Solo, Soaked, and Stronger: Sort of a come back

The Challenge: Racing Against the Elements

Three degrees Celsius. Pouring rain turning to sleet. Gusting wind. These weren’t the conditions I imagined for my comeback half marathon. But sometimes the most challenging conditions provide the greatest opportunity to test not just physical training, but mental resilience.

How It All Started

Last year in October, I registered after a long while (2 years?) to an official running event – the Bucharest Half Marathon .. actually it is the half marathon race of the event called Bucharest Marathon, but that’s just details. I prepared for that event, but didn’t feel like I have it .. I used a Greg McMillan half-marathon training plan (Master’s Half-Marathon Level 4) a plan designed for Master athletes of ages 40+.

I only used the plan for 8 weeks out of those 16, I mean I adopted it rather late, before that I was just training by feeling not in a structured way.

The result, was not bad, but obviously not great .. the time being similar to my early days (when I started running 10 years ago) – but I wasn’t disappointed.

The Comeback Plan

I decided at that moment that I need to redo the work, but this time better and stick to the plan and have another half in the spring. I decided for the Lake Garda half, registered and start training – the 16 weeks being just the right training period for a half marathon on 6th of April 2025.

This time, I followed the plan better than in autumn, with some 1.5 weeks exception when I was travelling and couldn’t execute my workouts (read this “I wasn’t as determined as I should have been”), but focused on the running part of the training and pretty much ignored the strength sessions all together. If you’re interested in the training plan, you can find more details here https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/product/masters-half-marathon-training-plan-level-4-combo-runner/, the plan is easily available in Final Surge but also on Training Peaks. As I purchased my plan earlier last year, this was available in Final Surge and luckily I had 3 devices which were all ready to be used and synced with Final Surge – Suunto Vertical, Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Epix Pro.

For the period of my training I decided to use the Suunto Vertical as my reference watch and I did that, even though I had most of the my training sessions (and the race) wearing two watches (AWU was my other partner for listening to podcasts or audiobooks). I’ll use this experience over the preparation months to wrap-up also a review of Suunto Vertical, which is a nice training device and a reliable partner for executing your training. (more on that on my review)

Training Consistency

The typical month during training looks like below (in Suunto App):

Now, coming back to the half-marathon, this was supposed to be a race run at Lake Garda in Italy, but unfortunately I couldn’t participate this year but decided to run the distance anyway and not register for a local race (one tempting alternative was available in Cluj at the same time). So, I figured out how would I run those 21.1 km in my local town (or around).

On 5th of April (Saturday), the weather in my area was great, with highs of 21 degrees Celsius and plenty of sun, but during the night it started raining and the temperature dropped, so that I started the race with 3 degrees outside, raining and windy. That weather continued for the full period of my run, with rain turning into slow for some period of time. So, let’s say that wasn’t the best day for running in general, even less for scoring a great time 🙂

Basically, the coldness was not that much of an issue, as I enjoy more running in the cold than in the warmer or hot periods, but the wind and the sleet are certainly not helping. I changed my running shoes for this reason – from the Saucony Triumph 21 to the Puma Deviate Nitro 3 GTX – and they were amazing for the first 10 km .. until with my glasses covered by snow I didn’t see a large puddle and I effectively immersed in it for several steps .. for half of the race I had to carry with me the extra weight of the shoes soaking wet. But at least I no longer care to avoid the puddles .. I was similar to the kids who run directly in the middle of it.

Solo vs Official Race: The Trade-offs

There are certain characteristics of running solo a race like this:

• (PLUS) you don’t need to worry about the crowded space at the start, usually slowing you down in the first km
• (MINUS) you don’t get so many supporters cheering you up .. unless your family or friends want to be by your side
• (MINUS) you can’t rely on 5km stops for water/isotonic/fruits or whatever .. unless your family or friends want to be by your side
• (MINUS) it get’s so boring, especially if you don’t have an unique 21km long track you’d like to follow .. in my case I used the same route twice
• (PLUS) if you use the same route, you know exactly (cause I’ve been there before) how much you still need to run to the finish and don’t need to spend your time looking the sportwatch

The Mental Battle at Kilometer 11

The result .. a good one, considering the situation .. way better than 6 months ago. But the result is not the most important aspect of the race .. it was more about the resilience to continue to do what I’ve came to do, no matter the difficulties and the temptation to let it go. For example, when I was approaching 11km and I was close to home, I thought about quitting … it wasn’t an “official” race, nobody was there to see me and cheer me up, I could just go home since the weather was miserable and was just getting worse…For 200 meters my mind was just thinking that I won’t be closer to home than now .. why all the pain, why all the suffering [the chaffing with soaking clothes is just magnificent]. But I didn’t, this (quitting) was not what I was training for .. if you can do it, you’ll do it.

Performance Analysis: The Numbers

I had with me two watches, the Suunto Vertical connected to the Suunto Smart Sensor and the Apple Watch Ultra. The data about the race I finally collected both in Final Surge but also in Training Peaks.

Metric	Bucharest HM(Oct 2024)	Solo HM(Apr 2025)	Difference
Time	2:03:17	1:56:11	7:06 better
Pace	5:49min/km	5:27min/km	22 sec/km faster
Weight		+2.5kg	2.5kg heavier

Technology Challenges: When Sensors Fail

The info in the above Training Peaks screen is from the Apple Watch Ultra and not the Vertical because the HR sensor had some erratic behaviour during the workout, I’ve seen HR displayed on my Vertical of 210bpm and I knew that I wasn’t there .. I didn’t feel like it.. the values after the finish only came to confirm that the sensor had some issues. This was the first time I had this kind of issues and for so long .. usually it was something about the start of the workout and the calibration,

As a result of the HR readings, the ZoneSense was “yellow” .. but the data was clearly not useful.

The display of the R-R values in Runalyze may explain why the information fed into ZoneSense wasn’t of high quality and it’s not a surprise that result is also not very useful.

Apple Watch Ultra measured a more realistic set of values, which is in line with my effort.

If you take into account the fact that my weight since October 2024 increased with 2.5kg, but I managed to shave some good 8 minutes from my previous attempt of HM, you can consider that I’m on track to improve, considering that I’ll loose some weight, add some more (all) strength training and maintain the dedication to running.

Conclusions (for me and from me):

• Vertical is a nice and reliable watch for training (not very good yet for structured workouts)
• ZoneSense is nice as a concept, but it’s hit and miss for me .. it depends on the quality of the data from the chest strap, which is not always available and also the real-time info on the watch may differ from what you see after the workout is complete
• If you’re going to humid (or wet environment) and you have chaffing problems, please focus on that as well .. you’ll feel the difference
• Mind can do miracles, if your body is properly trained – I had all the opportunities and reasons to quit, and I didn’t
• Extra weight can be compensated with better training (there is limit into this compensation..)

What’s next? I’ll be focusing on getting to my optimal race weight, actually doing all the strength training I’ve been avoiding, and finding a more reliable heart rate setup.

The biggest takeaway from this experience? When your mind says “quit” but your training says “keep going,” the choice you make in that moment reveals your true character.