Realistic targets for a 40 something

1:59:36 Managed to crack the two hour barrier in the Sheffield half yesterday, to say I am over the moon would be an under statement, absolutely delighted after the recent nightmare at Chester. Enjoyable race, with fantastic local support in parts, without doubt helped improve my performance. Thank you to every person out there cheering, shouting, playing music you helped to make the morning very memorable. I think the wife was happy to get out of the house to work today, she is running talked out for a good while now!

Well done Jake, after feeling at rock bottom after Chester it must feel all the more better. How was the heat during the race as it was pretty warm/hot across most of the UK.

cheer, A-r.

The heat was not too bad, tried to mentally prepare for the worst. Around some of the route, it was possible to run in the shadows of buildings / walls etc. I took my own water bottle in a round the wasit strap thing, and would not hesitate to do so again, the crowding at water stations was quite bad at times.

I'm thinking improvement in times will be far more gradual from now on.

Well done Jake,how did the race go. Was it steady pace all round, or good start and hanging on at the end?

Well done Jake on getting under 2 hours. What was your actual time? And what is your next target?

Paul, started off a bit too quick, three sub 9 min miles, 8:30 upwards, then steady around 9 min miles until final 3 miles and was all over the place! I guess running a steady pace throughout a race comes with experience? I'm envious of the guys who can run a certain pace without looking at their watches every few seconds!

Valencia marathon end of November, Nick Not sure what time to aim for atm, going to up mileage over the next few months and see how things pan out. Do you have any targets for the year?

Just realised you ran 1:59:36 Jake. That was close! I'm sure if you had run a bit slower at the beginning, you would have gone even faster. 

I hope to run the Robin Hood in Sept when I get back from NZ. I just want to break 2 hours this year...

Well done on the sub 2 hour Jake, really good effort.

Bouncing back above spam hope you don't mind

Good luck with the Robin Hood, Nick. If this old geezer can do two hours, you can smash it

3:02 is the stuff of dreams for me! That gets you a GFA entry for VLM, Also-ran?

A buddy I run with occasionally has thrown down the guantlet for Leeds 10k in July, was constantly goading me yesterdy saying he would bury me timewise He is ten years my junior, but by heck I'm going to train like a lunatic to try and beat him...

Im quite a new runner too, im 34 and my 3rd half I done in under 2hrs. I see absolutely no reason you cant do the same in 6 months. Sub 1:30 as someone else said is a different ball game however with the right training motivation and LOADS of practice I think its possible.  Once your under 2 aim at 1:50 then I believe every minute after that is going to get harder and harder to shave off.

Good luck 

Just read back, you done under 2 hrs well done. Good feeling right?

John as you suggest, was an incredible feeling. Revised plans.

Valencia marathon Nov 2012 :- as near to 4 hours as possible, will revise once I am doing LR of 20 miles+

Barcelona HM Feb 2013 :- sub 1:50 (really fast course).

Hull HM :- 24th June, just want to survive the race, everyone says it's devlish!

What is everyone else planning?

Does anyone here use a heart rate monitor?

1:56:29 :- Hull half marathon today. Absolutely over the moon, it's a demanding course and battling a vicious headwind across the Humber bridge for the final two miles was a killer. The wind was a tougher challenge than 'cardiac hill'!

Getting a good for age entry must be a brilliant feeling? There must only be a small % of runners in the VLM that have GFA entries? Looked at the cost of running a charity place in the VLM, need to raised min £2,000, quite a chunk of which goes to the organisers which seems unfair

Well done mate.

Thanks Paul.

re: HRM. I have one for my garmin 305 and think it's great, although I don't use it as technically as Also-ran. After each run I upload my run data including HR to garmin software on the pc. Just looking at the historic data it is easy to see the gradual decrease in HR for doing the same distance and at gradually quicker pace. For the sake of £30 I consider it a useful purchase.

Leeds 10k tomorrow, not had a run for 10 days due to severe blisters which became infected. Damned blisters are such a bizare and personal thing, read the book "Fixing your feet", and tried numerous solutions over the past few months to no avail. Blisters are just getting worse with each run of more than 5 or 6 miles.