Half Marathon Pacing, or.....do I go for it??
ACK! I just ran a local 5K, the course was a hair long and about half of it was on trails, but the net here is that I ended up with a vDot of 40 (39.6 really I think, but the Data Tool rounds up). That puts my HMP pace at 8:27 which is just a hair faster than my current Half Mary PR.
As fate would have it, I've got a Half Mary on the calendar in 3 weeks. It's a local race I registered for just to give me something to think about after finishing Moo, the start is 2 miles from my house, and it's flat with just one hill (the bridge). I haven't done much endurance stuff since IMWI (longest run since then was 75 min). I plan on doing two 90-120 min runs over the next 2 weeks before tapering for the Half.
Those of you who have been around a while know I fought a calf injury all of last year and I finally seem to have it under control, so staying healthy is my #1 goal. Butt..........................well..............it would kinda be nice to see if I could come close to or beat my former PR, ya know?
Oh- and I haven't run an open Half in, uh, 2 years. So I totally don't remember how I'm supposed to pace this thing!! Is it similar to pacing a half after a Half Iron? 3/7/3?? EEEEK. If anyone else asked this question I'd probably be able to come up with a good reply, but I'm too close to this to figure out what to do.
Comments
I loosely follow the 3/7/3 plan for an open half, but sometimes adjust depending on the course profile or race tactics.
Based on what you shared I would use 8:30 for your target pace and run this way:
First 3 at 8:40 ( I typically do something like 8:45, 8:40, 8:35)
Middle 7 at as close to 8:30 as you can
I find that by mile 8 or 9 I can tell how may race is going to end up:
If you are feeling good, at mile 11 drop down to 8:15 and hold on.
If you arn't feeling good, stay at 8:30
If you are feeling great, go crush the last 3 miles and see what you can do
At anytime if you calf is bothering you back off, it's not worth it to hurt again.
This approach works for me as it is safe enough that if my vdot is off or my body just isn't feeling it that day I don't blow up, but also leaves enough time in the last three miles to pull off a PR.
I'm a believer that one should not get married to just the pace watch. I prefer to key into RPE. The first three miles should feel too easy, the middle six should feel like you are working, but not pushing, the next 3 should feel like you are ramping up to a 10 K effort level, and the last mile should either be in shut down mode (take it easy) if you are hurting anywhere, otherwise, the last mile should be: empty the bank account. Those effort levels should correlate closely to Matt's sugested pace numbers on a flat course, but I always base my pace first on RPE, and use my Garmin to tell me if I'm taking it too easy or maybe working to hard.
If you've been keeping up a consistent running schedule of at least 18-20 miles a week, 3-5 days a week, with long runs of up 75 minutes, you should be able to at least make a strong effort in this race. If you have not been running that frequently or that long, I would be very wary of trying to push the pace.
As long as I'm posting, I can announce that I've started taking "food" by mouth now for 3 days, and today plan to take all my calories that way, mostly a hi-cal Ensure type product, as well as yogurt and cheescake. The bitch of it is, I'm getting in 3000+ calories a day now for 4 weeks, and have remained at 135#, 10# less than my already lean race-ready self (I'm 5' 9.5"). I don't recommend my experience for a weight loss program, though.
Al- Congrats on the transition to "real" food. I could do without the Ensure, but cheesecake sounds pretty good! Can you have ice cream too? And maybe some soup(tomato or maybe squash?).
Nemo,
Don't listen to Matt - what does he know!?!??
My only suggestion is to run your race, and run it to plan. For these shorter races, I think the danger is that in the first 5 miles you'll feel great and figure, "heck, I might just win this thing today!" and drop down to 8:00 miles. This is one of the key places where I think a Garmin is your friend. As Matt suggests, your real race starts at mile 10...and let us not forget that last .1 mile!! I've killed myself in the 13th mile, only to find that I had another 45 seconds of race to go - and that can feel like a long-ass 45 seconds!!
Patience and discipline.
You'll do great!
Al - great to hear your progress. Same advice for you too - don't get too euphoric and jump from Ensure to fried jalapeno poppers
Mike
Al - Great to hear that you continue to recover. I hear ya on the weight loss dealio with a no solid food diet. After my jaw shattering and reconstruction in '09, my already low weight (coming out of a solid outseason) was of serious concern to my docs. I learned to love full fat milkshakes with protein powders and fruits mixed in. Keep up the great progress!! Even though I would expect nothing less from you, your progress is amazing!
Nemo - Go for it. Start running in 8:30 land and then drop it down a bit and hang on. Try and find someone to pace with and just kinda keep running when it sucks. You calf is not going to be a problem, half pace a way slower than what you are running intervals at. Besides, it only a running race if it goes poorly
I wanted to report back in and give a huge THANK YOU to the team for the advice and encouragement.
The Summary: I ran the OBX Half Mary today and finished in 1:52:29, averaging 8:35 pace. I'm VERY happy with that result. That's just 10 seconds slower than my PR which was set at the END of the OS season in 2008. Given the injury I worked through all last year, I simply can't be anything but happy to be going into this OS with a Half Mary time that is nearly my PR time. The advice I got from the team really helped me keep my head strait and approach this race set up to do well and not hurt myself.
The Details: This race is mostly flat, a few small rollers, but nothing big UNTIL mile 10 when you go over a 1 mile bridge over the sound. It's a long fairly steep bridge and that hill is pretty significant. Otherwise, it's a very PR friendly course. I should also mention I ran the combined "Pamlico Challenge" 8K the day before this race at my Half Mary pace. So I wasn't exactly going into this race fresh or tapered.
It's been a long time since I did an open Half Mary and I'd forgotten how crowded the start can be and the added effort it takes to dodge the crowd. But the course thinned out after about 1.5 miles and I think it actually helped me stay controlled and not go too fast. Anyway- my plan was to start out around 8:45 and slowly build up to 8:30 depending on how I felt (using Al's RPE advice). I had to keep my eye on the Garmin to keep slowing myself down and those first 3 miles felt pretty relaxed:
8:35, 8:32, 8:36
I was worried I had gone out a little too fast and so for the next 3 miles I kept the 8:45 number as my target and still felt pretty good. Miles 7-9 started to feel a bit tougher, but not bad- more like the middle part of a 10K and I remembered Al's advice about how it should feel like I was building into a 10K effort. That's pretty much exactly how I felt
8:43, 8:24, 8:45, 8:32, 8:32, 8:37
I knew I would slow down going over the bridge but tried not to worry too much, Instead of focusing on pace here, I looked at my HR and made sure I didn't go over 180bpm. I figured I'd keep the HR under control so I had beats left to push at the end and besides, I figured I'd get a little time back on the down side.
9:00
I then tried to pick up the pace a bit to stay as close to 8:30 as possible for the next 2 miles. This was definitely felt like"Work".
8:25, 8:29
For the last 1.1 miles I just dug deep and tried to do whatever I could do. I let myself go for it. I wasn't able to pick the pace up much, but I did gain a little and held strong
8:20, 0:50
Frankly- I think this is possibly the most consistent and well executed Half Mary I've ever done. The combination of having a pacing plan along with an RPE strategy and monitoring my HR all combined to be a fantastic result. Execution is just as important in a Half Marathon as it is in a Ironman! Very cool.
I'm giving this advice for Half Mary pacing a huge THUMBS UP!!!
Well done!
Nice plan, and well executed! Considering that it's so early in the OS and you did some solid work the day before, double well done!
.
Mike
Congrats and great pacing strategy. My first 1/2 mary isn't till march, but I learned a lot about the importance of a pacing strategy in my full mary a few weeks ago. I used the EN mary pace advice and i worked out great for me. I'm starting to think these guys might know something about this. (ha).
Itching to start my first OS.
Way to go, Nemo. Finishing exhausted but elated is the goal, and you hit it!
Nemo, that pacing is beautiful! Excellent work! And I'm so copying your pacing strategy for my January 1/2.
Very nice race, glad to hear that you were on target for your performance!