Did a training hm in 1:34:00, what do I expect/aim for on race day?

I usually do my easy runs about 1:30-2:00 slower per mile slower than HM pace, so you're probably ready to go 1:12-1:16

No sorry, it wasn't a intentionally slow training run.

Just like running 13.1 miles, but without going flat out, and without 'race-day magic',

Perhaps I should have rephrased my question as how much can I expect from 'race-day magic'?

Ta.

xrunningcrazeegirlx wrote:

No sorry, it wasn't a intentionally slow training run.

Just like running 13.1 miles, but without going flat out, and without 'race-day magic',

Perhaps I should have rephrased my question as how much can I expect from 'race-day magic'?

Ta.

Unless you're running decent mileage, if you ran that close to race effort for a full 13.1 miles only 10 days before your race, there is a decent chance you just ran your best. Meaning, you may have enough lingering fatigue to affect your HM race.

Hopefully you'll recover quickly & find some race day magic.

And, for your future enjoyment of the sport, if you want to reach your potential, check out some popular training programs. I've never seen one suggest the kind of effort you just put in so close to race pace, for the full distance, so close to race day. There is a phrase "LEAVING YOUR RACE IN YOUR WORKOUT". Understand it, and avoid it.

Best of luck!

I think you should be able to break 1:40 on race day, maybe even sub 1:35

Jeff Albertson wrote:

I usually do my easy runs about 1:30-2:00 slower per mile slower than HM pace, so you're probably ready to go 1:12-1:16

What? That's quite a range in pace.

If he is running 7:10 pace, he will probably run 5:50-6:00 for a race the distance of a hm. That means he will be lucky to break 1 hour at 10 miles.

So, for argument sake, let's say he does 59:00 at 10 mi. He still has 3.1 miles to go, at probably 6 min pace.

I say he will not be anywhere close to 1:12. More like 1:17-1:19 if it's a good day and flat course. 1:20+ is it's a hilly course or bad weather day.

Your race day pace could very well be 7 flat, if you negative split. Assuming a flat course, I'd start at your training pace for the first couple of miles and see how it goes. Then, you can cut down to 7:07 or so for the next couple of miles and settle into a 7:05. If you feel good, start pressing on mile 9 and finish as hard as you can. If you go out too hard, you will die.

In my experience if you can do 1:34 and it's not very stressful, then you could run mid 1:20s for the race. That was my experience anyway. Go out at 6:25/mi and see how you hold up.

Wareagles wrote:

Jeff Albertson wrote:

I usually do my easy runs about 1:30-2:00 slower per mile slower than HM pace, so you're probably ready to go 1:12-1:16

What? That's quite a range in pace.

If he is running 7:10 pace, he will probably run 5:50-6:00 for a race the distance of a hm. That means he will be lucky to break 1 hour at 10 miles.

So, for argument sake, let's say he does 59:00 at 10 mi. He still has 3.1 miles to go, at probably 6 min pace.

I say he will not be anywhere close to 1:12. More like 1:17-1:19 if it's a good day and flat course. 1:20+ is it's a hilly course or bad weather day.

Sorry, I assumed xrunningcrazeegirlx was a female. Lucky I am not a journalist or I would probably get slapped with a fine for mixing up his gender.

My original estimates were based on my own experience.If I am running a 1:33 13 mile run 9 before a half marathon, I'm usually good for 5:30-5:45 pace on race day.

OP: clearly you lack experience and knowledge of your real fitness. You should have told us some of your recent PRs or something else we can use to guess your half marathon time. A single training run doesn't mean much because we don't know what your effort level was. Maybe you hardly run at all, and just completing 13.1 miles is a struggle. In that case, I wouldn't expect you to run much faster than 1:34 like you did in training. However, what many people here are saying is that you made ti sound like 1:34 was just a 13- mi easy run, in which case you could be capable of much faster considering that an average runner's half marathon pace is significantly faster than their easy run pace.

I would guess that you may be able to break 1:30 on a good day, which is about 6:52/mi. If I were you I'd start out around 6:50-7:00 pace for the first few miles and see how you feel afterwards. If you truly were only capable of 7:07/mi, then you won't die too badly, but if you really undersold yourself, you still have plenty of time to speed up and run well under 90min.

hope this helped, and please don't think too much about some other posters suggested, as we all have very little info about you and cannot make good guesses.

good luck

Asking strangers to project your race from a single run is like having them predict the height of a building from the dimensions of a single brick.

Firstly to clarfiy, I am female ;).

I did clarify in post 3 the level of effort. Running but not flat out. I.e- how much do you gain typically from 'race-magic'?

I'm looking for approx thumb of rule, so ideally anyone who has done this kind of thing before or know of anyone who has, if not then a reply isn't really answering my question.

More info: Ran 26mpw for the last 8 weeks, mainly on treadmill, probably around 26 miles in total outdoors over the last 2 weeks.

Previous to that have averaged 15mpw on treadmil for the last 11 months.

I believe this is less than average, but last year I did a similar thing, i.e- 11 months with a very low mileage, and picking it up only in the last 2 weeks, and training largely treadmill-based and managed to do a 10.5mile race at 6:52min/mile.

In training I did 10miles at 7min/mile. So my rule of thumb is add 8 seconds per mile due to 'race-magic'. But, this is the only race I have to make up a rule of thumb, which is why I ask the question.

Regarding tapering and doing this run only 10days before, for this 10.5 mile race I did the same thing, I.e. a 10mile run at 7min/mile 7days before and managed to knock of 8seconds/mile on race-day, I thought 10days is easily enough to recover.

I appreciate that perhaps my perfomance was not optimal, but with only training 8 weeks before, I would have not enjoyed a whole 2 weeks of tapering and it would definitely had affected me psycologically.

Thanks very much, exactly what I was looking for. :)

don't forget to load up on beet juice the day before. this stuff works great on long efforts.

Please tell us about the course you will be racing.

Wr

Well, if most of your runs have been on the treadmill and given your extremely low volume outdoors, I'd suggest being conservative the entire first half of the race, i.e keep it at your training pace. You can always press and finish hard. Be conservative, yet flexible.

When I started my 2nd HM, my lack of experience showed up in spades. I went out at a predetermined hard pace (not accounting for the brutal heat and humidity ) and died horrifically, having to jog in the last 7k or so at 8+min pace. Worst experience of my life. Live and learn.

1:33:30

OP: Training runs are awful for estimating race performance. My guess is you run too hard too often and will barely come come to 1:30 on race day.

Was looking for advice on race-day magic and found this thread.

A 1:34 female is very good on 26 mpw, and usually very hard to do. The females I know that run sub-1:40 are usually up to 50-60 mpw.