Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2019
Hot Weather Complainer
Welcome Brent - you may win the award for overcoming the toughest health challenges in this thread. A cardiac arrest at 19 and 23, that is tough. Awesome that you're back running and posting very fast times.
After my promising tempo on Monday, I went out yesterday and really struggled at easy pace. Felt off from early in the run, then got stomach cramps with about 20 minutes to go which luckily went away but I felt sick for the rest of the day. Running early afternoon in warm weather and strong winds probably didn't help (that could be Strike 2 from Dear Leader...).
Whitney - I looked up your race and found this:
Starting Elevation: 420' Max Elevation: 480' at 0.42 miles The race then drops 470' to a finishing elevation of 10'
Tough start, and that drop in elevation would smash my quads, depending how spaced out it is.
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
Brent - welcome (back)!!
Steve - urg, stomach cramps when running are the worst. Looks like wifey might be away for a week at the end of Feb so I may have to resort to the dreaded mid-morning runs in the middle of summer.
Whitney / Steve - that could be a quick course if the elevation steadily drops over the 21km. There is a race here in NZ (Southern Lakes HM) which has around a 200m/650' net downhill, but it's basically a steady downhill over the entire course, meaning it's not really noticeable on the quads but it does make for some extremely fast times.
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: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Mark - When I first felt something awry, I thought "well if it gets worse at least it's better than an injury". When it got so bad I almost had to stop I was saying to myself through gritted teeth "still better than an injury..."
Brent great video clip there " its about been the best version of you " I like that. Speaking of Fortnite my 13 year old is fairly addicted to it like most 13 yr olds I guess. Its pretty bad how much time they will spend sitting there on the PS4. He bikes to school 5kms each way and Ive got him back into bodyboarding at the beach with me so some exercise is happening.
Flavio I was bored the other day and kept finding myself walking to the fridge and opening it. I had to remind myself that I wasnt hungry " walk away from the fridge "
Steve that sounds like a run to forget. Could be dehydration ? My worst runs ever have been hot afternoon runs low on water.
55+ PBs 5k 18:36 June 3rd TT
" If you don't use it you lose it, but if you use it, it wears out.
Somewhere in between is about right "
Steve - Wow, thank you for looking that up! Really helpful information. I'd like to qualify for NYC, but in it's first year I don't think it's a qualifier and maybe it would never be with that elevation loss?
Mark - That's what I'm hoping for! It'll just be super fast! Thank you for the info. Gosh, New Zealand has always sounded like such a dream. I'm jealous of your life! And that's good advice to get in longer long runs. I'm glad that helped you!
Watson - It's hard to say because I've either been pregnant or postpartum for years now, but my PR half was two summers ago at 1:35. My PR marathon is 3:34 but that was many years ago and NYC this fall was 3:36. Every marathon I've hit a wall and crumbled the last 6 miles. Must being going out to fast and can't learn my lesson! And thank you for sharing your tempo/interval paces or lack thereof! I feel the same way
Brent - I love the treadmill too! I hear you, with kids you gotta just run when and where you can!
PK - Are there no other women in this group?? There is gorgeous trail running up here!
CK - Maybe not enough rest in-between. Usually like a quarter of a mile.. You had a lot of PRs last year, whoa!
Cobra Commander Keen
Whitney - Thanks! I have to credit the PRs to being able to rack up more miles than ever before without injury and actually following proper training plans (Daniels).
Dark Wave is the only other female I know of who lurks around here - mostly only posting when something really awkward comes about. She spends most of her time in the sub 3:20 and I think sub 3 marathon threads from what I've seen. 3:36 in NYC just a few months after having a kiddo is quite impressive, especially if you hit the wall. What'd you do for nutrition?JMac and I are big Daniels fanboys, so this is what I'd say about the reps: They should be done at about mile effort/pace, with equal DISTANCE recovery after. No specific time for recovery, just however slow you need to take them in order to run however many Reps you're doing with proper form and at the correct effort/pace. Putting a 3:36 marathon into the Daniels calculator comes up with Reps at 6:34 pace, or 1:38 per 400, 3:16 per 800.
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
OKC Memorial 5k - April 27
RIP Milkman
Whitney - I welcome a fellow New Yorker! You will find this group is super helpful with learning and motivation. I would not be running anywhere near the times I do if not for what I saw people doing on these boards. I used to think running 35 MPW for a half marathon was a crazy amount!
Mark - You sucking up to the leader is cute I will remove the current strike you have.
Brent - Great bio, scary stuff with the heart. I like your new found dedication. How in the world do you play Fortnite while running???
Flavio - Sounds great with the nutrition plan. I (along with many others on this forum) are naturally gifted with being thin and we should be so thankful for that. We won the genetic lottery. I really hope this is a successful year for you in that regard.
Me - Went for another 6 last night. Was going to go for 8, but my legs started feeling pretty beat up about 4 miles in so I decided to listen to my body and not push it. Definitely something I tell myself to do, but rarely do.
Anyway, I think this injury really hit home something to me: consistency is the most important part of training. Yeah, yeah, I know we keep saying that on this thread and it's Mark's motto. But I need to get better at running consistent mileage rather than doing these buildups and either getting injured (less often) or burned out (much more often). I don't think I'll ever be one of these guys that just does 75+ MPW for 12 weeks straight, as I both a) need time down at least once every 4 weeks and b) travel too much to be that consistent. But I do want to get better at running more during my downtime between cycles to maintain consistency. My period after Boston will be critical, as I have 5 weeks between that and a trip to Japan where I probably will have little time to run. However, I can't just use those 5 weeks to take a ton of down time. Maybe a week off, and then slowly build back up. I'm considering signing up for a half the weekend before I leave, but not sure how quickly I can recover after Boston.
One interesting stat: we talk about miles per year as a number to consistency. Instead, I just looked at my standard deviation for weekly mileage throughout the year. I averaged 41 miles last year per week, which was my best yet. However, my standard deviation was 21 miles! That is unacceptable number. If anyone else is interested, I would love to hear what your standard deviation was compared to average. Might be hard to beat my 50% volatility.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Brent - hey man, great to see you, been a long time! This is looking more and more like RW circa 2015. This is a good group of folks here, and the banter is free flowing. Our facilitator keeps things interesting to say the least. Inspiring video, I think I remember you discussing that a bit before but never in that detail. I remember you as the treadmill whilst playing xbox king (or was it playstation?) I got nothing against the t-wolves, they're a solid team. Thibodeau was a jerk for sure.
Whitney - welcome. Being in Albany I'm sure you get plenty of snow? Cant imagine you would get outdoors a lot in the winter for runs either way.
Jmac - think of it like this: you're the rocket, and are trying to launch into space with as much power and efficiency as possible. You can't do that without a strong, solid, consistent base from which to "launch" into a training block successfully. What I'm saying is, yes I believe your train of thought is correct on what direction you need to go.
Piwi Kiwi - Westbrook needs to figure this out. He just doesn't look right out there, it's getting painful to watch...
JMac - OK, interesting discussion to be had here. I looked at my stats for 2018: 3,613km, weekly average 69.4km, standard deviation 14.0km (only 20% volatility by your measure). Max was 95.3km and min was 21.7km. I was lucky that this was pretty much unaffected by injury too.
If I have a criticism of my structure, it's that I probably needed a few more big weeks in there to really push the limits, offset by a few more small weeks for recovery., i.e. if anything I was a bit too consistent. This would probably have been easier to achieve if I hadn't raced so damn often!! Having said that, I do think it helps that, for the most part, I was operating at a mileage level where I could hit the workouts well. I mean if I look back at some of my workouts from last year, there was some pretty cool stuff in there (the one where I did 12km steady then 12km @HM-ish tempo was a particularly crazy one). If I'd overcooked the mileage, no way would I have been able to hit some of those.
I cannot work it out now. But I think Piwi and I will be near the top for 2018 variability.
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
Whitney - many people hit the marathon wall. Re your aim, aiming too high risks resulting in bad pacing which results in a bad time. It can also cause you to train too quick
Given where you are, I guess a 5km treadmill time trial is the best way of figuring where you are at. Sub 90 for a woman is very good.
You guys are math nerds I had to Google standard deviation
I ran lots of 20km weeks and a few 80 km weeks.
This is in kms tell me what it means please
Population Standard Deviation, σ 22.947477575346
Variance (Population Standard), σ2 526.58672707101
Total Numbers, N 52
Sum: 2904.1
Mean (Average): 55.848076923077
Standard Error of the Mean (SEx̄): 3.2132895827436`
Sample Standard Deviation, s 23.171360706993
Variance (Sample Standard), s2 536.91195701357
It means you averaged 55km per week and the average difference between the weekly total and your average weekly kms is 22km.
So basically your weekly totals jump around a lot
Good discussion guys. Here's my data below. I think a good topic of this discussion is that this is based purely on volume alone without any other variables (speed, intensity, etc.). Another thing to think about - since we're all technically 1/2 marathon runners in this thread, we have (should have) a long run incorporated into our training, which by nature is meant to "deviate" from a daily average since it should be 20-30% of your weekly volume. To Mark's point of "too consistent" - I think a higher daily deviation from any given 7 days is beneficial (meaning you have a good mix of short, medium, long, or rest days), but bigger picture volume deviations like weekly and monthly should be generally lower.
Weekly STDEV.P = 7.33 miles
Monthly STDEV.P = 19.4 miles (how far I deviated from monthly average throughout the year)