29 replies to this topic

[tayls]

I am planning on doing my first half marathon in April (5 weeks away). I have having difficulty in deciding what time to target doing it in. My number 1 aim is to break 2 hours. I think i could do that now. I have just run a 48.30 for 10 kms 2 weeks ago. I want to set a target that is realistic but not to easy so i can push myself but not to hard so it is unachievable. Based on that 10k time and the fact that i am doing some solid training atm what time should i aim for the half marathon. The course fwiw is quite flat.

[Donny]

Being your first , I would just enjoy it , take in the atmosphere and concentrate on finishing.

Saying that , for my first last year , I just wanted to finish under 2 hrs.
I ran at a pace I was comfortable with and finished with 7 mins to spare.

Enjoy your first.

[WallyGator]

Try the McMillan running calculator.

McMillan Running Calculator

[thomo]

You need to give people details of your training.

For example last year I rang a 54+ 10km and ran a sub 2:01:00 half marathon.

Given that limited information you could smash 2:00:00, McMillan gives a sub 1:48.

However, it is dependent if 10km was the event your training was targeting. Then the half marathon time could be a major stretch.

[swaggerer]

48:30 ten k works out at 1:47:55 for 21.1 with McMillian. This assumes that you are doing adequate training.

It easy to get sucked into a fast pace in a race so make sure you hold to your plans. I wouldn't go any faster than 5:10 per k; settle in then hold. I find 14 to 18k the hardest part. You really have to apply yourself mentally. Once you are heading for home (16k on) just go hard as you can. Respect the distance but don't be overly careful. If you muck up, you can always try again.

Congrats on your sub 50 min ten k and best wishes with the 21.1 k race.

Cheers,
Ronnie.

[Running Angel]

Given your 10k time you should easily beat 2 hours. My 10k PB is 53 mins and I ran a 1.56 half, although having said that I have run quite a few halfs in the past. Be careful with your pacing, don't go out too hard and save something for the final 5k. Also try and run the distance in training beforehand if possible, but at a much slower pace, to give you confidence that you can do the distance. If I was you I would be aiming for somewhere between 1.50-1.55

Good luck!

[AndyP]

WallyGator, on Mar 10 2010, 12:02 PM, said:

Try the McMillan running calculator.

McMillan Running Calculator

Ditto. This is a good rough guide for a goal. Of course, you need to customise the target for your own situation.

[mutk]

tayls, on Mar 10 2010, 11:51 AM, said:

I am planning on doing my first half marathon in April (5 weeks away). I have having difficulty in deciding what time to target doing it in. My number 1 aim is to break 2 hours. I think i could do that now. I have just run a 48.30 for 10 kms 2 weeks ago. I want to set a target that is realistic but not to easy so i can push myself but not to hard so it is unachievable. Based on that 10k time and the fact that i am doing some solid training atm what time should i aim for the half marathon. The course fwiw is quite flat.

G'day.

I did my first HM last year at the Gold Coast - July 2009. I did essentially a 6 month program all up, followed the Intermediate guide published at the Gold Coast Marathon web site.

In March 2009 I did a 10km race, and achieved my PB (Up until that moment) of 48:38.
I did no more racing until the HM in July. In the HM I did about 46 minutes for the first 10km of the HM, and finished in 1 hour 39 minutes. By my watch it was more like 1:38:58 or so though.

In the lead up I set three goals:

Ultimate: Under 100minutes
Challenging: 102 minutes
Satisfactory: 107 minutes.


You can google for 'Setting Half Marathon goals' and get lots of clues how to do that. BTW I am 45 this year, and was 43 when I did my HM last year. So as a general rule of thumb, IF you are training well, I don't see why you should not be able to set similar goals to what I did.

Good luck!!

[zandrsmum]

Hi tayls, I was in a similar position last year, ran a 48.50 10k and then a half in 1.51.xx. I found this challenging, I was aiming for sub 1.50 but at the end I knew I had done my best. Good luck with it, enjoy! K

[tayls]

Super advice thus far. I think based on it a sub 1.50 would be awesome. Maybe i should go for that and see how i go. Or is that to ambitious.

[walker1st]

110 is good introductory target, for the future aim for : 88, 66, 62 and 59 minutes

[clanrunner]

Go at a pace that feels comfortable both physically and mentally. Being too conservative won't be comfortable mentally, you'll start to get restless and it'll be tempting to try an unrealistically fast surge, and your run might becomea series of surges and lapses, which isn't good. Going too fast of course also has its problems.

You might not know until race day just what pace is going to feel right. It's one thing to work it out in training, but races are different. I always go faster in races than in training.

[Brick]

tayls, on Mar 10 2010, 04:19 PM, said:

Super advice thus far. I think based on it a sub 1.50 would be awesome. Maybe i should go for that and see how i go. Or is that to ambitious.

Yep aim for 1:50 and if you still feel really good at 16-17kms then pick it up a little bit.
I don't think you will end up picking it up much in the last 4-5kms and still end up with a superb PB for your first HM.

And if it goes a little bit wrong at the end of the race you will learn lots as well.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

[DoggieDoctor]

Yep, sub 1:50. All great advice above. Listen to swaggerer and brick, they have a wealth of experience. Of course, you will have to change your MM goal. Anything less than 1:50 for the HM and you are going to be well under 4hr for MM (unless it's hot!).

Good luck for April and enjoy.

DD

[NKOTB]

Hi,
I am also in a similar situation of running my first HM in May 2010. I ran a 10K fun run Sept 2009 with a time of 52 mins.
I have since continue running mainly 6-14 km this year. I have stepped up to 19km last weekend. In my training run I have run
about 50 mins for the first 10k in a couple of my longer runs. I am aiming for 1:45 (a bit ambitious as the HM is only 7 weeks away). I am interested to hear Mutk's view of where the improvements were derived from eg the long runs. I think your effort was terrific and result were fantastic.
I have a training program of sort , best describe as a hybird of 2-3 training programs but essentially a five days per week commitment with an easy week in between. I will be doing a couple of runs longer the HM distance at a steady pace which I can maintain (5:10-5:30 per km).

It is interesting to use McMillan calculator to project an estimate of my HM. I think it is a good guide.

One of my other main goal is a 10K 45mins this year. I hope this HM will lay a good foundation for me.

NKOTB.

[mutk]

In my case, steady regular training, and three months no alcohol were major contributions I think I experienced most speed improvement during the 'taper' period. For example, during training, I never managed to achieve the pace I ended up doing in the HM race. So I think during training, you maintain a work load, and gain fitness improvements during training that are not really seen until the taper period and the race.


So a good training shedule that takes into account the tear down/build up cycle your body needs to build fitness. ie work/recover cycles. And _taper_ .

Cheers

[Melruns]

Hi tayls, I found the McMillan pretty accurate with about the same times as yours when I did my first HM. My best 10k had been about 49 min. I had an A and B goal of 2.00 and 1.52 and ended up with 1.48.xx. Just try and do steady 5.05-5.12s all the way. Good luck!

[NKOTB]

Thanks mutk. I was kind of expecting that your long substained preparation is the main reason but it is good to find out that
_taper_ is crucial. I make sure I'll be following this advice. To be honest, with my training time now I am not optimistic about achieving my goal but I have also heard a lot about "feeling good" on race day and hence do a good time. Your thoughts though have given me renew boost.

BTW, good luck to you tayls and I think you will break the 2 hours easily with the right _taper_.
Keep us up to date with your progress.

[tayls]

The big race is on Sunday. I going for a sub 1hr 50. I think it is going to be difficult but i may as well set a hard goal, i havent done all this training for nothing. As far as tactics go i am just going to keep it simple rather than trying to back end it or anything like that. I am going for 5.13 mins/km which will get me the 1.50. I am just going to hold it as long as i can. Hows that sound. If anyone has better ideas feel free to let me know. I am preparing for pain and am going to love it.

[Goughy]

You're about my pace, and I'd say target a sub 1:50 and see how it goes. But don't underestimate the importance of the k's in the legs. I've done my two hm's without anywhere near enough long runs, and upping the k's way too fast and the body has given up within like 15, and I end up limping home. Last one was easily looking at sub 1:50 to all of a sudden at 16k have my body hit a wall and finish in 1:55. Was still happy with that, but I new why I didn't get the time I thought during the race I was capable of. Get those long runs under your belt and you'll be fine.

[tayls]

Goughy, on Apr 8 2010, 01:54 PM, said:

You're about my pace, and I'd say target a sub 1:50 and see how it goes. But don't underestimate the importance of the k's in the legs. I've done my two hm's without anywhere near enough long runs, and upping the k's way too fast and the body has given up within like 15, and I end up limping home. Last one was easily looking at sub 1:50 to all of a sudden at 16k have my body hit a wall and finish in 1:55. Was still happy with that, but I new why I didn't get the time I thought during the race I was capable of. Get those long runs under your belt and you'll be fine.

That will be the big question Goughy, have i done the k's, i guess i will find out. If anything i may be short on k's but hey i will give it a crack.

[mutk]

tayls, on Apr 8 2010, 12:22 PM, said:

The big race is on Sunday. I going for a sub 1hr 50. I think it is going to be difficult but i may as well set a hard goal, i havent done all this training for nothing. As far as tactics go i am just going to keep it simple rather than trying to back end it or anything like that. I am going for 5.13 mins/km which will get me the 1.50. I am just going to hold it as long as i can. Hows that sound. If anyone has better ideas feel free to let me know. I am preparing for pain and am going to love it.

Good luck with the race. If it helps any, I set myself the tried and true 'Ultimate, Challenging and Satisfactory' goals in the lead up to my first half.


For me they were:

Ultimate 100 minutes
Challenging 102
Satisfactory 107

At the time I set those goals my best 10km was 48:38 BTW, but that was done some 4 months before and so I had done some of my best training ever in the mean time... And I did the first 10km in 46min or something in the half marathon

Also, the half seems to be one of those longer races where you can do the equivalent distance in a training run and still be ok. Novice full marathon training typically has you going into your first marathon without ever having done that distance before.

So I took some confidence that during my training I had managed to do the distance at least a few times. I reasoned that I knew what to expect, how much it would hurt and generally when I would start to hurt. And thankfully I was slightly wrong - In general I had been hitting a wall at around 15km mark in training for my first HM, and then had to run in a 'survival mode' for the rest. In the race I hit the same wall around 18km mark and so surviving for the last part was much more pleasant than expected!!

Cheers

[AndrewFF53]

Only just found this post, I have a Half M in coming up very soon.

I have tried to do some testing and get a bit objective in determining a target time for the half.

Basically I prepared a graph of my pace and heart rate, then based on a two half marathon's I did 6 months ago and 12 months ago I plotted the heart rate that I know I have sustained for a half to determine the range of pace that I could run my up coming half at.

More detailed information is;

To determine the graph of pace and heart rate, (which I did a couple of days ago) I did a warm up session then started running at about recovery run pace, then every 600m (without any recovery) I increased the pace slightly, about 10sec per km, I did this until I was running at close to my limit, then I started to gradually slow down again. On the slow down phase I kept recording my pace and HR, however I was slowing down about 20sec per km. Otherwise you finish up running a lot of km!

Then on the X axis of a graph I plotted my pace and HR on the Y-axis, to make the plot not too cluttered I plotted the average data for every 200m.

To check that the data was representative, I then plotted on my pace and HR from some recent runs, both recovery, and quicker runs. I was surprised how the points from these other runs basically laid over the top of the other data.

Now that I have a current 'performance' curve for myself I needed to set some limits as to what HR I could expect to maintain over the half. To do this I went back 6 months and 12 months to two previous half marathons that I had run. Neither of these halfs I had actually done much serious training for. On one of them I had treated it as an honest training run where I pushed a bit but not an all out effort. I used my average HR for this half to set the lower pace that I should be able to maintain for the half. The other half that I had run in the last twelve months, I again had not done any specific training for, and for that half I decided to push very hard that whole way and just 'hang on'. I have taken my average HR from that event to define the max HR which I should be able to maintain, then found the corresponding pace from the 'performance curve'.

In addition to this for my not so long run now due to tapper on this Sunday, I will do a warm up then do 7km at my target pace to confirm / reassess my target pace for the following week.

To triple check, the week before I did a variation of Yasso 800's. Which some people have used to predict marathon time as an indicator of my potential HM time. This test also gave a similar result.

Despite all of the above, I know it comes down to how you feel on the day. It can seem like a long way, and a lot can happen, whilst the above is only a guide, I am going to focus on this work during the Half so that my mind as well as my body can (hopefully) stay on course. If it does it should be a PB.

Cheers

Andrew

[Bellthorpe]

Wow, how complication!

Just to come at it from a different direction, what are your current 10k or other race times?

[AndrewFF53]

Bellthorpe, on Apr 8 2010, 08:21 AM, said:

Wow, how complication!

Just to come at it from a different direction, what are your current 10k or other race times?

Yes, that would be much easier, however I have not done any other 'race' distances other than the Half for a very long time, so they would not be representative of my current condition.

After the last half, which was 6 months ago, I have been much more focused on getting my runs in etc. I also tried to be more balanced with my training and have included weight training to build leg strength and training to build up my core strength.

Andrew

[Olmy]

Heh, you must be a spreadsheet junkie like me! I love to crunch numbers and analyze data. Sounds like a bit of work but it would have been interesting to do. I would be insterested in seeing the graph you created if you felt like posting it up.

[AndrewFF53]

Olmy, on Apr 8 2010, 09:50 PM, said:

Heh, you must be a spreadsheet junkie like me! I love to crunch numbers and analyze data. Sounds like a bit of work but it would have been interesting to do. I would be insterested in seeing the graph you created if you felt like posting it up.

Yes, I guess I am a bit of a spreadsheet junkie...I will clean it up a bit tonight then I will pm it to you.

Cheers

Andrew

[tayls]

Well i thought i would post how the run went. I was not the best of days, my arrival at the course was met with a downpour of rain forcing me to stay in the car until it passed just 20 minutes before the start. Along with the rain there was a strong north westerly wind blowing. All in all pretty bad conditions. But if anything the wind would be with in the last part of the run, something to look forward to.

As you may or may not know my target was to break 1 hour 50 for my first half marathon. My tactic if you like was to run even 5.13 km splits for as long as i could which would get me there. With the help of my Garmin GPS i was able to keep track of this (couldnt have done it without it.). So the race got underway and i settles into my pace pretty quick which was good. In the first few k's a lot of people seemed to pass me, but i stuck to my pace. By the 5k mark i was 19 seconds down on my time which was ok as i felt good but it was only early. The 6 to 12 k section of the run was going to be tough, right in to the teeth of the strong wind, and it was just that. But nearing half way i felt ok and by 12k in i was still only 28 seconds down on my target time.

Around half way i was still feeling good and as the effect of the wind diminished as we slowly turned i knew i had to lift the pace a bit as i was starting got feel it a bit. 13 to 18 k's i managed i managed to pick up 7 seconds only leaving me down 21 seconds on my goal time. By this stage it was starting to hurt and by the 19 k mark i was nearly gone. A bit of a long hill (not really that big but at this stage of the race it felt like it) really took it out of me and with the end in sight i thought i was gone. But i gave myself a kick in the but and to my surprise i pushed through it. With 2k to go i had to make up 26 seconds.

The strong wind i had battled earlier then became my friend. As the finish was near the wind was now stronger and it practically picked me up and pushed me along. A 20th km of 4.52 had me getting close and with the next k done in 4.30 i was near the end. With nothing left and the watch saying 1.49 (no seconds on display which was not helpful) i was going as hard as i could. I hit the line with nothing left and nearly couldnt stand up. But as the official time of 1 hour 49 minutes and 57 seconds was the result i was rapt. I had given it my all and got there.

So how is a half marathon for a first timer? Bloody hard, but satisfying. I have never been sorer as i was yesterday, but it was all worth it. Now to beat that time.

[Bellthorpe]

Well done tayls!

Quote

In the first few k's a lot of people seemed to pass me, but i stuck to my pace

That's hard to do, and a failure to do so is the undoing of many a seasoned racer.

A well planned, well executed race of which you can be proud.

[mutk]

tayls, on Apr 12 2010, 11:03 AM, said:

So how is a half marathon for a first timer? Bloody hard, but satisfying. I have never been sorer as i was yesterday, but it was all worth it. Now to beat that time.

Brilliant run, well done !!

Cheers