PR for half marathon brag

That's a very nice min/mile improvement :) Strong work.

What do you credit it to?

That's awesome. Great improvement. Congrats. 

My first HM I thought I would get 1:45, but possibly closer to 1:30. Well the conditions were a little crappy, and maybe my expectations were a little unrealistic. I got a 1:53. I know I could have done a 1:45... but so what, I have not done it yet officially. It's still a goal.

First I would say that my volume was definitely less THIS year than last.  Last year I was really just running all winter, this year I am more focused on completing an Oly, so the biking has been more consistent through the winter on a trainer.  I never ran more than twice a week this winter.

I DID start doing a long slow run every week - I think this was the real difference.  last year I think I ran 9 miles only  two or three times, and it was the same pace as the other runs.  This year I started doing a 10 mile long slow run, which I think really made a difference.

The third factor was KNOWING I could finish the distance.  Since last year was my first HM I wasn't confident that I could finish, so I held back, this year I knew that if I couldn't keep the 8 mile pace, I could always back off and still finish.

Thanks all for the support.

Wow that is fantastic improvement, basically a min/mile is very good especially since the original PR was good as well.

I've yet to "race" a half marathon so my PR is from HIMs, but I've got one planned for two weeks and I'm looking forward to setting a "real" PR for the half mary distance.

Good luck Sous. Enjoy it. It's a lot better not riding 56 miles first.

Great job on the HM.  

I had a HM pr this weekend too and very close to your time as well 1:43:56.  Mine was only a 2 minute improvement over a my second HM last October.  My previous time for this course though was 2:22 three years ago so quite an improvement. 

Awesome job and nice improvement for just a year.

awesome!

how did your training change?

Thanks, and I imagine it would be!!

I've done 3 stand alone HMs but I've done them all with my wife so technically my HM PR is a 1:48 from a HIM.  I'm looking forward to my first solo stand alone HM in two weeks.

For the huge gains from 2010 I've lost a bunch of weight. I've dropped about 80lbs since April of 2009.  For my 2 minutes improvement (also forgot to mention that my October HM was on an almost completely flat course and my last one had about 650 ft of climbing) I upped my running to 4 days a week from 3 and it was more about consistency.  I'm preparing for Raleigh 70.3 in four weeks and have just focused on being consistent with getting my workouts in.  That has been the real key for me.