple of really good masters athletes, Daniel Coates and Sasha Daniels who are both running marathons in the low 2:40's and should be up there too.

The women's field is pretty stacked with Lisa Cross, Cecilia Flori and a few others too.

If I'm feeling good I might try and hang on with Lachlan and revisit after a km or two if the pace is too hot (also if the weather is too hot, which is a risk).  It's hard not to get distracted by the hunt for podium spots but the real goal here is to really try and hit target pace (3:34-ish/km) for the fast on-road sections of the race (~17km worth).  There's no real threat for the series title barring injuries or sickness (with this race, plus Waterfront to go) so I just need to remember that Waterfront and Christchurch are the real goals here, so there's no need to get over-excited or do anything stupid.