Modesto With a new PR!

A year ago I ran my second half-marathon and improved my time from 2 hours 7 minutes to 1 hour 54 minutes, an improvement of 13 minutes.  I knew that I couldn't expect that continued level of improvement, I didn't realize that it would take a year before I would improve on that time.

I've learned a few things since that day.

1. Don't just keep training after such a surge in improvement. Actually, I don't think it was the continued training in running, but rather a change in gym equipment that resulted in the worst back injury I had suffered from in years.  It set my training back a lot.
2. You don't set PR's running in warmer weather.  I just missed a sub-2 hour at "Water-to-Wine" in August, and I'm pretty sure part of that was the warmer conditions.
3. Don't run a half-marathon in jeans.  I did run a sub-2 in my second half-marathon in Monterey, barely.
4. Have a training plan with an end goal, and don't run more than 2 half-marathons a year.  I've been terrible about following training programs.  I've fixed into my head to run one interval day, one tempo day, and one long-run day a week without actually focusing on any specific improvement for the training sessions.  Oh, I do pretty good on all of it, but intervals.  I finally focused on following my a training program for my second attempt at Modesto,but only the last 6 weeks, but I really believe it paid off.  By trying to run 4 half-marathons last year, I missed one half-marathon, and didn't really have a enough time to properly train for any of the others.
5. Do more research.  I've gathered some more books on half-marathon training plans.  I plan to follow one of these fairly religiously for my next half-marathon in Merced.
6. Work on speed.  I have some 5k training plans now.  I still haven't run a full marathon because at this point I don't want to bother unless I have a shot at Boston, silly but true.  I think too many people focus on distance, getting the marathon off a bucket list instead of running it at their best possible speed.  I could be wrong, but I plan to mesh speed training for a shorter distance this spring with training for a longer run in the fall to see if I can unlock sub-8s for my running endeavors.  I had some real pay-offs in speed training for this year in Modesto, building up running efficiency.

So I backed off on the total miles somewhat.  Oh, I put in a 16.9 mile long run, and managed a couple of 60+ mile weeks to prep for Modesto 2016, but no 19 milers, or 76+ mile weeks.  I backed off of a 10 mile tempo run to a 7 mile tempo run to see if I could hold the pace that was recommended by my training book.  I moved to some strength training intervals for 3, 2, 1.5 and 1 miles for 6 miles total each.  And, I properly tapered for this attempt in Modesto.

The night before I carbed up on sea food pasta, and kept my wine intake moderate. I remembered my new Soffe shorts. I hoped for a smaller beginning crowd as they had moved the 5k event to start 20 minutes after the full and half marathons.  But it was more crowded than the previous year.  Still my first mile wasn't much off of last year at a 9:20.  After that it was mostly 8:20s and 8:30s.  I ran the rest stops, doing my best to splash water and gatorade into my mouth as I ran.  This was a departure from my first Modesto PR and subsequent races where I walked the rest stops.  I did have one port-a-potty break, number 1 only thankfully, but maybe not needed, and definitely cost me in time.

The final result was a 1 hour 51 minute and 2 second time, more than 3 minutes faster than the previous attempt.  I had hoped to break 1h50m, but will save that for Merced, I hope.  

My plan is to stick with the actual training plan, starting the day I get back from vacation in June.  This is exactly 18 weeks which is the training plan length.  I will train for 1h48m.  

I have a 5k in May as alluded to above.  I hoped to hold a sub-8minute mile pace as I break into a sub-25 minute 5k.  I really only have 6 weeks to train though - much shorter than the 12 week programs I should be following.  Oh well.