MY training Schedule for the Fox Cites Half Marathon- Thoughts Please?

Da Big OJ

posted: 7/9/2007 at 12:03 AM

Well I saw all your thoughts on BearcatRunner's training schedule and liked the input that you all gave him. I was hoping you could do the same for me. My Plan Thanks Orion

Orion Goals: 5k 18:30 10K 38:00 Marathon 3:10

mikeymike

posted: 7/9/2007 at 7:42 AM

Looks pretty sound to me based on what you've been doing. The only thing I'd recommend is being a little more flexible on what pace you do things. Maybe you already are and the paces you put in there are just placeholders--I just find there is a lot of variation from day to day based on how I feel. Good luck with it.

Runners run.

schneidr

Was it all a dream?

posted: 7/9/2007 at 4:30 PM

The thing that jumped out at me about your plan is the large percentage of weekly mileage done on your long run. In some of your weeks, your long run is nearly 50% of your mileage for the week. I would suggest making them about 25-30% of weekly milage. You could do this by adding some miles (an extra day of easy running or changing one of your easy runs into a medium long run) or decreasing the length of your long runs (although I do think the longer run will help make the half marathon distance much more manageable on race day). Feel free to ignore my advice, but I think that putting too much into one run each week will leave you vulnerable to injury.

I'm in the business of misery...

Da Big OJ

posted: 7/9/2007 at 5:57 PM

Yeah, my long runs are defiantly a little long, but I read some were that your longest long run for a half marathon should be about 18 miles. I was just trying to increase my weekly total slowly, but still run a few long runs around 18 Miles. With a max weekly mileage of 40 miles, how long should my long run be? Based on peoples experiences what length long run did people feel best prepared them for a half marathon? My goal for this Marathon is to just to gain some experience racing at this distance. I have never raced this distance before, so I am just shooting for a time equal to my predicted time based on my past race performances.

Orion Goals: 5k 18:30 10K 38:00 Marathon 3:10

Grun

posted: 7/9/2007 at 10:10 PM

My two cents are that while training for my half, I did manage to do a longer run than the half and the largest benefit was knowing that I had previously gone the distance of the half and then some (very valueable knowing during the last two miles of the race). That said, some kids who also ran the half never trained beyond 10 miles and they finished 5 minutes ahead of me. (Granted, they were tall boys, all a dozen or more years younger than me..) But obviously not running the distance and then some did not hinder them overly much as they finished in the upper 50% bracket. I think if you are regulary logging the longer distances they would obviously be a big benefit to your running career for this half and beyond. Good luck!

Jeff

posted: 7/10/2007 at 1:08 PM
modified: 7/10/2007 at 1:09 PM

Hey Da Big, Good advice above from everyone. I'll echo the sentiment that the long run can be a bit overrated. I've found that it is unnecessary to run 18 miles before a 13 mile race--my opinion is that the weekly (and yearly) volume is a much better indicator of fitness. For those reasons, I think that the 18 miler will leave you drained if not injured, given your background. I also wonder why you have two off days built into your schedule? Sometimes an easy 30 minutes or so (if you can squeeze it in) is a better recovery than a day off. All that said, the plan is on the right track. Remember what Mikeymike said about flexibility: listen to your body, and adjust if you feel like it. You've got the basic parameters right, and that's about all that can be said over the internet.

The Logic of Long Distance

Da Big OJ

posted: 7/10/2007 at 2:12 PM

Well I took all the advice so far and updated My Plan. I decreased my long runs to 15 miles max and added an addtional run on tuesday. The long run still more then the recommended %, but i wanted to at lease run a little further then the half marathon distances. Also since my weekly total distance incress is considerably less then the 10% increase I think i should be fine. I dont want to incress my milage to quickly since i have some arch problems. Thanks Orion

Orion Goals: 5k 18:30 10K 38:00 Marathon 3:10

MY training Schedule for the Fox Cites Half Marathon- Thoughts Please? (Read 714 times)