Tag: half marathon

May 8, 2015

Taking What I Can…

There has been an awful lot of wind the last weeks around here.
I don’t mind pounding against nature now and then, but after a while I’ve had it none the less.

Last weeks I’m running to commute (detailed post later :-)) and one of the advantages is now that I can always take a detour home without really touching the family time.

Wednesday I had 90 minutes in Zone 2 planned, but with a wind of 12ms/s (with bursts up to 14) and feeling tired I just stayed in and called it an early night (21:15 lights out :o)

Yesterday evening the wind was a lot less and after consulting The Girlfriend I agreed to do my 90 minutes then.

It was a while since I did a Zone 2 training on asphalt, the last weeks I always went running on the beach, so I didn’t know what my pace would be.
Turns out I managed to do a 4:45min (per km mind you) pace even with my backpack.

So with the lovely weather I decided to add an extra 10 minutes and got a semi-speedy half marathon for my training.
As you can see … I’m taking what I can 🙂

March 30, 2015

Race Recap: Half Marathon Lier

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My second half marathon ever and first half marathon as a pacer. As written before, my brother wanted to run a 90min half marathon and asked me to pace him.
Weather conditions weren’t a great help, actually far from it…

Hour by hour forecast Past Sunday

The Half marathon consisted of 2 laps.
With wind from the southwest this meant we would get strong headwind halfway through the lap, make a turn of about 180° and have the wind in our backs.

The route of the half marathon

So after a 1.5 hour drive, a 20min wait and a 15min warm-up we felt ready to start.
With around 500 contestants it wasn’t a “fighting-for-your-spot” situation at the starting line, but after one round at the track we bottlenecked into twists and turns in Lier center, which meant watching out for other runners’ heels etc.
All in all not the best route they could lay out in my opinion, but we made the best off it.

We needed a 4:16min/km pace on average, but with all the turns it was hard to run consistent.
After about 3km we noticed we set out too fast, but with a 4:12 average we surely did not burn ourselves out at the start.

After the city centre came the feared part with head wind.
It was brutal… I tried to catch as much wind as possible, so my brother could keep fresh, but our timing dropped to about 4:30. Luckily it was only 2 kilometers.
After that we made the turn (up a small hill D:) and had the wind in our backs.
Time to breath, fill the longs, take a sip of water, recuperate and make up for lost seconds.
All the way to the half way point the wind didn’t really bother us anymore, so high hopes to finish strong later.

Second lap went the same way. First part “too fast”, but I knew we would need the seconds later on, so it was no luxury.
The windy part was worse than the first time, strong gusts were added and a heavy pouring as well, so I was really glad when we could leave it behind.
Once we had the wind in our backs it was time to recuperate again, but I could see that my brother’s energy was draining.
It was time to get everything out of him that I could get out of him!

The last kilometer he was struggling a lot, so I kept motivating him, because I knew it would be a close call.
Breathing heavily we went over the finish line in 1:30:19 according to official timing.
Our watch said 1:29:58 so my brother was happy. And he happy = me happy.

I had some juice left, which makes me really happy with my current form.
Pacing at “high velocity” isn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but it was fun!

Me and my brother

Together over the finish line

December 30, 2014

Pacing a Half Marathon?

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Browsing through the blogs I’m following I’m reading a lot of resolutions (which I made myself too offcourse) and friends and family are obviously doing the same thing.

My brother ran his first half marathon this year and everything went way better than expected (Hoped for 5 min/km, ended up at 4:40 min/km which gave him a 1:38 finish time).
After some doubting about a marathon he decided to stick to HM for now and already signed up for one at the end of March.
At Christmas day he asked me to pace him.

I was honoured off course, but didn’t know if I could pull it off. My record dates 1.5y back (which is a lifetime considering my running career) and is ~1:36. My brother aims for 1:30 now.

I’m really considering this, because I think I can pull it off, but just to be sure I’ll test myself in the distance asap.
Last year I paced a marathon for a friend and that was in a relaxing pace for me, which meant I had enough breath to spare to say some encouraging words, With a 4:20 min/km (bit under 7min/mile) I don’t know if I’ll manage.

But see, the year hasn’t even started yet and opportunities already arise.

Have you ever paced a Half Marathon? How was it? I sure could use some pointers!