That’s a good point. I’m supposed to go out of town tonight and I didn’t want to make my cold worse. As it stands now, I think it’s on the wane and will be gone in a couple days. It’s still really frustrating that the first time I get sick in over a year is before the race that I’ve been training for since August. I’m a newbie runner so finishing a half marathon would’ve been a huge milestone. I’ll just have to remember that I’ve already done 10 miles on my own which is way more than I would have thought possible back when I started c25k in March.
That would be the Rayovac Sportsman Extreme LED headlamp. I picked one* up at Fleet Farm on my way to the race. $15. 
I used the front red strobe when the ambient light was enough that I didn’t need the solid white LED to see where I was going.
*Actually two, because Mr. S needed a new one for working outside at night.
I use two Android apps (redundancy) for GPS, Endomondo and RunKeeper plus a GPS booster that continuously send/receives satellite info. RunKeeper crapped out at 1 mile, but is generally less accurate than Endomondo. It was a beautiful, clear day and tree cover on the trail is sporadic. Needless to say, I know how long the trail is.
The mileage is accurate. The trail is new and it’s marked at the end as 2.25 miles with a turn-around loop at the end of it. It does not, however, loop around to the beginning, so you go 2.25 miles out and back in towards the parking lot. I did that twice, which comes to 9 miles even. Since the path is 10 feet wide and I had to dodge children on bikes, walkers and pets, I think the 3/10ths of a mile accounted for that plus the little loop at the end.
Also, my playlist started at 12:49:46pm, played through 21 songs, and ended at 2:12:01pm. That’s 1:22:14.
The time, however, may be slightly off and the splits I cannot verify beyond how fast I felt I was going during the run and it pretty much parallels that. I did think that last mile sounded kind of sketchy too. I know I picked up the pace (I really wanted to get back to the car, so I could go to the bathroom), but that pace did seem pretty ridiculous. I wasn’t quite sprinting, though I was pushing pretty hard. I don’t know why the app was so apparently inaccurate on that last mile and I don’t know to what degree that makes all the other lap times suspect.
I also wear a heart rate monitor and I recorded a 1:26:30 run time, but I don’t know how to do splits on it. McMillan shows that as a 9:17 min/mi. I think I started it a little before my phone app started recording though (I was waiting for the countdown and jumped the gun on it). If you like that time better, I’m okay with that. I’m still pretty impressed with my performance. 
That one is cool for the price. I’ll be able to pay about twice that for the Black Diamond one and it doesn’t require batteries, which I think makes it lighter weight and is an environmental plus. The battery pack on the back with the rear flasher is supposed to counter balance the light on the front making it less bouncy, according to the reviews. We’ll see.
I’m impressed by your performance too. You have verified that your GPS is accurate as you had a known distance to compare.
How did the effort feel and what was your heart rate?
You should be able to do the half in 5 weeks.
Sometimes arm swing can throw off a unit as that was a problem with early units like mine. It’s dead accurate on the bike but when used for running accuracy suffered if worn on the wrist as opposed to the upper arm.
This is a 6 year old unit so more recent models may be less prone to such errors.
Well, I wear my phone in an AmphiPod on my hips. Most of the time it’s on my back, but I rotate it around to the front to take the phone out.
My heart rate for the entire session shows a max of 215 (that is wrong) and an average of 162 (which sounds reasonable). At ~180 bpm, I am gasping for air and about to pass out. The 170s are strenuous, I’m noticeably breathing hard and I can only keep it there for a short period of time: maybe 5-10 mins. High 160s are what I’m aiming for where it feels like a workout, but I can maintain the effort it for a significant period of time. I can talk in short bursts, but carrying on a conversation would be difficult. On hills, my heart rate can jump up to high 170s, so on the downslopes, I try to recover to high 150s, then kick it back up to the 160s.
The first half of that run was about as close to a cakewalk as it can get. I paced myself to go slow and steady for the first leg, so I could speed up on the second leg, which I did. I felt like I had loads of energy. The hills were somewhat challenging, but not very. At the end of the second leg, I figured I could easily keep going, so I did. The hills were much harder on third leg and I felt like I’d probably stop when I got to the end of the trail, but then I figured I’d have to walk all the way back anyway and that would take forever, so might as well keep running. On the fourth leg, it was all I could do to keep running up the hills and I almost came to a stop on one particularly difficult one. But I didn’t and decided to get as much speed as I could on downhill, so I could finish sooner. I flew down the hills, which really gave my feet a beating (FiveFingers, ya know). That entire last leg, the bottom of feet at my metatarsals were throbbing and I thought at one point, I may have been bleeding – I wasn’t, but I did develop a bit of a blister on the pad at my 2nd MT head. My left knee started talking to me a bit, but it wasn’t really painful, just noticeable. Could be some imbalance at my left hip. Gotta work on core strength more.
I think I probably could have eked out another couple of miles if I’d been wearing my Brooks. Also, if I had anticipated I was going to run so far, I wouldn’t have burned so much effort on the second leg. Next Saturday, I’m out of town and I’ll probably keep the mileage down to ~7mi, then the next Saturday will be 2 days after the 8K (and turkey!), so I’m not sure if I can/should bump it up to 10mi then, then I have 3 more Saturdays to work on the distance. During the week, I was planning on doing two tempo runs of ~4mi apiece with rest or core/strength training in between. Taking it easy on Sundays (other than work). I guess I won’t be doing any track sprints. How about hill repeats (ugh): necessary? I don’t really have a plan…I don’t know if there is a five week plan for a half.
I wasn’t sure if I was biting off more than I can chew, because I wasn’t sure if yesterday’s run was a fluke. It seemed too easy considering I only got off the couch in August.
If you can get in one or two runs of 10-11 miles, that will be enough to finish the half.
Don’t hammer the hills, it’s the same as breaking into a hard sprint as far as saving energy/ controlling lactate levels. Use the heart rate monitor to maintain the same HR as the flat and the later hills won’t be nearly as bad.
Based on your description, your max HR is probably 185-190, 170s are your tempo range and the 160s are steady-state.
Hills are good work for quad and hip strength which in turn makes for more efficient running.
I don’t know if I can accomplish that yet. I do slow down on the hills; I just try to keep running, even if my pace suffers, but my heart rate invariably creeps up and up as long as I’m running uphill. It is significantly better now though, I can do hills at a much lower HR than a month or two ago. But when I’m fatigued it’s harder to control the HR on an incline.
Thanks again (a LOT!) for all the info. Sorry, for hijacking the C25K thread with talk of a half marathon. :eek: Just goes to show, I think, what a great program it is.
I just finished the very first session. By your metric, I also was successful.
But it took about ten minutes after finishing to stop feeling like I was gonna die. :smack:
Completed my first 5K this morning at a stunningly slow pace of 43:01! But I finished it, and I certainly have plenty of room for improving my pace! 
Congratulations! Well done!
Good show!
Thank you! I’m a 52-year-old woman, so I’m not in the least chagrined by my performance!
Congrats! Were you as excited to be racing as I was? I was downright giddy!
On Thursday, I completed our local 8K turkey trot in 45:39. I was shooting for under 45 minutes, but for a first race, I’m pleased with my results*. I ran in my FiveFinger Bikilas, which were completely soaked along with my socks. Next time, I will remember to bring a dry pair of shoes for after the race.
- 67th in my division, 1719 out of 4300 finishers – LOL!
Yep! Me, too!
Oh, and I just realized that they never posted chip times for this race, even though we were wearing tags. So, considering I didn’t actually get to start running until well after the gun went off, my time is probably a lot better than that which is posted.
Now, I feel even better!
I am just working my way back up to where I left off before going on holiday and becoming ill. Did W5D3 (again) this morning, covering 5.15km including warm up and cool down. I was surprised at how far back I had to go after being ill, I thought I would just need to repeat the past week but ended up going back much further to find a day I could complete. It is demoralising to have to do it but reading all the success stories on here is very encouraging!
mittu, don’t worry about it. A setback from illness is only until your body has recovered from the stress of being sick. Any actual loss of fitness will be regained much faster than the first time around.
Congratulations to Turkey Trotters freckafree and Brown Eyed Girl!
I did two races this weekend. First was my 5-mile Turkey Trot on Thursday, which I finished in 48:55 with a mile pace of 9:47 – under 10 minutes, woo-hoo!
Sunday was a 15K, and I made my primary goal of running the whole distance . . . though that last mile and a half or so was sheer willpower, just putting one foot in front of the other. So that’s my longest solid run to date! (I walked/ran my half in September). Time was 1:34:41, pace 10:09. So close to under 10! Oh well. At least judging from that time I should be able to vastly improve my half marathon time (2:37) when I run my next one next April. Maybe even run the whole way!
Also, I was smart this time and planned to do NOTHING after I got home. Soaked in the tub and hit the couch. I was still a little sore this morning, but I feel pretty good and even like I could go for an easy run (but I won’t, for a couple of days).
Ran Charlotte’s Thunder Road Half Marathon yesterday. What an experience! A friend from work entered just to pace me. In the second mile, I tripped over something in the road in a turn and scraped up my knee a little bit and ruined a new pair of gloves. We also had to stop for a potty break in the 8th mile. I felt great until mile 11 where I started to struggle and the last climb at mile 12 just killed my pace and I didn’t have much in the tank for a final push until about 200 yards before the finish.
All told, I’m pleased with my finish and I’m over the moon that I did it! It feels like an amazing accomplishment. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so proud of myself.
Here are my results:
12/11/10 - Amica Thunder Road Half Marathon - 02:06:33 - 02:10:52 - 1799 - 99/252 - 09:29
11/27/10 - Southpark Turkey Trot 8K - 00:45:05 - 00:45:39 - 1717 - 67/288 - 09:11
Unfortunately, I now have raging case of rhinitis and I’m sitting here in bed miserable with a raw nose. I’m about to kill my second box of Kleenex already. It occurred to me that this is the third time I’ve been “sick” in the last month. Nope, not sick. This happens after every long run in the cold weather. Will need to call doc on Monday for some prescription antihistamine.