Forums >Racing>The Waltons aka Advanced Half Marathon Training Thread - 2022 edition
Cobra Commander Keen
Steve & Piwi - Get better soon, guys.
Fred - Best of luck in your race.
Mark - Thanks! The elevation chart does look gnarly until you see the scale.
The forecast is looking pretty great. Kiwi Point of ~94, negligible wind, and possibly even some cloud cover. Zero excuses available with that.
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
Bun Run 5k - May 4
Mother of Cats
Good luck CK and Fred!
Everyone's gotta running blog; I'm the only one with a POOL-RUNNING blog.
And...if you want a running Instagram where all the pictures are of cats, I've got you covered.
Mark - Thanks! The elevation chart does look gnarly until you see the scale. The forecast is looking pretty great. Kiwi Point of ~94, negligible wind, and possibly even some cloud cover. Zero excuses available with that.
Yes I had the same reaction... it looks fairly horrific until you actually look at the numbers.
Remind me what Kiwi point actually is? Is that the weird arbitrary measure JMac invented where you add the temperature and dewpoint?
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"
Since this is the name-dropping/mentioning of fast runners thread....
This morning I headed out to my local track not to do a formal workout but just to play around with some 200s, 400s, and finally some 100s - wearing supershoes (since I have the most trouble with those) and trying to figure out how to run just a bit faster without toppling over.
(I managed to get my 100s down to 22 seconds - which is some progress, I guess)
The track was pretty empty, but there were a few people on it, including one guy running pretty darn fast with some 800s and 1600s. Nice guy, said hello to me as he left after his workout.
Through the magic of Strava, I was able to find out who it was. It was this guy.
No wonder he was flying.
[interesting notes: he was doing a VO2Max workout of 3 sets of 800, 1600, 800 with timed rest, but he took the rest standing/walking in small circles. Also was training with headphones. So I guess headphones don't make one weak.]
Wow, no wonder he was flying along! I'd love to know what he was dropping those 800's at.
Interesting to see the rests were standing and walking, I'm sure I read somewhere that actually a slow jog is the most efficient form of recovery between efforts (but I could be wrong).
I see a few faster runners with headphones so I guess it's an individual thing. I stopped using them other than on long runs because I found the music distracting during workouts.
And nice to hear you made some progress too!
He posted the splits on Strava - cut and paste is:
(800-1600-800) x 3 (2/4 rest 5min between sets)
VO2 Max day. (2:13-4:22-2:10) (2:09-4:16-2:07) (2:06-4:12-2:05)
Workout entry.
DW nothing like watching a sub 4 miler train for inspiration !
Good luck Keen and Fred.
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 "
Yeah. It's not unusual for fast guys to show up and use that track - it's arguably the nicest one in the DC area and is sometimes used by Georgetown University's running team (believe it or not, Georgetown does not have a running track on campus, and the closest track to them is only 320m). He's probably the fastest person I've ever seen work out there. (he doesn't hold the record for overall fastest runner ever on that track - apparently back in the day Alan Webb would show up every once in a while on that tack).
What was kinda cool was how normal he was. Underarmour longsleeve shirt on, catching his breath between reps and trying to motivate himself for the next one just like the rest of us.
I did end up doing part of my "workout" in lane 3. I know the etiquette is to stay in lane 1 when doing a workout regardless of pace, but at some point it was just him and me on the track, and he was flying while I was sputtering, and he was clearly serious while I was just playing around. It just made sense to bend etiquette a bit.
DW, it must be really weird to be quasi-famous like that. Always wondering if people know who you are. Very cool that he seemed just like us and to see those paces in real life.
5k 24:53 (2020) |10k 52:24 (2021) |HM 1:57:14 (2019) |FM 4:24 (2007) |50k 5:57 (2022)
I think I've mentioned before, but my pool-running training buddy for a while was a woman who was a world class marathoner and represented Great Britain in the Olympics in London. She lived in northern Virginia for a while because her husband was assigned here for work.
Always hilarious when she would go into the running store and someone would try to sell her running shoes.
JamesD
Caitlin - I doubt he needs to wonder if too many people other than very serious runners and a handful of obsessive fans know who he is. 7th in the Olympic Trials in the 5,000 and 12th in the 10,000 is really, really good, of course, but outside of his family, friends, former classmates, & other competitive runners, I doubt many people would recognize him. Now that darkwave mentioned him, I vaguely remember what he looks like from the Trials, but I certainly wouldn't recognize him in the grocery store. For that matter, I doubt too many people even recognize most U.S. T&F Olympic medal winners when they're in street clothes. Maybe one or two who appear in tv ads would be recognized occasionally.
darkwave - I may have asked you this before, but which track do you run on? Washington-Liberty HS?
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
Mostly Washington-Liberty. Occasionally I go up to Yorktown/Greenbriar.
WL is much closer to me, but it closes at 8:30 am in the morning and I dislike the long straight-aways and tighter turns.
Yorktown/Greenbriar has a much nicer, squarer shape, is mostly sheltered from the wind, and is open many more hours of the day (and has really nice bathrooms). However, it also doesn't drain well, and so is prone to icing over. One end also tends to accumulate twigs and leaves in the fall, and it has this really annoying mat in one corner that one has to hurdle over.
So I go back and forth between the two. If I'm doing a straight 4 mile tempo, I always prefer either Yorktown or the roads - doing a continuous tempo at WL is soul-killing (400m just goes by much slower on that track, even if it's the same splits). If I'm doing shorter reps, I prefer WL for its proximity and so I don't have to hurdle that damn mat while running at 5K effort or faster.
Intl. correspondent
Caitlin - 4x 2k @ 10k pace is a huge workout indeed, something you’d do 10 days before the race to know your race pace. Kudos!
Steve - Ok, we will not count that PR, you will have to run a proper 5k race 😈
Mark/Keen - that elevation is relatively flat because the race is inside an aquarium if it were inside a lake it’d be much worse (I’ll show myself out 🤡)
DW - It’s nice to see the fast people do their magic. I got curious, what’s the bureaucracy to access those 2 tracks?
me - I had a peek at the marathon thread and mother of goood it's a dumpster fire
There's no doubt we are the superior thread 😎 Let's carry on our discussions while they fight for their Lego bricks 😂
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: some 800m race (or time trials) / Also place in the top 20% in a trail race
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Waltons ThreadLord
Old HM PR = 1:52:38
New HM PR = 1:50:46.5
More later.
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming races: Running is Back 10k, 5/12; Greta's Run 5k, 5/19
Old HM PR = 1:52:38 New HM PR = 1:50:46.5 More later.
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