It doesn’t work like that. Nobody has a TTE of 90 steady minutes or more at threshold. Plus you haven’t tried a half marathon without carbs. Most people at mass start running events are terrible pacers. You can fade and still pass many so that doesn’t really tell you anything. I see many cyclists treating carbs as though the more you take the faster you go. But it doesn’t work that way. Once you have enough you don’t benefit from any more. For sure taking carbs at events 90 minutes or less is a waste of time. You can’t put a big dent in your glycogen stores in 90 minutes unless you’re already depleted.
Fair enough. I will need to try a half without carbs and see what happens. I’ll remember this conversation and experiment.
So moving on.
The thing I really need to work on is descending down the sides of very big hills. My poor quads get destroyed in the mountains. Unfortunately living in SE England, I only have relatively small hills to train on so try to supplement with other stuff:
I made this in the gym for example. 10mins of stepping up and over, diagonally, side to side etc, and you really know about it.
Any other creative ideas?
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The half marathon is kind of a weird one. 10k is too short for carb-loading or event nutrition, marathon you’ll probably see a significant benefit for most, but the half is somewhere in between depending on your finish time and preferences. (IIRC 90 minutes is where most of the literature suggests it starts to play a role, but you’ve got people either side of that to various degrees and the faster finishers working significantly closer to threshold, to say nothing of individual tolerance)
I’m partial to the ‘optional caffeine gel that I may or may not smash before the last 5km, if I feel like it.’ My stomach is pretty temperamental so it’s usually a no, but there’s been a couple of races where I think it’s been helpful, and they’re easy enough to carry anyway.
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I’ve never been able to relate to ‘my stomach is temperamental’ as I’ve never had any issues with gels, drinks or even solid food. Actually thats a lie, i once ate a huge lasagne just before a crit racing, group training session. That was touch and go for a while.
Appreciate running is a different beast to a degree but as my dreams lie in big mountain ultras then I guess nutrition will always be a key ingredient. I will experiment with going without on the shorter stuff. Agree for 10k I wouldn’t even think about eating but for a half? If it’s no bother to take a gel or two mid race then what are the downsides?
P.S. I’d be targeting around 1.20 for the half if I was giving it a proper go.
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You are lucky. Any sugar touched my stomach when racing I cramped or threw up. I could handle at slower paces but when running at high intensity I had to be on pretty much an empty stomach. Half marathon was in 1:07 so water was fine for that. Kinda sucked anything longer… About 2 hours into a marathon all the energy was burned up and was just holding on.
I can handle taking in food on the bike but still get the upset feeling if I am really pushing it. Can’t help but feel being unable to fuel properly in the marathon left a lot of time on the table.
Tidy HM time my friend
Whilst I have your attention. How in the hell do you take water hand ups during a half? Each attempt resulted in me spilling most of it then choking on the rest 
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Was it, though? That graph shows HR near 145-150 for a fair amount of time. Try running at a steady 135bpm… what pace do you get?
Also, cadence at 160 is just fine, don’t overthink it. You’re running at a relatively easy pace, and a lower cadence is natural. You’ll find that cadence picks up nicely when you’re going faster. My cadence during easy training runs is around 150-155, which becomes 170-175 during races and threshold runs. As long as you’re not doing something too weird – and you’re not – just go with whatever your body is naturally comfortable with.
The downside is ruining your race because you have to puke or make that sudden call between soiling yourself or losing precious minutes. Plus it takes effort to eat when running hard and I would rather just not if I don’t absolutely have to.
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Thats not something that happens to me. I actually enjoy a gel when going fast. Gives me a burst of happiness. Guess that’s the sugar.
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A little difficult to say. HR was measured with a watch, so I don’t know about accuracy. My warm up HR, really jogging along slowly was higher than that during intervals. Also, the earlier intervals had a higher HR than the latter ones.
Don’t know what to make of it. Probably just nothing.
I too have recently started running alongside my cycling. While I was not at 350w ftp I have been over 300 although I am less than that currently (265ish). However, I have been a little surprised at just how shite I am at running, speed wise. Prior to being a cyclist, I was very much a fast twitch guy, good at sprinting and the like, but over the last 10 years it has been cycling 100%. I was not expecting to be fast immediately, just not as slow as I was 3 months ago when I started.
When I first started jogging, nice and slow and short as everyone has recommended here whilst building up the miles, I was running at 12 minutes per mile pace, which barely felt like running yet my HR was going easily above my cycling z 2 HR. Now after a few months I have a good base and I can run much faster in the 9mpm / 8mpm when pushing harder; however, I have a friend who was a runner for years but also cycles and I can go for a ride with him and he can’t keep up at all right now, yet he goes out and runs 8mpm easily for 5k without any training whatsoever, while not having done any aerobic base. My point is, I think the biomechanical / muscle / tendon adaptations are extremely important and play a bigger role here than one may expect.
I bought a Stryd pod, as I am running sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors and this gives me consistent numbers. I highly recommend this for cyclist who are used to training with power, as it gives you accurate power numbers and I find it easier to know where I am in terms of my training compared to just using HR and pace. It is also great for running to a certain pace / number as it tracks and updates really quickly.
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Gels and other such sports food are disgusting to me. I have to force them down snd try not to gag
If what you’re doing works for you I don’t think there’s much reason to change it- most people running with less/no food are doing so for GI-related reasons, but if you’re not experiencing those then aiming for a higher intake probably won’t hurt and ultimately comes down to what you see the most benefit/best performance with.
I’m okay with 30-40 g/hour, but anything above that is definitely risky territory. Part of that (and I suspect it probably plays a role with runners in general) is that it’s a lot harder to drink as much while you’re running. I suspect a lot (myself included) can probably get by with enough to avoid performance deterioration, but would probably struggle with absorption at higher carb intakes, especially towards the end of something like a marathon where you can be reasonably dehydrated anyway. I think you can probably get away with it there, but anything longer and I think it would start to become a limiter eventually.
Couple of options:
- When you grab the cup, you pinch the top. Then sip the water at your leisure.
- Grab the cup and toss what you can into your mouth.
In both instances, grab at least 2-3 as you pass by since you’re likely to be spilling/wasting some of it.
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My dream is to be able to run for hours across wild places, fuelled by wholefoods. Call me a hippy if you like but thats my dream.
I’ve experimented with sushi rice balls (turned to sweat warmed mush but tasted ok), and plan to try making a nice lentil dhal for a long run. I think a mildly spiced, smooth dhal would be divine on a big day in the hills.
For racing, I’ve stuck to gels as thats what I know from bike racing. There’s a lot to be said for the convenience and simplicity of them.
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I watched my local half the other day. I was by a water point and was appalled by the plastic waste produced. I think we as a sport need to get away from this and change the setup.
Best I’ve come up with is either carry your own water or carry your own cup and get filled by a volunteer. Yes i know it’ll damage your finish time but 2000 + plastic cups and bottles all over the road in the space of a few minutes at just one of the many water stops is criminal.
We had both, no water and bring your own cups, during peak Covid here in Taiwan. No water stops for 21km in ~85F temps sucked. Although, the ice cold alcohol free beer at the finish might have sucked more 
Carrying your own cups required you to stop which was a pain, but better than nothing.
While water stops get messy, most people manage to get their cups into the line of trash bins immediately after the water stops. No plastic here, it’s all paper cups which can be recycled.
Did it peak very early in the warmup and then drop off right off? This is very common.