First Half marathon on EN plan tomorrow, question for the peeps
Am doing my first half mary tomorrow this season. My vDOT is 52.xx which translates to a 1:28:02 to 1:28:30 depending on which calculator one chooses. My question is this: do I shoot for the pacing for this vdot or do I shoot for one point lower ie 1:29:30-1:30:17. The course is very flat and fast with no hills. Thanks
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Either way no harm to start conservatively and then pick it up or maintain depending on how you feel.
I have personal experience with this. I ran a half-marathon in the middle of the January OS. At that time, my HMP was 7:22/mi. I hadn't run longer than 9 miles since last fall, and the longest run I had done in the OS up to that point was 70min. I made the decision to race (26.2 with Donna in Jacksonville) less than 36 hours (seriously!) before the race started. We were going there anyways as my wife had signed up way prior.
My thoughts were that I was either going to have a spectacular RACE or a spectacular FAILURE. It was the former. Believe me, if I had had to bet, I would have laid a pretty sum on the blow-up. But I surprised the hell out of myself.....
Ask yourself this: "What's the worst that could happen?"
Based on everything I have read from you, I am betting you are going to CRUSH IT. Please don't prove me wrong.....
Of course I've been known to take Joe's approach as well and surprised myself, but when it goes wrong its no fun at all. Good races in the end are all about smart execution.
Good luck and hope you have an awesome race.
I really surprised myself in a half marathon recently base donly on OS training and my race report (posted in the Race Report forum: click here) serves as a caution that if you "target" a particular time but are capable of faster, you might find you sub-optimized the pacing strategy and left a little time on the table.
I also suggest that you do what I did and burn into your mind a few key splits that you'll need to see on the clock at the 7 and 10 mile points so you understand what you're tracking for and how much you might have to dial up the pace in the remaining miles to hit a "just within reach" target.
Let us know how it goes and best of luck!!!
This is my general philosophy about racing. If you have been paying attention to RPE while doing OS/GF intervals (and who doesn't), then you have all the tools you need to GO FOR IT. Here's my strategy for racing a HM: FIrst, I don't wear a pace watch, or an HR monitor. AS Matt and others suggest, those can be limiters in a race, not whips. Second, I start the first 1-2 miles at an RPE of MP. I'm not talkng pace here, I'm talking about how it *feels*. Then I gradually turn up the internal gas (again, RPE) so it's feeling like HM pace by mile 4, and hold it there through somewhere between 8 and 10 miles. By mile ten, I should be feeling like I'm working at 10K effort level, meaning TP intervals. Once I get somewhere between mile 11 and 12, I'm starting to think it feels like a 5K, and by the time I hit the last mile, it should feel like IP intervals. I do wear a small Ironman watch, and record my mile intervals (off of the course markers, which most races have). It usually turns out that mile one is a bit slower than my HM pace, miles 3-11 are at HM pace, and the last mile is my fastest mile. But the effort level feels as if it is constantly getting harder. If it does not feel that way, you'll actually be slowing down.
Read Joe's advice above. Several times. Repeat it to yourself as you go to sleep the night before, and as you warm up (you are going to warm up, right?) before the race. Then start picking people off at mile 6 or so - it's flat, so you have them in your sights forever - they become your goal as you are getting progressively more tired. You're a warrior out there, don't quit!
Sounds similar to my situation in terms of no recent reference point for a half marathon. My PB a few weeks ago was ~7 minutes. Not because I improved that much in a year, but because I hadn't run an open half-marathon in several years.
A few more thoughts based on what you asked and what you said:
- Don't have your Garmin screens showing HR and don't let an HR number be a limiter during the race
- I set my 7 and 10-miles splits for my goal (1:30) and my stretch goal (1:28). I knew I was beating the crap out of those splits but my mental math couldn't let me figure out what I was tracking to. If at the 10 mile marker I knew a sub-1:26 was possibly I'm pretty sure I could have got it
I totally agree with Al that the Garmin is a limiter not a whip...HOWEVER, I think in the second half of the race the opposite can be true, depending on your psychology. If you are beating your goal at the 7 mile marker you can revise it in real time and force yourself to "keep this pace"...stuff like that.
So the lessons learned:
1. Start slow (as a few had mentioned) and take my pulse
2. Be okay with adverse conditions and adjust. I became a slave to my preconceived desires. Even as I knew that I couldn't possibly keep up the effort, another part of me challenged myself to do so. Also it is not reasonable (nor smart) to run a 1/2 mary at a 10k effort.
3. Run more. I need more miles in these legs.
4. When confronted with information contrary to my mindset (even though they were consistent with my physiologic effort), re-evaluate.
5. I also believe that I am probably not fit enough for a sub 1:30 effort yet but probably am closer to a 1:32-33 effort at this point. I also think that I need to run a more conservative race to establish a jump off point for future reference.
6. I still believe in my ability and will take this as a challenge as that is what all the indicators in my training support.
A couple of comments and a question:
- Regarding starting slow...I stand by the notion of running by RPE and not being a slave to the Garmin. I think the key is to "settle in" to a good pace. If your RPE isn't well-calibrated this is tough.
- Point #4 is key. When you see you're X mins off at the X mile marker, you need to come up with a new goal for the rest of the race
- When you do a 60' run with 3x mile repeats at z4 or 2x 2 miles at z4 what kind of paces are you hitting consistently for those z4 intervals? And when you finish the intervals, do you hit z3 pace for the remainder of the run after the last recovery interval?
No worries. I have been hitting my mile repeats consistently @ 6:38 and running my remainder at 15' sets of 6:52-7:02 with a 1-2' @ 8:14. I had 2 runs of 1:45 minutes in the 4 weeks leading up to it. I have been doing most of my running (90+% ) on the treadmill @ 1% so I know that my body hasn't quite adapted to the pounding of the cement.
Judging by your post-race notes, you're on the right track to correcting it. Last year I did the same thing as you, overshot my predicted VDOT time and blew up in a big way at mile 11. Since then I've been more cautious. I'd rather undershoot a little, then blow up a lot.
The pacing info around here is good. I start more conservatively these days. 4 miles into my goal 13.1 race this spring, I was almost a minute off pace. By the end I was 15 seconds ahead of goal. I never would have guessed that. You have a 1:30 in you