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

SteveChCh


Hot Weather Complainer

    JMac - I'm kind of numb to it too but it's different when you get locked in and the city basically shuts down.

     

    Running within 200 metres of the mosque today, and past the hospital it started to hit home.  This poor old Muslim woman was walking into the hospital being supported by her daughter because she could barely stand up.

     

    And not only has the cricket match I planned to go to today been cancelled, the rugby has too!  On a lighter note of course.

    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

    Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024

    Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024

      Sad to hear about what happened in NZ.  It's crazy to think how anyone could do something like that.

       

       

       

      Mark Jmac good luck with your race today

      PR's

      1m  5:38 (2018)

      5k    19:59 (2019)

      HM  1:33:56 (2018)

      FM  3:23:07 (2018)

      Marky_Mark_17


        1:20:09 for 2nd place. I thought I was 3rd as I never passed 2nd but the guy in 2nd must’ve pulled the pin and bailed. The weather was tough with 20C / 70F and close to 100% humidity. The course was also tougher than I thought - a lot of smaller undulations and twists and turns so it was just hard hitting a rhythm. The big hill was not as bad as I thought on the way up but definitely took a bit out of the legs. Will try and do a full RR tomorrow.

        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: Maraetai HM, 10 Mar, DNF

        Up next: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr

        "CONSISTENCY IS KING"

        SteveChCh


        Hot Weather Complainer

          Congrats Mark, great result

          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

          Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024

          Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024

          JMac11


          RIP Milkman

            Congrats Mark. 140 TDP is pretty rough for a half. Temp alone probably cost you a good 2 minutes, maybe 3. A good reminder to me to not even bother trying to race anything longer than a 10K this summer!

            5K: 16:37 (11/20)  |  10K: 34:49 (10/19)  |  HM: 1:14:57 (5/22)  |  FM: 2:36:31 (12/19) 

             

             

            JamesD


            JamesD

              Congrats, Mark.

               

              My week was pretty tame, the second week of recovery from my half.  Legs were still a bit tired (may need to replace one pair of shoes), & the hamstring was achy at times.  Getting better, though.

               

              Sun - off

              Mon - 6.2 miles easy

              Tues - 6.7 easy

              Weds - 6.2 easy

              Thurs - 15 minutes swimming, first time in several months.  My swimming condition has deteriorated from bad to pathetic, but it usually improves to just bad after a couple of months.  Hope I can keep at it consistently during the summer.

              Fri - 7.8 easy

              Sat - 6.2 easy, slow

               

              Total - 33.1 miles

              12-week average - 30 mpw

              Post-1987 PRs:  Half 1:30:14 (2019); 10K 39:35 (2019); 5K 19:12 (2017); Mile 5:37.3 (2020)

              '24 Goals: consistency, age-graded PRs, half < 1:32

              watsonc123


                Mark - nice race.  I always find it mentally really hard when course and conditions mean a relatively slow time is inevitable.

                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

                flavio80


                Intl. correspondent

                  Mark - that's a great time for a hot day. I'm sure you know the fact you were 2nd place means it's on par with your other performances.

                   

                  me - a very promising week  totalling 57km. The long run shows I'm already in shape for a sub 90 minutes HM. I'm also down a Kg which helped the long run tremendously. I might start thinking at taking a crack at my 1500m PR, currently sitting at 4:57.

                  M: Functional Training

                  T: 5x200 + 4000m + 5x200 - 4000 was supposed to be 16 minutes but was actually 17:10

                  W: moderate 11 @ 4:35

                  T: Progression 3K @ 5:00 + 3K @ 4:30 + 3K @ 4:00 + 1K @ 3:50 - I couldn't meet the pace on the last 4Ks of the progression, running 4:10, 3:58, 4:10 and 4:00. However this 4K block was faster than Tuesday's 4K.

                  F: Functional training.

                  S: Long Run 18K @ 4:26 with 2.2K fast block to steal a Strava segment crown

                  S: 8K ez

                  PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021

                  Up next: no idea

                  Tool to generate Strava weekly

                  Marky_Mark_17


                    Maraetai Half Marathon 2019, race report

                     

                    I'd kinda been looking forward to the inaugural Maraetai Half Marathon - road closures and a scenic course can make for a pretty fun race, especially given my grandparents used to live out there so there's a lot of childhood memories too!  It is a bit of a slog to get out there though so I left home at 5:30am.  Generally not a good start when the car is telling you the whole way there it's 20C / 70F and to add to that, it's humid too.  This summer has been much better than last year from a humidity perspective but I guess there's a bit of a sting in the tail as we head into autumn.

                     

                    Anyway I get to the event base and my stomach is feeling a little crampy.  I figure it's just pre-race nerves albeit I haven't had that particular variety of pre-race nerves for a while.  I'm glad I was early as the carparking fills up quickly and then the traffic on the main road turns into a complete shambles.  The weather app on my phone says its 20C/70F and 99% humidity so that'd make for a Kiwi Point of ~140.  Not ideal!  Unfortunately it is dead calm as well with no breeze to take the edge off it.

                     

                    I go for a short warm-up jog and scout the first part of the course.  There's a little hill before hitting the flatter coastline through Omana.  I'd forgotten there was a camping ground on the hill too - they're about to have their peaceful Sunday morning ruined.  Before the start there is a minute's silence for the victims of the tragic mass shooting in Christchurch two days earlier.  I have ditched my usual blue wristband for a black one out of respect.  It probably sounds like a trivial gesture but I'm pretty superstitious on this stuff.

                     

                    On the start line, I see Lachlan Haitana (very fast young guy), another younger guy in a black singlet who basically exudes speed, Dan Coates and Sasha Daniels (both very good masters runners with recent marathons in the low 2:40's), but strangely not my clubmate Brad Luiten who I'm sure was doing this race.  Overall it is a pretty strong field by local mid-size race standards.

                     

                    The hooter goes and black singlet guy takes off.  I mean, he was going so fast I wondered briefly if he thought this was a 5k or something.  I discovered later it was Michael Voss, who has a HM PB of 1:06, and recently ran an 8:35 3000m!  Lachlan is in 2nd and I am in 3rd.  I'd thought about trying to stick with Lachlan but he's probably gone out at around 3:20/km and I was aiming for mid-3:30's on the flatter sections.  As the course winds over the hill, and on to Omana, I'm sitting on around 3:36/km average for the first 4km which is pretty much where I'd wanted to be, especially considering some of the trails have a few ups and downs and twists and turns.  My stomach doesn't feel quite right, but that's probably more of a distraction than anything else.  I can hear another runner a little bit behind me, maybe 10 seconds back.

                     

                    That was pretty much as good as it got.  I suspected I was feeling the humidity as my HR was already 170 and my recent tempo efforts (in better conditions!) have been in the low-mid 160's.  Coming past the boat club (many childhood adventures started here!!) the course turns on to the coast road, which is closed for the race.  I'd remember this road being flat but I guess 10-year old me never really thought about it from a running perspective, and there's a lot of twists and turns and small undulations - nothing hard but enough to break your rhythm up.  My pace dropped off to around 3:40/km here and coming towards Duder's Regional Park at the 9km mark I can hear runners closing behind me.

                     

                    This is gonna sound dumb but pride definitely kicked in here.  I haven't been passed in a half since December 2017, and that was by Stephen Lett who ran down about 5 places on his way to 2nd.  I've kind of become the runner who just locks in a pace, sticks to it, and ends up picking a few others off in the back half of the race.

                     

                    The Duder's Regional Park section was on trails - mostly gravel (fairly well packed) and grass so that slowed things down a little.  Just as the runner behind me catches me, he stops and complains about a stone in his shoe!  Turns out it was Dan, and Sasha was not far behind him, so I guess they were working together.  This section is basically a loop before returning to the main road to head back the same way we headed out.

                     

                    The first km is flat, and then it's into a big hill climb.  I've decided I won't push too hard up the hill so that I save something for the back half of the race, particularly given it's on grass/gravel.  The first part of the climb is around 50m gain over a km or so.  Hitting the top of this bit, the views out to Waiheke Island are awesome!  I assumed that this was the end of the climb before the path turns left and... crap.  There's an even steeper climb up to the trig station at the top of the hill.  The second climb is shorter and sharper for ~40m elevation gain.  The legs were actually feeling pretty good here but I've run a lot of hills in the last couple months.  I'm looking forward to the downhill but unfortunately it's quite steep, and also given it's on gravel a certain amount of care is required.  Halfway down the path curves sharply and I can see Dan (presumably now stone-free) is probably ~100m back (no sign of Sasha).  I'm looking forward to getting back onto the road home.  The climbing km's were 4:14, 4:13, but with the steep, twisting downhill, I wasn't able to catch any of that back up on the way down (next km was 3:55).  I expected this part of the course would be slow, but not quite that slow.

                     

                    The first km on the road back requires a bit of care as there are slow runners/walkers coming in the other direction and some of them are not looking where they are going even though I'm keeping to the edge of the course.  As with the way out, it was just tough to hit a rhythm here, and the humidity is definitely taking its toll with km's in the mid-3:40's for the most part.  While the hill climb was OK, it's definitely taken a bit of energy out of the legs too!  I heard my coach give me a big cheer but I was actually too in the zone to acknowledge her (I did see her after the race though).  It's a bit disappointing as my plan for the race was to run the flat stuff at PB pace (~3:34/km) and then just live with the slow 4km section through Duders.  Anyway a lot of the runners are saying I'm in second.  This seems weird as I have not passed Lachlan so I assume that Michael was just going so fast they didn't see him or something.

                     

                    Coming towards the boat club, there's a spectator (who was also at Coatesville) who is giving rough splits to the lead runners.  He tells me the leader is miles ahead and someone is 200m behind me.  I relaxed a lot here - I'd obviously opened up some extra ground on Dan along the coast road, and with 4km to go, 200m is a pretty good buffer even though my legs are feeling pretty tired now.  There's really only a couple of tough sections to negotiate - the trail from the boat club to Omana Beach, and then the twisting pathway back over Omana hill to the finish.   He will have great endurance from the marathon but if I can hold this for another couple of km, he won't have the raw speed to catch me.  I just focus on working hard even though I am starting to feel pretty tired.

                     

                    On a switchback up Omana hill, I can see Dan is still a little way off and with only just over 1km to go, I relax even more because he won't catch me.  Then I see Brad (remember Brad?) who is just going for a jog, having missed the race altogether!!  Coming down the hill and on to the reserve and the finish line, I can only think of a couple of races where I've felt more beat-up at the end - it's definitely been a tough one.  It's kind of a relief to cross the finish line in 1:20:09 - a disappointingly slow time when I'd been aiming to be around 3 minutes faster.  I look like I've been for a swim and I'm not quite sure what is sweat and what is water! (probably equal parts of both)

                     

                    Dan is around 30 seconds back and it's also kind of a relief to hear him reflect that the course was a lot tougher than he'd expected.  The women's winner, Lisa Cross, is just behind him.  The course would probably have suited her as she is super-tough so it's no surprise she was like 5 minutes ahead of second place.

                     

                    Anyway, I still don't know what place I am, so I pick up my bag and check the live results on my phone - sure enough, 2nd place! Michael Voss is in first (1:09!!!!!) and no sign of Lachlan, so I guess he pulled out injured or bailed at some point.  Bit of an unexpected surprise! I'm disappointed with the time and overall performance as I know I'm capable of quicker and was aiming for sub-1:17.  I've really put the work in over summer and have been hitting workouts at much better paces than this (admittedly in much better conditions, too!) so the result is a bit frustrating.  The good news is that, with only one race left in the Auckland Half Marathon Series, I've got a pretty comfortable series lead (so far - 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd in the four races and none of the other race winners are running the whole series)

                     

                    Later on in the day I took a bit of time to reflect, and realised:

                    • There's only one race I've run that was tougher from a heat/humidity perspective, and that was Orewa last year (1:25).  The conditions yesterday were probably worth 2-3 minutes alone... maybe more.  Funnily enough, the way my legs felt at the end of this race was very similar to how they felt at the end of the Orewa race.
                    • The regional park section was slower than I'd expected - the hills were OK but it was just too steep to make time up on the downhill
                    • Overall the course was slower than I expected - there were coastal trails with twists and turns and short sharp climbs, and the coast road was not quite as quick as I thought
                    • My stomach was a little crampy at times but I don't think it amounted to anything more than a distraction

                    Allowing 2-3 minutes for weather and maybe 2 minutes for the course might be realistic.  It would kind of line up with races I had through the middle of last year, with 4 between 1:15:40 and 1:16:29.  I guess the real test will come at Waterfront in 4 weeks time - I ran 1:16:08 there last year, and assuming conditions are comparable, I'd hope to be quicker this year.

                     

                    Official result: 1:20:09, 2nd place

                    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: Maraetai HM, 10 Mar, DNF

                    Up next: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr

                    "CONSISTENCY IS KING"

                    Marky_Mark_17


                      Flavio- nice week and good to hear you are felling confident!

                       

                      Watson - yeah I was really feeling it from around the 4km mark and knew it would be tough going.  It's hard trying to shut out the negative chatter in your head in those situations!

                       

                      James - nice week.

                       

                      JMac - yeah I think for me, that race has really cemented that I don't want to run any more halves between December and March.  I've fluked one or two with reasonable conditions (e.g. Coatesville last year), but there's just too many races over that period that become absolute suffer-fests due to temperatures and humidity.  I've normally only done so many because of the series anyway, which I'm ditching after this year.

                       

                      Also, big congrats to JMac on a massive PR in his half... looking forward to the RR.

                       

                      My week:

                      M: weights

                      T: 10.8km incl. hill reps

                      W: 6.5km easy

                      T: 11km with short sharp efforts

                      F: weights

                      S: 7.4km with short sharp efforts

                      S: 22.3km incl. Maraetai Half Marathon (1:20:09)

                      Total: 58km

                      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: Maraetai HM, 10 Mar, DNF

                      Up next: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr

                      "CONSISTENCY IS KING"

                      SteveChCh


                      Hot Weather Complainer

                        Nice RR Mark - I think this sounds like a PB level performance in non-PB conditions.

                        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

                        Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024

                        Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024

                        flavio80


                        Intl. correspondent

                          Jmac -

                          SANDBAGGER!!!!!

                          SANDBAGGER!!!!!

                          SANDBAGGER!!!!!

                          SANDBAGGER!!!!!

                          SANDBAGGER!!!!!

                           

                          I'm kidding. Great job out there. You have Wolverine-y recoverability capabilities. That was brilliant!

                          PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021

                          Up next: no idea

                          Tool to generate Strava weekly

                          SteveChCh


                          Hot Weather Complainer

                            JMac - great performance...can we safely say the interrupted training may not have had any impact...or can you go even faster???

                            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

                            Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024

                            Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024

                            Marky_Mark_17


                              Another reflection is that I think I'll drop the mileage back just a touch coming into Waterfront.  My mileage since the start of the year has been really high (by my standards) and my current 90-day trailing mileage is near all-time high's (bear in mind I've run two races since the start of the year as well with taper/recovery weeks).

                               

                              History tends to suggest that my best results have been when I've got a mileage platform there, but for 2-3 weeks ahead of race week I've been on slightly lower mileage with some good workouts - basically lower volume, higher intensity.  Particularly given that summer running seems to take it out of me a bit more than winter running.

                              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: Maraetai HM, 10 Mar, DNF

                              Up next: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr

                              "CONSISTENCY IS KING"

                                James, Flavio nice weeks

                                 

                                Mark Nice Race and race report that course looked tough and with the temps and humidity you ran great.

                                 

                                jmac congrats awesome results !!  look forward to reading your race report!

                                 

                                For me another solid week of training I have 9 weeks to go before my HM

                                 

                                My intention was to increase my mpw to 50. Should I continue increasing up to 50mpw or cut back some and focus on getting more & longer tempo runs in?

                                 

                                 

                                Weekly Summary
                                Monday, Mar 11, 2019 thru Sunday, Mar 17, 2019

                                <tfoot> </tfoot>
                                Day Miles Pace Description Link
                                Mon 6.0 9:09 Evening Run strava
                                Wed 11.1 8:30 Afternoon Run strava
                                Thu 4.4 9:00 Evening Run strava
                                Sat 15.0 8:11 6E+2T+1E+1T+1E+1.5T+2.5E strava
                                Sun 10.3 9:10 Afternoon Run strava
                                  46.8 8:41  

                                PR's

                                1m  5:38 (2018)

                                5k    19:59 (2019)

                                HM  1:33:56 (2018)

                                FM  3:23:07 (2018)