How to choose a goal time for a half? (Read 630 times)

Hi everyone

I'm looking for some advice on what goal time i should select for a half marathon.  Just some background information on my miles and race. 

I ran my first 5k on Oct 14, 2012 with a time of 23:33.  After putting the information in McMillian i get an expected time of 1:49:02 (avg pace of 8:19).  Based on reading other posts, McMillian time are based on the fact that you have trained properly for the race.  I will continue to increase my miles until my race to about 45 mpw and of course taper. 

My long run so far has been 11.5 miles, most of my runs during the week are between 6 and 7 miles and are mostly easy miles because I'm trying to build my base.  For the last month my mpw has average about 33 mpw.  

Gender: Male

Age: 29

Monthly Miles

July             15 miles  avg pace  9:33

August       61 miles avg pace  10:19

Sept           88 miles  avg pace 9:24

Oct            109 miles avg pace 9:04

Nov           115 miles (took a week off because of a hectic schedule)  avg pace so far:  8:48

Should my goal be what McMillian predicts my time will be base don my 5K of 1:49 or can it be something else.  I don't want to set a goal that ridiculous like 1:30 for a half. 

Race Date: Early May 2013.

My log is open for anyone to view. Your help is greatly appreciated. 

I would say you could put down 1:50 as your "C" goal and work up from there.

Try to schedule a race or two between now and May and you should get a much better idea of what you can shoot for on your goal race day.

Thanks, will continue to run and look post again when three or four weeks from the race. 

Your fitness may have improved. From my experience, I ran 7K 6 weeks later faster than my 5K. So I use McMillan calculator and got a more accurate pace for my training.

I had no idea how fast I could run for my 7K. My target was to run under 30:00 and ended with 28:38. My point is that you will be ready to run faster when your training goes well and effective.

So I would suggest to sign up a race and update your result, then train from there.

Hi everyone

 

I'm looking for some advice on what goal time i should select for a half marathon.  Just some background information on my miles and race. 

 

I ran my first 5k on Oct 14, 2012 with a time of 23:33.  After putting the information in McMillian i get an expected time of 1:49:02 (avg pace of 8:19).  Based on reading other posts, McMillian time are based on the fact that you have trained properly for the race.  I will continue to increase my miles until my race to about 45 mpw and of course taper. 

 

My long run so far has been 11.5 miles, most of my runs during the week are between 6 and 7 miles and are mostly easy miles because I'm trying to build my base.  For the last month my mpw has average about 33 mpw.  

 

Gender: Male

Age: 29

 

Monthly Miles

July             15 miles  avg pace  9:33

August       61 miles avg pace  10:19

Sept           88 miles  avg pace 9:24

Oct            109 miles avg pace 9:04

Nov           115 miles (took a week off because of a hectic schedule)  avg pace so far:  8:48

 

Should my goal be what McMillian predicts my time will be base don my 5K of 1:49 or can it be something else.  I don't want to set a goal that ridiculous like 1:30 for a half. 

 

Race Date: Early May 2013.

 

My log is open for anyone to view. Your help is greatly appreciated. 

According to the formula that we use, with your 23:33-5k time would predict 1:48 for the half.  Personally I prefer the past 6-months performance but we say 12 simply because there are people who don't race as frequently.  Surely 3 is better still.  With a proper training plan (12-24 weeks; again, the longer the better), you should expect, according to our formula, 1:44 for half.

All these performance predicting formula is nothing but a guide.  Ultimately, particularly for the longer events like half marathon or full marathon, your ability to predict time depends mainly on your current VO2Max, which is what most of these calculators rely on, and your ability to handle pounding (your leg strength) which none of us can even predict.  All the "speed" in the world for 5k or 10k won't matter in the marathon if your legs can't carry you through the distance.

I was in a similar position earlier this year.  I felt that the various pacing calculators were useless for me because I had run so few cumulative miles and was still improving each week.  I also had not run many races.  In the end, I chose a goal based on a recent workout. As the race approached, I ran a "comfortably hard" 10 miles at an 8:30 pace.  I figured I could run about 45 seconds per mile faster on race day and hold it for an extra 3 miles.

This was not a very scientific approach, but I think it would have worked if I had stuck to it.  Instead, I "felt great" that day, ran the first 10 miles at a 7:30 pace and then suffered over the last 3 miles.  My average pace for the race ended up around 7:55.  Oh, well.  It is hard to get it perfect the first time.  I agree with MilkTruck.  Run a few HMs and your pacing will improve over time.

A good way to pick a goal time for a half marathon is to run a half marathon...or two..or three. (seriously)

 +1 to this method. I do this every winter as both training and prediction for my March HM. I try to run a comfortably fast 13.12 training run every week or two, unless I'm doing a longer weekend run. By the time my March half rolls around I'll know within a couple of minutes what my actual  race time should be, depending on the wind and weather factors at the actual race of course. I'll set a goal time for the race that is a few minutes faster than my best training run up to that point. This is an aggressive training method and isn't for everyone, but it works wonders for my HM race times.