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

JMac - I'm really thinking about just sticking with the Escalante for everything that's not a race or trails and just rotating pairs for everyday vs workouts.
Didn't you wear the vaporfly in your latest races? Wouldn't that qualify as a pretty highly-cushioned shoe? BTW, I ordered a pair, but they probably won't leave the box other than a try-on or test before a HM outside Dallas I'm considering in November.
You might check out jackrabbit for them - very solid discount (only shows in the cart), but not many sizes - I just happened to get lucky.

Steve - Bummer about the piriformis, hopefully that clears up.

Flavio - What's your idea of 5k intervals you couldn't run much of a cool-down after? Time/distance, effort/pace, quantity, recovery between? Just curious.

Keen - I did, but that's why I qualified it for 5K/10K. I would never wear the VF for a 5K, and most likely will not for a 10K either. They make sense for 10 mile and higher races. I actually already bought another pair of VF so I'm good to go. You are going to love them, I definitely think you need a test in them at MP or equivalent workout. I did 10 @ MP as a test.

Flavio - curious about your comment too. On one hand, I see what you're saying, but I was able to start doing a cool down after my HM PR, so I'm not sure why 5K training intervals would make it impossible. I would be more concerned about long cool downs for injury risk more than anything as your mechanics are usually garbage in your cool down.

Jmac/Keen - 5k intervals are hard, something like 6x1000 or 5x1200 or 4x1600 will leave your legs wasted. Your form has to deteriorate after that. YMMV though, this might be a product of my lack of strength.

 

If I was doing a workout like that I'd definitely not go for too long a cool-down, those are tough workouts.  Maybe get away with slightly longer on the track than the road just because the surface is a bit more forgiving on the legs.

James - nice week, those temps would be way too hot for me especially with humidity as well.

Me - easy post-race week and I'm glad about that as I'm not sure the legs could've handled too much more.  Even on Sunday they were still definitely carrying some fatigue from the race.

M: 6.5km recovery

T: weights

W: 11km easy

T: 13.2km w/ moderate efforts

F: weights

S: 14.5km easy

S: 20.0km easy

Total: 65.3km

Slow week for most given the races the Kiwis raced, but good job. Weather here hasn’t been to bad: temps have gotten up to 80, but dew points are still pretty low/dry, so it’s been just normal hot, not unbearable. I find that the suckage really starts once TDP hits 150+, which we haven’t gotten to. That’ll start in the next few weeks though. For now, just building back up the mileage. 32 this week for me, looking to get to 50 next week, still all easy mileage. Focusing a lot on strengthening though as “pre-hab”. It’s the best time to do it when the mileage is low, quality days are non-existent, and you’re getting ready for some heavy speed work. I find that when I try to do strengthening work when mileage is high and I’m in the middle of the cycle that I can only get half of the work in before my legs are just cooked.

You boys have behaved yourself. I’ll get the races up there by the end of the week (very busy this week so not sure when I’ll get it in).

JMac - The should show up by Thursday (wow, UPS is slow!). If I test them out soon I might do it around one of the local lakes. Depending on which I do it'll get me 8-10 miles (probably M pace, as suggested), but with the ability to change shoes for a cool-down if I wanted. I might could even snag a CR during the process, but as the guy who owns it now is a 1:12: xx HM runner it wouldn't be any issue for him to take it back!

Flavio - Yikes that the calves are still angry. Hopefully it only takes a bit more time for them to calm down. Solid week, though.

James - Good week, and I love the consistency.

Mark - Nice week as well, even if a bit fatigued.

I'm now within 16 weeks of my next planned half, and 18 away from what I think will be a goal race (should really decide on that for real). The next half isn't one that could be considered a PR attempt - it's quite hilly and will almost certainly be very hot/humid - but I do want to make a good showing for it.
I'm getting more used to doing workouts by time and effort since everything is on rolling hills now - trying to time intervals to minimize the downhill portions. It still takes a bit of a reality check/pep talk when I see how long a 400 took me or how far I went during a timed Interval and I automatically want to compare it to what it would have been on the track.
Still trying to decide on that Bad Idea nighttime 50k next month, too. It would be a good excuse to buy a new pair of shoes...

ETA: Had absolutely GLORIOUS weather this morning! ~58*, DP 52*, with an 8-10mph north wind. Far better running weather than anything since at least early April.

Monday, Jun 03, 2019 thru Sunday, Jun 09, 2019

RR Christchurch Half Marathon

https://www.strava.com/activities/2416134294

Net 1:30:11 / Gross 1:30:23 time. 120th out of 1504.

As anyone who's followed this thread, the weather leading up to the race was rough, heavy wind, rain and cold. It was a Sunday race, if it was a Saturday I suspect it would have been cancelled.

Anyhow, forecast was to be cold (around 4-5 Celsius), plus quite a strong wind, and just a LITTLE rain.

I was racing in shorts, my club singlet, gloves and a beanie / woolen hat.

I got a park pretty close to the start area, at the Town Hall. Queues were pretty long for bathrooms and gear drop off. Luckily I had given myself enough time so I was outside about 20 minutes before the start.

I did a quick warm-up. I bumped into Mark and said hello. I saw other people from greater Wellington who I've seen in races, but I don't know them. Post the race I realized quite a few more people that I knew were in the race.

This is my third time racing Christchurch, first time the full, second time the half. The venue and race has moved around a little post the 2011 Christchurch earthquake - this was the first time post quake that the start and the finish were back at the town hall.

My race strategy was basically to stay with the sub 1:30 pacers. And sometime between 10km and the finish, leave them and see how much I could go under 1:30.

As with every other year I've raced here, the start is late, as the bag drop off queue slowly clears.

As Mark mentions, the 10km, half and full start at the same time. There's maybe roughly 4000 people all up.

The race director warns us of flooding, including a large section of River Road (used to be residential pre the quakes, but now red zoned). Then we had to wait another 30 seconds as a city councillor told everybody stuff that nobody wanted to hear.

The wheelchair races start one minute before everyone else.

We're then off.

The first km felt OK, lots of people around. Quite a few who start way too fast for the first 500 metres.

km 1 is done in 4:05. I'm near the back of the 1:30 group, so the pacers were a little quick.

We go through the CBD and head out to North Hagley park. It's a little less congested now.

The first 5km were through 21:16, my GPS and the km markers almost exactly matched, so pacing was just right.

We then go through a path through North Hagley park, the path is quite narrow, but ok. Definitely not an area to look to overtake, but that's fine.

Though 5.0-8.km pacing was pretty good. I cannot remember the official markers, but Garmin had the pace at 4:15/km.

We're now back into the CBD, where we go near the start/finish. This is where the 10km splits off. These next two kms were in total about 20s too slow. I was still with the sub 1:30 group, it was just the pacers were a little slow.

Around this time, I felt a little warm and took off my beanie. I tried to unzip my shorts pocket and put the beanie in, by my hands were numb due to the cold. So I kept it in my left hand.  Up until this point, the rain had been very light. So conditions were ok.  Pretty much once I took my beanie off, the rain started. From then on, the rain was moderate. But given the wind and the cold, it was rather unpleasant. I put my beanie back on then.

At the GPS halfway point, it was 45:0x. The pacers yelled out "half way". I was a little worried here as normally the GPS ends up being 100-200 metres long and the previous km markers indicated we were behind, so most likely we were behind schedule. There was going to be very few km markers from now on due to the flooding issues.

I sped up and left the pacers. The 11th-14th km's averaged under 4:10/km, which reflected me quickening up, the most substantial tail wind, and the surface being good. During this period, I go past my parents who have braved the conditions to see me (I live in a different part of the country, I flew down for the race) - they almost miss me as I go past.

The 15th km (GPS) was 4:15. At this point I was tiring a little. We then cross one of the bridges, 16th km was 4:08. Surely I can go sub 1:30?

17th km, I think the road surface was ok. I cannot remember it really. Anyhow, done 4:14km GPS.

The next 2.5km were definitely the hardest on the course. Into a moderately strong wind. I'm cold now, the constant rain and the cold temperature is definitely effecting me. Oh, and most of the River Road (only walkable these days post the quake) is still rough post the quakes, plus it's almost completely flooded. The options here are:
1. Run through puddles the whole way.
2. Run on a dirt & gravel stop bank, which is between the road and the river. This was my choice.

During here I remember thinking that despite Mark's excellent training cycle, he will not PR today.

It was noticeably slower than the road. Near the end of the section I drop back onto the road as there were only a few puddles now. I'm managed to avoid stepping through puddles until now when I was looking at my watch.

GPS km's 18-20 were 4:20, 4:20, and 4:23. It was as quick as I could manage. I was pretty sure sub 1:30 was not possible. During this period I saw the marathon 40km marker, so some rough math did indicate I was 10-15 seconds too slow. It was also the first marker I'd seen for a long time.

During the 20th we go back over the bridge, onto Kilmore Street. Which is a big finishing straight.  As Mark mentioned, you can see the finish but it seems to take a long time to get there when racing it.

I go past the 1km in marker, which means roughly 1km to go (I don't know if the start and finish were exactly beside each other, but they were pretty close.

I'm trying to speed up, but I'm not. GPS km 21 was 4:18. I then manage an ever so slight quicken up and manage 3:58 pace for the last 0.23km, and finish in 1:30:11 net.

So that was a tad disappointing. And I was very cold and wet.

Lots of others felt the cold too, apparently there were several hypothermia cases. At work yesterday I was talking to the wife of someone who did 2:58 for the full, he was not able to use his gels in the race as his hands were too cold to get them out of his pockets.

In the town hall I bump into my youngest cousin who is about 22-23 years old, he ran an impressive 1:23.

I then find Mark and Steve. And I'm rather surprised and impressed that Mark PR'd.

Mark kindly offers for me to use the shower at his Air BnB which I gladly accept. We then go meet Steve at a local bar.

I then walk back to my car. The walk back has me go through the course, about 500 metres from the finish line. This was about 4:20 into the race so there were a few marathoners coming through. They looked tired and cold, I was pretty glad I was only out there for 90 minutes!

Watson - Nice RR.  It sounds similar to my 2017 effort when I was on target for 16km then just couldn't maintain/lift the pace into the wind and rain and ended up 1:30.29.  It's frustrating and afterwards I always think to myself "why didn't I just go faster"...it's like an hour or 2 after the race I forget everything I know about running and ask myself questions a non-runner would ask.  I'd be interested to hear the RR's of the 1:30 pacers who finished in 1:31.  Also still waiting on an RR from Nathan Jones.

Mark - Sounds like Nick Willis' days of being world class might be over.  He has achieved so much though, a silver and bronze in a blue ribbon event like that is a massive achievemtn.  And who can forget his commonwealth gold in front of stumbling Aussies on the track and stunned Aussies in the stands.

2006 Commonwealth Games 1500m Final

Me - Piriformis still a bit sore so I biked on Saturday and Monday and tried a run on Sunday but could tell I would end up sore afterwards so stopped after 1.5km.  I'm unsure if I'm imagining it or it's real - if anything it just feels fatigued rather than sore.  I'll give it a proper go tomorrow.