It's reasonable to expect that I carefully planned and created a structured training regimen for my first half marathon in 20 years. That certainly would have been the smart thing to do and what I'd recommend to anyone else. But, on this occasion, my ego and excitement got the better of me and I signed up for it on a whim...about a week before the start.
Punch first, questions later - that's always been my downfall!
So there I was, on the start line at 2am in Manila, with a weekly average mileage of around 30km and having only run a maximum of 15km at any one time. I had no expectations of running a decent time, I just really didn't want to go off too fast and blow up.
Let's break down how it went...
A few KM into the race settling into around 4:40/km pace
Finish Time:- 1 Hour and 34 Minutes
So I came across the finish line in 4th place with a time of 1 hour and 34 minutes which I was pretty happy with considering the lack of training and preparation.
I did some research and found the following benchmarks for males in my age group:-
- Average: 1:55–2:10
- Good: 1:40–1:45
- Very Good / Competitive: 1:25–1:35 👈
- Excellent / Regional-level: 1:17–1:24
- Elite Masters: Sub-1:15
The time is in the very good/competitive band for my age and apparently puts me in the top ~15–20% of all male finishers in their 40s (source: trust me bro).
However, my stretch goal is to become an England masters athlete. And the minimum standard for the half marathon definitely humbles me:-
This means that to meet the minimum standards to put on an England vest and run for my country, I'd need to run the half marathon in 1 hour 17 minutes and 30 seconds.
That's bloody rapid.
This all serves to remind me that I have a ton of hard work to put in over the next 5 years to even give myself the slightest chance of representing.
Positive Takeaways
I Didn't Blow Up 💪
Half marathon pace analysis from Strava
The biggest positive from the race is that I showed no signs of blowing up. I aimed to go out at 4:40/km and that was the exact pace of my slowest km across the whole race.
Also notice that my two fastest kms were the first and the last. I actually think that I had more in the tank and that I could potentially get down to around 1 hour 30 mins with my current fitness level.
I Did Minimum Mileage in Preparation
The red arrow shows when I ran the half marathon. In the lead up to the race, you can see that I was probably only averaging 35km or so per week. Most athletes running sub 1 hour 20 minutes in the half marathon are doing around 60-80km per week.
The guy who came 5th, about a minute behind me, had been doing 100km weeks for about 8 weeks prior to the race and at least 60km per week for the previous 8 months of the year. It's a good sign that I'm able to somewhat match his performance while only doing a fraction of his mileage.
Here's why this is important:- It means that I can still increase my mileage (one of the most important variables to change for getting faster) a lot when I inevitably plateau from my current stimulus. It's a good sign that I'm reacting positively from a relatively small training stimulus and that I may have decent potential for improvement when I increase the volume in the future.
It's like weightlifting: To gain strength consistently, you're constantly trying to find the minimum amount of volume that elicits an adaptation. The worst thing you can do is up the volume too quickly and leave yourself with nowhere to go. I'm currently in the running equivalent of basic 5x5 progression, and I want to milk that as long as possible.
Equivalent Times at Other Distances
The VDOT running calculator is a useful and pretty accurate tool that can be used to show the equivalent race performances for the time you achieve:-
From the chart above, you can see that my half marathon time of 1 hour 34 mins is equivalent to 20:28 in the 5k. I've already previously run 19 minutes and 35 seconds for the 5k so it shows that I'm currently weaker at longer distances than at the faster, shorter races.
The Plan from Here
My current training schedule looks like this:-
- Monday:- Weightlifting upper body
- Tuesday:- Threshold workout
- Wednesday:- Easy run
- Thursday:- Interval workout
- Friday:- Weightlifting Lower body
- Saturday:- Easy run
- Sunday:- Long run
Some days I'll switch out an easy run for a rest day or an extra weightlifting day. A lot depends on how I feel.
I have another 5km race scheduled this weekend. Garmin and Strava both predict that I can run around 19:00, which would be great, especially in the Asian heat.
I'm also planning a 25km mountain run in a few weeks time 🙂
I'm enjoying this new running obsession and feeling fitter than ever so I'm excited to continue the adventure!
Sub 19 mins for the 5k - here we come!
