3M Half Marathon 2:07:55

Overview

Ran the 3M half Marathon on Jan 21st on a cold cloudy day. The half marathon is mostly downhill, with some moderate hills. This is the second time I have run this course, so there were not too many surprises. The course starts at stonelake blvd at gateway cinemas and for a good 6-8 miles heads south along Mopac. After running alongside Mopac, we turn east on 45th street for about 1.5 miles of moderate hills and then again head south downhill approaching the finish near capitol. The last half mile has a couple of rolling hills as surprises !  This race is known for runners to try and hit their PR, and more than 50% of runners finish within 2 hours. 

Training:

I trained with Austin Fit group starting in Fall in September, training a total of 5 months. I was training with the sub 10min/miles group and we ran with 10min run 1min walk approach. Initial weeks were hot and humid and I started with two weekday runs and one weekend run routine mixing with sone boxing class and strength training. As we approached November I converted to 3 weekday run and one long run on weekend. For most parts I was consistent but had to adjust for vacations and travel. Overall the long 5 month training program afforded to adjust for missed days and my longest run was 11 mi
les about 4 weeks out. I missed one 12 mile planned run two weeks out due to a calf strain, but other than that I hit most of runs with reasonable consistency. 

Race

The race had temperatures of around 35F and was expected to be cloudy and possibly moderate frigid winds. I dressed in layers: one inner long sleeve compression, a long sleeve t-shirt, and a long sleeve sweatshirt and gloves. For bottom I had an inner compression undergarment, a lightweight full length thermal pant, and a short on top. For my head, I wore a headband covering my ears, top of it I wore a beanie and visor cap. For my face I wore sunglasses and a scarf (neck gator) to cover my face. I was fully prepared for more cold if needed and was warm. 

The race start was at 7:30am, so I woke up at 5am and had a slice of toast with peanut butter and half a banana. Previous day I had a sandwich and PBJ sandwiches, as well as drank gatorade and coconut water to hydrate. During the race I carried a water bottle with electrolyte water, salt tablets and GU jel. 

 

We reached the race start at around 6:45am and I straight headed to the porter potty's and then headed to the race area hanging out with 2:00 hour pace group. The race started on time and race day weather was cold but no wind. I felt good during at the start and was easily keeping pace with the 2:00 hour pace group and staying ahead of them. For the 4 miles I did not have trouble keeping pace, but had to stop twice to tie my shoe laces and removing my head coverings, neck gator and gloves. As the distance piled on around mile 5 I felt my cardio becoming a bit heavy and removed my outer third t-shirt layer and I had to start taking walk breaks every mile. I fell behind the 2:00 min mile group as I wanted my cardio to recover and by mile 9 as we turned on 45th street for some hilly portion i felt a bit more cardio heavy. I took a walk break and had my GU gel and that actually helped me finish the 45th with just one additional walk break. I wanted to conserve energy for the downhill portion. As we turned south and downhill on Duval street, I coasted for some while but still took walk break on mile 11 and mile 12. We passed through the UT campus and then toward the last 1/2 a mile there were two small hills. Each hill i ran half and walked half. I was happy to see the finish line and was able to run through without too much pain.  

Post Race

I finished the race being just sore in my calf muscles but overall was satisfied and in general good mood and pain free otherwise. I met Ingrid and Isha at the end, and we walked 6 blocks to the car. We got home and I had some tea and then took a nap. Overall, I had just normal soreness and no injury and am satisfied with training and the race. 

Notes for next race 

What went well 

• The training went well and the long program helps accommodate vacation and missing a few runs 
• Taking electrolyte water, and salt tablets was a good idea 
• Pre-race nutrition went well 
• Strength training helped avoid any back pain

What could be better 

• Need better glute strengthening to keep knees aligned 
• My legs were sore and felt very tight, and need yoga to build flexibility 
• Need to run in my cardio zone, for most of the training and the race I was running at 180 beats which is zone 5 and felt cardio heavy. I need to run in zone 4 and wear a heart rate monitor
• SPI belt is not working and need to find other alternatives
• Need to work on getting even better at mixing in strength training and stability training. 

Austin Half Marathon 2022

 Finished the Half Marathon with a time of 2:12:21 , pace 10:06

Bib 14301

Splits

5K : 31:21, pace 10:03
10K: 1:01:19, pace 9:50
15K: 1:32:19, pace 9:52
20K: 2:05:43 pace 10:04
13.1mi: 2:12:21 pace 10:06

Strava SPLIT time Range:
Mile  Pace

1        10:11

2        10:16

3        9:46

4        9:41

5        9:29

6        9:15

7        9:34

8        9:48

9        10:14

10      10:10

11      10:30

12      10:19

13      10:53

Ranking

 Overall: 3496/7165
 Division (M40-44): 227/369
 Gender Ranking: 2066/3456

Austin half marathon has a 3 mile ascent first 3 miles, then there is 3 miles downhill to auditorium shores. The next 4 miles are mostly flat with just one short steep hill at mile 8.  Mile 10 has a gradual ascent up and then mile 11 has a downhill followed by a 200 meter steep hill to mile 12. The final mile has one short hill to mile 12.5 and then its all gradual downhill to the finish line. Overall the course is a collection of rolling hills and its considered challenging but manageable. 

Plan:The plan was simple, don't overthink and run by feel and pace it. The weather was cool at 41F and was going to warm to early 50s by end of the race, with mostly cloudy sky and a tad humid. The plan to layer up and remove the layers in the first 1-2 miles and use disposable gloves to throw away, and a disposable top 3rd layer. Water breaks were plentiful and plan was to start sipping water after 10K every 2 miles and take gu tells as needed. Overall strategy was to maintain momentum and pace, just being mindful of not going too hard at any time and enjoying the race.

What went well: Ran as per feel and focused on starting well and keeping the momentum. Took layers of clothes but removed them promptly as temp increased. Took water breaks as planned but took only one GU Jell t mile 11, (original plan was take on mile 6 as well) since I was a bit full and did not feel like eating. I never chased anyone and ran my own race and did not get bothered if people were overtaking me!

What could have been better:  Two nights before I had some medium spicy food from Tarka, and unintentionally got tummy issues and had to take imodium on the day of race. I need to be mindful of food and not get into bad eating habits. I also need to revisit options for base layer, as the race was so packed that even with 41F temp, I felt hot after 3 miles and had just base layer on (tight half sleeve), maybe better to wear tight sleeveless and wear arm sleeves that can be removed. 

Overall experience on race day:  Race start was supposed to be at 7:00 am and my pace group was at 7:10am. I took early meal (peanut butter and jam sandwich  and chai cup) at 4:45am. We decided to go to the race as a family and got out of the house a bit late at 6am and then had to hunt for parking at 6:30am and that meant we had to park a bit far and i had to half jog to the start line and got there just 5 mins before at 6:55am. I got enough time to do some warmups and got into my corral but there was so much crowd that instead of starting with 10min/mi pace i started a couple of pace groups behind and started my run at around 7:15am. I was a bit nauseated due to maybe too many layers or tummy issues, so after 5 mins of running i ditched my gloves and removed my head beanie and then in 1 mile i threw my top layer (layer # 3) off to the side. There on the race felt good and i felt i was running at good cadence and as per my training runs and did not feel tired. After 5K mark I removed my 2nd layer and tied around my waist and felt even better. I met Ingrid and Isha at around the 10K mark and gave them high 5s and also left my phone, and all my extra clothes and head beanie with them and ran the race light with just the base layer (tight half t-shirt). The race day was quite perfect weather and it was a great day to run. I originally planned to eat a gu jell at 10K mark, but I was a bit bloated so i skipped it and sipped on at water stops. At mozarts after the turn up Mile 10, I was a bit surprised with how steep it felt to run up enfield road, even though I had ran it before in training, so I had take that a bit slower than I expected. Mile 11 to Mile 12 is the famous uphill, but its not as bad as the first half is downhill and then its a steep hill to end at Mile 12. The hills don't end there and there is one more small hill to get to mile 12.5 and then its all the way down hill to finish line; mile 12-13 took almost 11mins and I guess I was a bit tired but I finished the last 100 meters strong.  

Overall in the last week I had some niggles and pain around the hips and lower back and had to use ice, ibuprofen  and CBD based pain balm. But on day of the race I felt no pain before or after the race !

Key Takeaways: 

• Race pace is going to only as good as training pace. Its good to set expectations based on training.
• Training runs were mostly 11 min/mile first few weeks, after making some changes i got faster to around 10:10 min/mile during last couple of weeks and race did I did 10:06 min/mile  

• Training runs using Als ship 16-week plan was good, the sprints and hill runs helped a lot to get my cardio and legs ready 
• Training with wt lifting and CG was great initially but it got hard to get them in 4-6 weeks before the race week. 
• Running long miles helps to get used to the distance and it gets better as more 9+ mile runs are done. 
• Need to figure out how to do wt training till race day, this will prevent injuries in back and glutes and can also help increase pace
• Running at almost 187lbs is not easy and need to drop lbs and fat before starting the 16 weeks of training for better results. 
• Work on finding layering with sleeves -- its more modular and so more flexible. 
• Recovery compression sleeves for calves were very useful ! 

Milestone - 180lbs

Today after almost 2 months I have now managed to hit my next milestone, tipped the scale at 179lbs, waist size of 34.2 inches and body fat at 23.5% (137lbs lean mass, 42 lbs fat).  This is a major milestone as I have not below 180lbs in recent 2 years. It was a struggle and a hump to get it down below 180lbs. I was stuck at 181-182 lbs for almost a month. While I was stuck at that weight I did notice that my waist size continued to drop and saw that it was almost at 34".  Finally today, I saw that the weight also had dropped. Overall, I had to get back to logging my calories, and again watch for food intake, both total calories as well as things like salt, sugar and moderate my alcohol consumption. 

Now, onto next milestone of 175lbs, and waist size 34" !

Milestone - 185lbs

 Hit the first milestone of reaching 185lbs, and waist size of 35" and now body fat is around 24%.   This was done primarily by doing a combo of 5 workouts per week (3 CG bootcamps 2 runs), keeping calories intake under control , restricting salt, sugar and focusing on hitting some major macros and most IMPORTANTLY getting 8-9 hours of solid sleep. The sleep and rest aspect has been the key differentiator,  getting proper nice sleep,  I had to stop watching netflix, youtube etc in the night, no computer phone use couple of hours before bedtime, I sometimes would read a nice book to set the stage. Idea is to get mind calm and relaxed and then go to bed.   Rest, diet, exercise are three tripods of weight loss and fitness and all three need to be done to be successful. 

Post-pandemic Goal: 170lbs Waist 33" %fat < 20%

I have tipped the scale at 192lbs with %fat around 26% and waist size 36". 

We are facing the covid-19 pandemic since March and have been sheltering at home since then. Isha has been home and finished her school online and we have been working from home. She has also not been able to go to summer camp this year. Among all this I have been working out with bootcamp (CampGladiator) online video via Zoom. Been hitting 4-6 workouts and runs 1-2 times a week when its safe to run outside. This has helped me maintain my sanity and remain relatively in ok shape. However the pandemic has taken its toll, my blood pressure has spiked to 140/90 , normal is 120/80. To tackle this I have reduced all froms of salt intake and becoming mindful of food intake. This has also been challenging since Ingrids blood sugar came high to 5.7 which is pre-diabetic (should be below 5.6) and her Cholesterol crossed 200 first time in many years.  So we have made changes since mid-June and shopped better, buuying healthy low-salt/sugar bread and other items, more greens and veggies and cutting out all forms of snacks. 

Now its time to set a goal, and I have decided its time to get in shape and take charge of my health, pandemic be damned !   I want to reach a goal weight of 170 lbs, 33" waist, < 20% body fat by December. That means I need to knock off 22lbs of wt at about 4lbs a month, which means a 1lb per week. This is totally doable and I have done it several times in the past. I need to hit 3-4 bootcamps a week and 3x runs a week the next 6 weeks and really watch my diet (restrict to ~1800 calories). In particular need to moderate alcohol and in addition to monitoring macro nutrients need to lower salt and sugar intake. 

San Antonio Half Marathon 2:09:41

Finished the Half Marathon with a time of 2:09:41 , pace 9:53
Bib 12799

Splits
5K : 30:28, pace 9:49
6 mile: 58:10, pace 9:35
10 mile: 1:36:50, pace 9:41
13.1 mile: 2:09:41 pace 10:36

Strava SPLIT time Range:
mile 1-6: 9:15 - 9:39
mile 7 : 10:19
mile 8: 9:11
mile 9 : 10:05
mile 10 : 9:52
mile 11-13: 10:12 - 10:54 

Ranking

 Overall: 2171/10048
  Division (M40-44): 204/613
 Gender Ranking: 1345/4090

SA marathon has a 1mile ascent 5.5 to 6.5 mile , 8.5 to 9 and then 10.5 to 11. Then its mostly downhill to finish. None of the hills are too steep, it was a bit at mile 10.5 but nothing like Austin. Also the donwhill are gradual nothing too steep.

Plan: Start at good pace and get momentum, running by feel and not look at watch, try to get to first hill 5.5 and then run to 6.5 mile marker with decent time. Same strategy to run past hill at 8.5 and get to the next hill with good speed. Run to top of 11.5 and then coast the downhill to finish. Since the water breaks were every two miles, take water sips every stop and take gu jell at 4,8 and if felt like then also at 12 mile. Overall strategy: Start fast and get momentum, keep pace and do ok on steep hills (which were for short segments) and focus to get to 11.5 mile marker since rest was easy downhill.

What went well: Ran as per feel and focused on starting well and keeping the momentum. Took layers of clothes but removed them promptly as temp increased. Took GU Jells as per plan but not at 12 mile since I did not feel like it. Did not push too hard and kept some runners in sight but did not panic when I lost them.

What could have been better:  Overall things went as per training, no surprises. Maybe revisit layers of clothes and see if I can get sleeves that can be removed so i can layer downgrade nicely rather than different peices of clothing which makes it more rigid.

Overall experience on race day:  Race start was supposed to be at 7:15 am. I took early meal (peanut butter and jam sandwich and a banana) at 4am. Then got up at 5:15 and did some stretching and then got ready and too uber to get to race start at 6:15. I had some water in a bottle and sipped on it for 20 mins and took rest room break. Got into my corral start at 6:40. I went through my normal warmup routine and then got into line at 7am. Since i did not drink any more water i did not need restroom break till i got back to hotel room. Previous night i had light dinner so overall was feeling OK. This marathon took a bit longer to let all the corral go, it was 7:40am by the time i got my chance to run.  I started by run with a focus to start well and get some speed going and keep the gas peddle on while not pressuring by looking at the watch. At mile 5k i felt i had good speed and rythum (i felt i was going at 9 min mile but later results showed it was not).  Ran strong past the first elevations at mile 5.5-6.5. Felt strong to mile 10. After that I started getting a bit sore,  and running got a bit slower. At that point running past some more hill at 10.5 I just focused on not getting any sore muscles and finished the race without injury. At the finish line there were some foam rollers and I used those to get stretcehed out. It took an hour after race finish to get an uber and get back to hotel.  I was sore but I could still go out to seaworld and the next day i was sore but not injured !

Key Takeaways: 

• Race pace is going to only as good as training pace. Its good to set expectations based on training.
• Training runs were mostly 11 min/mile first few weeks, after making some changes i got faster to around 10 min/mile during last couple of weeks and race did I did 9:53 min/mile  

• Training with wt lifting was great since I did not get any injuries. 
• Two month of training is short time to go from running once a week for 4-5 miles to 4x week with increasing miles in the long runs.
• Need a pre-training prep time of running 3x week with strength training for 6 weeks or so ideally. 
• If want to run at target pace for race then need to plan both pre-training and training accordingly. 
• Work on finding layering with sleeves -- its more modular and so more flexible. 
• Look at recovering compression sleeves -- see if it actually helpful 
• Race week dont do any bootcamp , just do a couple of walks and lots of rest ! 

Injury Free training for San Antonio Half Marathon

See schedule table below for what was the run schedule.

Key points overall is that strength training with wt lifting, in particular for lower body (squats, deadlifts) are very useful to strengthen legs and avoid the injuries that were plaguing me last year (hamstring and calf strain).

Overall tips

1. Keep Friday as day off

2. Do lower body wt lifting , helps get strong legs and avoids injuries

3. Before every run, do dynamic warmup

4. After every run do cool down and stretching

5. For recovery sleep with pillow under legs

6. Fuel long runs by eating peanut butter toast and banana, during run eat gu jell every 3-4 miles

What can be done better next time: 

1. Prior to the 10 week training, get used to running 3 times a week (2-3 miles short runs and 4-5 mile long run) for 4-6 weeks. 

2. Keep strength training a regular activity for the entire year, specially during pre-training period to get overall stronger 

Definitions
Fartleks	5mins on/2mins off
Treadmill sprints	1min/1min off
Track Sprints	1000 meter repeats
Hills	Hilly course
Hill sprints	Sprint uphill, recover downhill
CG	Camp Gladiator bootcamp
UBD	upper body wt lifting
LBD	Lower body wt lifting
BOX	boxing class

Weeks Left	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Notes
11	23-Sep	24-Sep	25-Sep	26-Sep	27-Sep	28-Sep	29-Sep
	CG	UBD, 2mi	CG	LBD, 2mi		5mi	BOX	LBJ trail
10	30-Sep	1-Oct	2-Oct	3-Oct	4-Oct	5-Oct	6-Oct
	CG , 2mi treadmill recover	UBD, 3mi pace	CG	LBD, 2mi treadmill sprints		6mi	BOX	LBJ trail
9	7-Oct	8-Oct	9-Oct	10-Oct	11-Oct	12-Oct	13-Oct
	CG , 2mi treadmill recover	UBD, 3mi pace	CG	LBD, 2mi treadmill sprints		7mi	BOX	LBJ trail
8	14-Oct	15-Oct	16-Oct	17-Oct	18-Oct	19-Oct	20-Oct
	CG , 2mi treadmill recover	UBD, 4mi pace	CG	LBD, 3mi fartleks		8mi	BOX	LBJ trail
7	21-Oct	22-Oct	23-Oct	24-Oct	25-Oct	26-Oct	27-Oct
	CG , 2mi treadmill recover	UBD, 4mi pace	CG	LBD, 2mi treadmill sprints		8mi	BOX	Lake Austin Scenic Drive
6	28-Oct	29-Oct	30-Oct	31-Oct	1-Nov	2-Nov	3-Nov	Register for race if hit this goal
	CG , 2mi treadmill recover	UBD, 4.5mi pace	CG	LBD, 3mi hills		10mi	BOX	LBJ trail
5	4-Nov	5-Nov	6-Nov	7-Nov	8-Nov	9-Nov	10-Nov
	CG, 2mi track sprints	UBD, 4.5mi pace	CG	LBD, 3mi hills		10mi	BOX	Run to Mt Bonnel
4	11-Nov	12-Nov	13-Nov	14-Nov	15-Nov	16-Nov	17-Nov
	CG, 2mi track sprints	UBD, 5mi pace	CG	LBD, 3mi hills		5mi	BOX	LBJ trail
3	18-Nov	19-Nov	20-Nov	21-Nov	22-Nov	23-Nov	24-Nov
	5mi pace	CG	3mi hills	UBD, 2mi treadmill sprints		12mi	BOX	2mi lake austin and full LBJ trail
2	25-Nov	26-Nov	27-Nov	28-Nov	29-Nov	30-Nov	1-Dec
	CG	UBD, 3mi pace	CG	LBD, 2mi recover		5mi	BOX	LBJ trail
1	2-Dec	3-Dec	4-Dec	5-Dec	6-Dec	7-Dec	8-Dec
	CG	3mi recover		2mi walk/recover			San Antonio Race	Race week