1:18 and that's okay

Three years ago, I captioned a blog post, "1:21 and that's okay." I was training for a marathon in the 2:40-range and ran a half marathon a few weeks beforehand. I did not taper for the race and was still putting in high mileage weeks. My PR at the time was 1:19-high. I ran about 1:00 slower to finish in 1:21-low. I convinced myself that, if I were taking that half marathon as a goal race, I would have done several things differently. I would have cut my mileage back the couple weeks before the race. I would have done an easier workout race week. I would not have been running double digit miles and doubling in the couple of days before the race. A few weeks later, I went through the half marathon of my goal marathon 30 seconds faster feeling like a completely new person.

Over the weekend, I replicated the above process but went a little faster. I am now a 1:17 half marathoner. Now I think that PR is a little soft and could be in the 1:15-16 range. The training block I am in now indicates that but I knew going into my half marathon on Sunday that I was in a similar position to the one I was in three years ago. Over the last 8 weeks, I have been averaging 80+ miles/week. Over the last 5, I have been closer to 90. The week before the half marathon I hit 102 miles and I reached 85 with the race this past week. I did not back off my workouts. I did a 24 mile long run the Sunday before with 4 miles at 5:52 pace. I would think that most folks going for a half marathon PR would not crank out 24 miles the weekend before their goal race.

With all of that being said, the goal for the race was to run 1:17ish and set myself up for a chance to dip into the 1:16s. The idea was that, if fresh, I could run 1:15 so going out at 1:17 pace would be on the conservative side. I went out a little ambitiously in the first mile in 5:45. That is 1:15 pace. I should have been about 10 seconds slower. I ran the second mile in 5:55. I was back on track and ran 5:55s for the next two miles after that. I then ran a couple of 6:00-flat miles for 5 and 6 so came through 6 miles in about 35:40ish. At this point, I felt like I was at mile 20 of a marathon. I feel like a slammed headfirst into the marathon wall. My legs were exhausted. I started to churn out 6:00-6:10 miles. Miles 8 and 9 feature some decent uphills so I split closer to 6:10. Mile 10 was a little downhill and I ran a 5:58. I hit 10 miles in 60:05. I would sustain that pace over the last 5k of the race which flattened out a bit. Mile 11 was a 6:0x, mile 12 was a painful 6:1x, and then 13 was a 5:56. I worked hard the last mile because I did not want to slip into the 1:19s. My calves were burning and my legs were starting to cramp like they might towards the end of a marathon. I crossed the line in 1:18:52- 6:01 pace overall.

I wish I hit a half marathon with a two week taper with the kind of mileage and workouts I have been doing lately. This run basically served as a marathon simulator. I am hoping, that if I go through half marathon in 1:19-1:20 in three weeks, that it feels a whole lot more comfortable on tapered legs. That seems pretty reasonable to me. I still have not run a half marathon that clearly indicates sub-2:40 marathon shape. My workouts have certainly indicated that. I have done a lot of work honing in on 6:00, especially on tired legs. Twin Cities is the goal race in three weeks and I'm going to be ready to roll.