World Record Marathon Attempt

[GershonSurge]

I'll be 63 next week, and I decided to set a crazy goal for myself. Set the world marathon record for my age when I'm either 65 or 66. Some people say not to broadcast a goal. Others say it should be broadcast.

The current record is about 2:41:00.

My training program is simple. It's what I call the "Non-Destructive Adaptation Model." I'll run with a metronome starting at a slow stride rate and increase it by .06 a day. Each day, I'll increase the miles by about .01. I'm currently able to "jog" very slowly for an hour and fifty minutes and do it each day except for normal rest days. The way the numbers work out, I'll run for about the same time each day until the big date.

The basis of my training theory comes from the Maffetone Method. I keep the average heart rate for my runs between 180 minus my age to 10 beats below that. (110-117). This will force the rest of my cardiovascular system to develop as my pace and distance slowly improves.

I'm using the Surge coupled with a Nike App to track my training. I have day by day goals until the marathon.

I'll run the Denver Marathon since the air is thinner and easier to run through. I live at close to the same altitude.

[GershonSurge]

Surprisingly, I had another PR today. I say "surprisingly" because I worked hard yesterday. I got 32,023 steps and burned 4,578 calories. Probably about 2,000 steps were false steps from the Surge. I did yardwork much of the day and cleaned the garage. By the end of the day, my legs were tired. I only ate 2,082 calories, so I had a 2,496 calorie deficit. 

Good news this morning. I dropped three pounds from yesterday. This often happens after spending a week or so at a plateau. My legs were still tired, so I walked for a mile and a half to warm up instead of my normal .4 to .7 miles while deciding if I should go for the run. My general rule is to at least run the first mile or two to see what happens.

I told my subconscious to run in a way that would result in the least fatigue and then dissociated while I listened to a book and the metronome. By the third mile, I thought I had no chance at a PR, but my subconscious had a different plan. It talked to me about four things that have to be in sync to run a good time. Legs, heart, lungs and mind. There are others, but we didn't talk about them.

My heart rate was great averaging only 106. My lungs were perfect and I barely had to open my mouth to breath. My legs were tired the whole run, but they were good enough. I never found what I call "happy feet," which is when I find the perfect match between stride rate and stride length, but it was good enough. 

After what seemed like a few minutes, the run was over, and I beat my best pace by one second. My legs were tired, but not too bad.

I'm convinced the extra housework and yard work improves my running as much as the runs. 

My pace was generally improving throughout the run. The fifth mile is the hardest as it's mostly uphill.

My average heart rate was below my zone of 107 to 117. I'm learning to control it by keeping my breathing at a rate where I barely have to open my mouth. This should continue for a while as my legs and stride rate are the limiting factor.

I'm finding the heart rate zone is a better indicator of my heart's effort. Ideally, I'd like more minutes in the min fat burn zone than in the cardio zone. 

The original plan is still working. I have a half marathon planed on Dec 3rd. The pace should be 12:05. On Labor Day, 2017, I have a marathon planned with a pace of 8:38. As long as the pace is below 8:45, it means I'm beating the original plan. I have another marathon planned on Labor Day 2018 with a pace of 5:56. As long as I'm beating 6:00, I'm beating the original plan. Reality will take over at some point. 

[shipo]

Thinking about this thread last night while I was out for a planned 10-miler, I thought, "Hey, why not?"  The weather wasn't too warm and humid, the bugs weren't too bad (only had to stop and dig them out of my eyes three times), I had taken a rest day on Monday and felt pretty good, "Why not indeed?"

I was on a local rural dirt rail trail and when the 5-mile mark came up I kept going; I turned at an indicated 6.6 miles on my Fitbit Surge (not terribly accurate this time of hear because the overarching green canopy of tree foliage is so dense satellite reception is a bit sketchy).  The trip back was a bit harder than the trip out as the bugs were sensing dusk and looking for a meal, in my case, a hot sweaty meal.  🙂

Final results:

[GershonSurge]

Nice run. It gives me something to aim for.

My heart rate always seems less stable than other people's heart rates. Curious.

[shipo]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Nice run. It gives me something to aim for.

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Thanks!  🙂

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@GershonSurge wrote:

My heart rate always seems less stable than other people's heart rates. Curious.

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I think I posted a shot of my heart rate when I'm on a hilly run; it is pretty much all over the map.  Last night's run was on a mid 19th century railroad bed, and even though I had a net climb of 340', spread out over a 13+ mile course, the various grades are pretty shallow and don't alter my heart rate all that much.

[GershonSurge]

@shipo,

Dr. Maffetone promised that if a person stays in the Maffetone range, their speed would improve while maintaining a low heart rate. For a person like yourself who is already running fast, you would need to slow down for a month or two and then you would be able to run faster with a lower heart rate. I'm not suggesting it. We are following different training plans and yours is working.

In 42 training days, my heart rate has declined while my pace improved and the distance increased from 6.1 to 6.9 miles. 

In my younger days, I'd alternate between my legs and lungs as the limiting factors. I forget which was which, but if one was the limiting factor, I ran intervals at my planned race pace. The length of the interval depended on the race. If the other was the limiting factor I'd run longer at a slightly slower than race pace.

Right now, my legs are the limiting factor. I'll be glad when I get the muscle coordination back. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the journey. I stated increasing the stride rate faster than the original plan. It doesn't seem to affect the fatigue level and it should improve my times more quickly.

[shipo]

Thanks for the thoughts.  🙂

The above said, I am not even remotely a fan of Maffetone's program/philosophy; not to put too fine a point on it, I do not in any way believe in heart rate training.  My personal philosophy is to concentrate on breathing as an indicator of training levels and exertion.  Why?   Because of the rather marked range with which the human heart does any given amount of work; take two otherwise capable endurance athletes and compare max heart rates (or even heart rates during competitive events) and there can be as much as a 60 BPM delta between the individual with the slowest and the individual with the fastest.  With such a range, heart rate training is a hit and miss proposition, it'll work for some and will fail for others.

Given my self developed training philosophy of what I call "Modified LSD" (Long Slow Distance with a marked ramp up in pace in the latter miles of many training runs), I do high mileage numbers at a relatively low pace (which sometimes equates to a low heart rate), and then kick it up several notches, up to and even beyond 5K race pace upon occasion.

At the moment I an rehabbing from a non-running related injury (a torn group of muscles in the base of my abdomin), and so I don't run as hard during my workouts as I did last year.  For the moment at least, I'm just happy to tool along in the high nine to low ten minute per mile pace with an occasional foray into the eights and even sevens.  Last year a typical hard (but relatively flat) trail run done during the ramp up to a race would have looked like this:

Distance 10.11 miles -- Total Time: 1:33:32 -- Pace: 9:15

The thing is, that was a run in the midst of many other training runs; come race day a month later (following an easy day and then a rest day), also a 10-Miler (on a very hilly course with nearly 1,000' of climbing) as it turned out, my log looked rather different:

Distance 10.02 miles -- Total Time: 1:19:33 -- Pace: 7:56

Is it possible Maffetone or a different training program will work better for me?  Yes, it's a possibility, but given the success I've had for my own training and that of the folks I coach, I'm inclined to stick with what has been working very well.  🙂

[FitBeforeFifty]

I've never followed a HR training plan either but I do have a friend that transitioned to HR training for his last full Iron Man and made some dramatic improvements. When he started he was only slightly faster than me and then over a years time he left me in the dust. There were many other factors, however, in the changes he made for that training so it's difficult to isolate and credit HR training for his dramatic improvement. It does, however, show that one can certainly be successful with it.

I have 2 reasons for never trying it:

1. I run in Texas and the heat makes it almost impossible to keep my heart rate low
2. Because of #1, I simply don't have the patience to artificially slow down

[GershonSurge]

@shipo

I think most of the popular training methods will work as long as the runner is motivated enough to put in the miles. Jeff Galloway is a fan of walking breaks. Joe Henderson likes LSD. He coined the term and wished he had called it comfortable running instead. He taught a beginners running course at Oregon State as well as elite runners. LSD was started when the mile was popular, and "long" might be a some quarter mile intervals at a little slower than racing pace. It evovled from Lydiard, who I think recommended many long miles at a fast pace.

Bill Bowerman, who invented Nike shoes and trained Steve Prefontaine said the best runners never followed the coach's training plan. They tended to create their own training plans.

Hal Higdon recommended what I feel are too many miles to train for a marathon.

I finally settled on Maffetone as his method is clearly definable. I coupled it with metronome training which I learned about from Chi Walking. Scott Jurek says he uses a metronome when he trains runners. For me, it means I don't have to think about my pace, so I don't burn myself out in the first few miles. I liked the idea that I could create a training plan and set goals far into the future.

I'm elated to see your impressive times and distances. It shows me what is still possible at my age. 

Today, my legs felt good. The stride rate was a little too slow at 130, and after a couple miles, I felt like I wanted to stretch my legs more. My breathing was relaxed, and many times, I found myself running with my mouth closed. My heart rate was 109 mostly due to a high rate of about 140 for the first half mile. I was only 3 seconds off my best pace. I think I'll increase the stride rate increment a little more so I can get to a stride rate of 140 sooner.

I developed a muscle pain in the left lower side of my back that slowed me down a little. I guess that's the next thing I'll have to train through. The good news is it's only muscular and nothing serious. 

Overall, it was a fun run today.

 

[shipo]

@GershonSurge, thanks for the update.

I learned about Lydiard, Henderson, and LSD training back in the 1970s and practiced it regularly in my early 20s to great effect. That said, my current spin on the LSD thing, namely cranking up the pace for the last mile or three (or more), is something I didn't start doing until my mid 50s after recovering from the torn up leg.

While I've of course heard of Bill Bowerman before, I've never heard that comment about runners ignoring their coach's training plans. I love it. Funny story, during the summer of 1974 I rode my bicycle from San Diego, up the coast to Lincoln City, Oregon, then inland to Portland, along the Columbia River valley and up to Spokane, and from there all the way across Highway 2 to the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, and then down to the Detroit area where I grew up. I did that ride, all 4,023 miles of it, in 35 days (which included two rest days), and when I got home, A) Cross Country season had already started, and B) I was so wiped out I couldn't sustain any reasonable pace in our 3-Mile/5K races until literally the last week or two of the season; over two months later. During that season I followed my coach's advice and trained harder and harder and got slower and slower. I finally started ignoring him and cut my training way back, much to his monumental annoyance, and that's when my times finally started dropping.

Right after the Cross Country season I managed break my left leg, not a bad break like the one I suffered in my mid-40s, but bad enough to put me in a cast through the winter track season and into the beginning of spring track workouts. I started training with the team, but once again, at my own pace and on my own schedule; my first 2-Mile as a high school senior that year was something ridiculous like 11:20, slower than the times I ran when I was a freshman. As the season progressed, I stubbornly resisted letting it all hang out in our team workouts, and as our team's distance runners peaked and then slid down the back side of said peak, I kept getting faster, so much so in the final week of the season I set the school record in the 1320 (third leg of a Distance Medley Relay), the Mile, and the 2-Mile. After that third record my coach actually had the guts to come up to me and apologize for riding my butt for so long. 🙂

Regarding your progress and today's run, looking good; can't wait to see how you start feeling once you've worked through some of your (hopefully) latent and temporary physical issues. I'm curious about the 140 cadence you're training to, I'm a little concerned it might be slow enough to actually cause you to do more work for every individual stride; kinda in that hard to do zone between fast walking and slow running. I know your training plan is all about incremental adjustments, but have you tried a cadence of say 150-155 for a few hundred yards, just to see how it feels?

One more quick story about cadence; I've never paid any attention to my running cadence, (cycling, yes, running, no), and when I looked at it for the first time just a week or two ago, I was surprised to see my workouts tend to be within 0.5 strides per minute of 160, regardless of how fast or slow or how long or short the workout was. Then there is my race pace; I looked at three 5Ks, two 10-Milers, and one Half-Marathon, and they were all within 0.5 strides per minute of 165. Color me dumbfounded; I could never have predicted that.

Back to pace; I just looked around and cannot find a link to it, but I read a fascinating article a few years back which studied experienced distance runners who significantly vary both their training and racing distances, by "vary" I mean stuff like short speed drills through 15+ mile training runs, and races ranging from 5Ks through full marathons. What they found was the runners almost universally and subconsciously adjusted their pace based upon the conditions (heat, cold, surface, terrain...) and distance they were planning on running. I don't remember if there was any explanation on how they managed to train their brains to become so adept at pace setting; that said, I'm kinda wanting to suggest you wean yourself off the metronome at some point (maybe skip the metronome on one run out of say three) and let yourself mess up (speaking strictly for myself, screwing up is how I learn best). My thought process is your brain will figure out not to go too hard during say the first mile of a scheduled 10-mile workout, and once that happens, it will pay huge dividends down the road.

As always, keep us posted on your progress.

[GershonSurge]

@shipo

Your stories are fascinating. They are a great insight into the history of running, which I find more interesting than the space program. The glory days were in the 60's and 70's with the pursuit of faster times for the mile. Then the marathon became popular in the 80's. I think Joan Benoit-Samuelson's maration in the 1984 Olympics was the greatest race in history. Sometimes, I watch videos of the race to inspire me.

What you said about training faster and running slower is exactly what Maffetone warns against. He recommends only 2 or 3 weeks of speed work before a major race. Minor races can be run at an easier pace and treated as speedwork.

The book "Brain Training for Runners" gives a good insight into how our brain handles pacing. It will set an exact pace for a race including a burst of speed at the end if the runner let's go and lets the subconscious handle it.

The reason I want to get to 140 bpm sooner is that should give me a 12:20 pace for the half-marathon I am planning to run on Dec 3, 2016. That should be enough to win my age group. By then, I'll be running 9.8 miles a day, so a half-marathon should be an easy step.

I did try a faster stride rate and my mind won't do it. It's like forgetting how to throw a football after not doing it for decades. It's nothing permanent. I'll just have to work up to it. I'd probably get there faster if I did some 1/4 mile intervals, but I'm not in a hurry.

I tend to go threw a series of minor pain issues. They last for a bit and disappear as I train past them. Then another one appears. The back muscle pain is trivial and shouldn't last long. It's not near my spine which would worry me.

There are some mental things I do that might sound strange. I call the person I talk to when I'm talking to myself "Coach." I tell him I want to run without pain or fatigue. I start each run quietly singing a cadence of "We will run without pain, we will run without fatigue." Then I disappear from decision making and let the Coach handle it. Today, when I told him to go for a record pace and not worry about the pace, the back pain started. He is still laughing at me. It's a mistake I occasionally make.

The metronome helps me induce a mental state similar to that between sleep and wakefulness. From the research I've done, I'm inducing Theta waves. When a person is awake, it's a state of hyperawareness, super-fast reaction times and extended endurance. Short time moves slowly, and fast time moves quickly. My runs seem to only take a few minutes.  Meanwhile, I'm hyper-aware of each foot placement, but I try to let my subconscious handle everything. The best I've heard it described is an area of "thinking but not thinking."

The reason for the small increments is in the long term, each run will be no more difficult or mentally faster than the first one. If fact, they should internally feel slower as I get more miles. 

My source for how the mind works is obscure and in Hebrew and Aramaic. 

[shipo]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Your stories are fascinating. 

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Thanks; I'll be here all week.  😛

Regarding the 1984 Olympic Marathon, Joan's epic run is certainly a standout and inspiring performance, but I think the men's race was equally epic with the 37 year old Carlos Alberto de Sousa Lopes posting a new Olympic record of 2:09:21, a record which stood for 24 years, and he did it on a rather hot day. One of the more amazing stats from his run to the Gold was his pace for the final 4.5 miles; average pace 4:42 per mile! I remember sitting in a pub in Chicago and watching the race, I didn't have a horse in the race, however, it was an Irish pub (what a shock in Chicago), and they were all pulling for John Treacy (second place 35 seconds back) so I was one of the few in the crowd completely impressed by the performance put on by Carlos.

Regarding running quarter-mile intervals relative to your current training plan; not that you're planning on doing them anytime soon, but I'd recommend avoiding those until, I don't know, maybe forever. Why? A number of the older (as in over 35) folks I help coach have back from track workouts injured from intervals and ladder drills. For us old farts, I think it best to hold off on speed drills until you've got several thousand miles of LSD under your belt, if even then.

Regarding pain, I categorize it in three ways:

1. Good pain: Muscle soreness after upping the speed and/or distance to a notable degree (such as following a race).
2. Concerning pain: Minor or annoying pain in a joint, the gut, back, or neck which lasts longer than a typical mid-run twinge; especially if said pain persists long after the run.
3. Bad pain: Acute pain in a joint, tendon, ligament, or back.

Needless to say "Good pain" is what we all expect and even want upon occasion. The others, well, not so much.

What you call your "Coach" I call my "Systems Check" (I'm an engineer); throughout my runs I am running constant analysis on all aspects of my body along with traffic (human or otherwise), surface conditions, weather, bugs, and pretty much anything else I am aware of in my immediate surrounding. Between Systems Checks, I perform quick reviews about known variables in front of me such as, a weather front may be moving in, or a busy cross street may be around the next bend, or potential locations of mud holes or deep snow or ice on my local trails.

One time when I was starting to extend my distances while I was recovering from the broken leg, I was planning on a 10-mile trail run for the first time in years; my brain pictured a blue painted 2-foot square bit of plywood nailed to a particular tree which marked my 5-mile turn around point (I had reconnoitered the trail by bicycle a few weeks before and had remembered the blue square from like, ten years previous), and off I went. The next thing I remembered was coming out of a particularly long Systems Check and thinking, "Where the heck am I?" Needless to say I turned around right away, and after another 2.5 miles I came to the tree; someone had removed the blue square and my brain completely missed it. Yeah, I was pretty tired when I finished that 15-mile run.

Long story short, regardless of how or why we come/came about our mental states while running, it is a very integral component when running for miles on end. 🙂

[GershonSurge]

@shipo

I'll have to find the Lopes marathon on YouTube and watch it. 

There might be another name for what I'm calling intervals. I would run them at a stride rate slightly higher than what I'm doing now. Maybe 3 or 4 bpm. They should be easy, not hard.

By your excellent definitions, I'd call my little muscle ache type 2. Right now, I plan to take a rest day tomorrow. It's nothing serious if I catch it now. If I try to run, it may lead to other issues because of a poor gait.

I do occasional systems checks. If they are within a reasonable range, I say they are nominal. That's from the old days of the space program. They were always saying nominal, but at the time I didn't know what it meant.

Your blue sign story is funny. I used to be an instructor pilot in the Air Force. When I took students on their first low level VFR (Visual flight rules) flight, I'd pick a tall tower as the final checkpoint. What I didn't tell them is the tower was no longer there. When they started to panic, I'd tell them to turn on their timing and the airfield would be plainly visible.

Like baseball, running is 90% psychological. The other 10% is mental. 

[shipo]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Like baseball, running is 90% psychological. The other 10% is mental. 

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You must have been friends with Yogi Berra.  🙂

[GershonSurge]

It looks like I'm going to take two or three days off from running. The muscle strain is nothing serious. Yesterday, I recalled I did this before and needed to use a cane for a couple days. I looked like grandpa in "The Real McCoy." 

[GershonSurge]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

It looks like I'm going to take two or three days off from running. The muscle strain is nothing serious. Yesterday, I recalled I did this before and needed to use a cane for a couple days. I looked like grandpa in "The Real McCoy." 

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This turned out to be worse than I expected, and I ended up taking about a nine week break. I think I may have torn a tendon in my lat which runs down the back and attaches somewhere near the hip. Funny thing was the only things I couldn't do were walk and run. I kept active by doing chores around the house and even painting the outside of the house. Finally, after a week, I joined Planet Fitness and started weightlifting.

During the first week in July, I started to jump rope. I took it easy knowing there was some risk to my Achilles tendons, but not easy enough. I managed to injure an Achilles tendon around July 11th. I was reduced to walking around 1 mph. Finally, last week I was healthy and started to run again.

I decided to increase my stride rate more quickly since I felt strong, and that is working out well. I'm back to the old number of miles, and I'm running faster than I was before the break. In fact, I'm ahead of where I would have been had I followed the original plan for the last eight weeks.

During the break I lost another 11 pounds, and I'm now just a couple pounds over what I was when I graduated from college. I'm in no rush to lose those two pounds.

I did make a significant change to the training. I'm alternating hard days and easy days. I've been running 100 minutes on the hard days and 50 minutes on the easy days. Tomorrow, I plan to increase it to 110 minutes and 55 minutes. That should be enough for a while. On the easy days, I do an hour of weight lifting. 

Tomorrow, I'll get a chart up showing how I moved ahead of the original schedule.

It looks like I'll be ready for a half-marathon in December. 

The challenge in front of me now is eating enough to maintain my weight. It seems like I eat all day.

[GershonSurge]

While I was sidelined from running, I joined Planet Fitness and began to lift weights. They have an excellent trainer, and we worked together to create a training guide I can follow for the next year or so. 

I called it "Yellow" because I like wearing bright yellow shirts and jackets for running at night. "Run and Weight" is a play on the military saying "Hurry up and wait." The saying "No Pain, more Gain" summarizes my training philosophy.

The most important thing on the cover is the refridgerater sticker that says, "Dreams come in a size too big so we can grow into them." Let me tell you the story behind it.

I drove to the local convenience store and saw a guy in the far end of the parking lot with a small pack. This particular store is located along a route people commonly walk or bicycle ride across the country. He approached me and showed me a hand drawn map. He asked directions to a place on the other side of town to pick up the route. As it turned out, he was better off hitching from a spot a block away. We got to talking about his adventure and how good it felt to be able to walk and run long distances. 

I always buy food for travelers even if they have money. It's called "trail magic" in the backpacking world. While he was packing away his food, we talked about how good it feels to be able to walk or run long distances. He pointedly asked me what my goal was. I said my dream goal was to set a world record for my age group in the marathon in about two years. (I'm 63.) I said I didn't expect to reach the goal, but it would be fun to try.

He gave the micro-expression that showed he strongly disagreed with what I said (stretching one side of the lips out and up a bit) and started digging in his pack. He pulled out the refridgerater magnet and said he had just found it a short time ago.

"Dreams come in a size too big so we can grow into them."

Whether one calls it "God, Universal Consciousness, or a master mind, or whatever," I think sometimes things like this are controlled by some force.

I now think setting the world record is possible. 

[GershonSurge]

I've been working on simplifying my "No pain, more gain" training method so anyone can use it. The basic postulate is if a person starts out with a pace just above walking and uses a metronome to control their stride rate.  Run for a specific time each day and gradually increase the tempo on the metronome. I'm finding about a quarter of a beat a day or less works for a start. 

All a person needs for my method is a stopwatch and a metronome. The Fitbit is used to evaluate performance. Here is my barebones data for the last two weeks. I track the average heart rate for the whole run, but a person could log their perception of effort based on breathing. When I run, I'm barely at the point where I need to open my mouth. I've settled into alternating between 100 minute days and 50 minute days, but a person could use any two to one ratio.

Date	Met	HR	Time
8/11/2016	132.0	107	0:23:40
8/12/2016	132.0	107	0:24:03
8/13/2016	132.0	112	0:46:37
8/14/2016	133.0	109	0:24:03
8/15/2016	133.0	102	1:03:56
8/16/2016	134.0	114	0:50:04
8/17/2016	134.0	102	1:40:05
8/18/2016	135.0	100	0:50:04
8/19/2016	135.0	102	1:40:07
8/20/2016	136.0	102	0:50:03
8/21/2016	136.0	106	1:40:00
8/22/2016	137.0	111	0:35:06
8/23/2016	137.0	106	1:40:02
8/24/2016	137.5	108	0:50:03
8/25/2016	138.0	109	1:40:02

In order to be successful, the runner must internalize pace doesn't matter as long as it is improving. I'm starting slowly because I'm 63 and haven't run in a long time.

Now let's look at the rest of the data I track to see if the training plan is working. I use the GPS function on the Surge to measure the distance. For those that don't have GPS, they can use the Nike Running App on their phone. For those that don't have phones, they can measure a route using Google Maps and do a test about every two weeks. 

I focus on the long runs where some of the cells are highlighted in light blue. Notice the distance goes up each run even though the time stays the same. Notice the pace improves slightly each run. This doesn't happen every run, but it's a long term trend. The calories I burned per mile have decreased from 175 (on another table) to 141. My pace for each mile is improving.

I'm way ahead of my original projections, and I think the marathon will be doable in two years. Meanwhile, I'm planning on finishing first in my age group in a December half marathon.

[shipo]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

I'm way ahead of my original projections, and I think the marathon will be doable in two years. Meanwhile, I'm planning on finishing first in my age group in a December half marathon.

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This December?  Hmmm, that seems like a tall order; not sure what kind of times you're seeing in your area, but here in New Hampshire a typicaly winning time for a Half-Marathon in the Men's 60-69 age group is right bang on about 1:40 which works out to an average pace of 7:38 per mile.  Does your training plan have that much of a ramp up in terms of both distance and pace?

[GershonSurge]

Here it's about a 12 minute pace for my age group. I think I can be at a 9:38 pace, but I'm confident I can be under 12. 

Added: I realized that when I was first considering the half-marathon a couple months ago, I was looking at the slowest paces for my age group. The fastest was 9:32. 

[shipo]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Here it's about a 12 minute pace for my age group. I think I can be at a 9:38 pace, but I'm confident I can be under 12. 

Added: I realized that when I was first considering the half-marathon a couple months ago, I was looking at the slowest paces for my age group. The fastest was 9:32. 

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Yes, doubling your distance and dropping your pace 12:00 in the few months remaining is doable, however, training to the point where you'll be able to run a half at a sub-10:00 pace by December is pretty much a recipe for injury.  I'd recommend you target the December race with a 12:00 goal and then worry about pace for the 2017 race.