Question about my HM (Read 806 times)

Kind of curious why you are doing 15 mile long for training for half on your low miles (less than 30). Be very sure to watch intensity. Even slow pace will beat on body a bit and require more recovery when you don't have miles around this. At your mileage, no reason to go past 12 miles on long run leading up to half. Do a few of those and you are ready. The 10K will provide a nice conditoning effect for the half. Warm up a mile or two before and throw in a mile or two after and you have an awesome long work out. Take it easy the week after the 10k but you already run your runs comfortable so you should recover no problem. Be extra cautious on intensity though. Still get miles in but very comfortable. The weekend before the half, try to get in some goal pace miles. Warm up a mile or two and run 3-4 miles at estimated goal pace to get a feel for what this feels like. Finish with some cooldown miles and striders. Also, don't overtaper. You will do great.

Kind of curious why you are doing 15 mile long for training for half on your low miles (less than 30). Be very sure to watch intensity. Even slow pace will beat on body a bit and require more recovery when you don't have miles around this. At your mileage, no reason to go past 12 miles on long run leading up to half. Do a few of those and you are ready. The 10K will provide a nice conditoning effect for the half. Warm up a mile or two before and throw in a mile or two after and you have an awesome long work out. Take it easy the week after the 10k but you already run your runs comfortable so you should recover no problem. Be extra cautious on intensity though. Still get miles in but very comfortable. The weekend before the half, try to get in some goal pace miles. Warm up a mile or two and run 3-4 miles at estimated goal pace to get a feel for what this feels like. Finish with some cooldown miles and striders. Also, don't overtaper. You will do great.

Alternate day runs means I don't work around a 7 day "week" - I plan my runs around a 12-14 day cycle. So my weekly calendar won't show more than 30 - but my last 12 day cycle was closer to 44, and I have done up to 35 in a 7 day period. I will be adding regular biking in to support longer runs after the half. I plan on taking 2 min walk breaks every 4 miles when I run the 15, since that will be the first time I attempt that distance outdoors. Thanks Tchuck- sounds like a good plan for the 10K, and I'll forget about adding new types of workouts. One of the reasons I was thinking about the 10K, is that I'm still not quite sure what my goal pace should be...I'm thinking I could probably finish in 2:10 - 2:12. Berner - good advice, and injury risk is always on my mind. It is difficult to know just how hard you can push yourself to improve without crossing that injury line.

Well, I ran the 10K... I had a plan.....I wanted to try an aggressive pace and see what I could do with it...that pace was 9:10. Race calculator was giving me around 9:22 based on my previous 2 races. I knew the first mile was downhill, so I wanted to try to hold around an 8:40 pace for that first mile, knowing that I would be slowing significantly when I hit the mile uphill on A street. It's not that it is a terrible hill, but it's long, and it starts around mile 4.5. The rest of the course is on a slight incline after that. I was not nervous about this race, because in my mind, it was a "practice" race ( thanks, Scout), and I fully expected that going out fast was either going to give me a great time, or blow up in my face...and I was Ok and expecting the latter.... So I start my warm up....very slow jog....and I feel very short of breath, so just quit and went back to sit in the car. It wasn't very windy, overcast and about 55, so pretty perfect race conditions. I was working hard, but feeling reasonably good until anytime I hit an uphill. By the time I got to the A street hill, I had take 3-4 walk breaks, but got back into pace pretty quickly. Mile 5-6, still had to take a couple of walk breaks, and once again, I'm between packs - no one in front of me....peeps way behind me. Last .21, kicked it - wheezing all the way in to the finsh - but I did it. My goal was to try to push myself as hard as I could. I don't think I did that, but I'm getting closer to doing it...I think that takes a lot of practice and a lot of guts to do. I'm not there..... yet....But I was very happy with my efforts and my results. 8:51 and the shirt was pretty cool too I'm planning on going to 4 days/wk with my runs, and the new day will be a LHR run day. Race calculator is now saying 9:15 for the half - but I know this is too fast for me, so not sure how I'm going to handle the pacing in that yet. I still have 2 weeks to go.....

Thanks, Dave, I really feel like the long runs are making a difference, if nothing else, they are giving me lots of confidence in myself. I plan on just running easy the next 2 weeks.

I wish I had built more time into training for this half, but it was a late decision, originally I was going to run the 5K This is my last race for the year, and it is the distance I was training for before my first injury - so in my mind, it's really important. I'm planning a 10-12 tomorrow, and the rest of my runs will be in the 6-8 range. I guess I'm going to try out that race predictor, so will throw in some miles at 9:15 during the regular runs, but keep most of the miles easy. I like the idea of running just a couple of miles easy the 2 days before the race, and maybe throw a few strides in there. Thanks for the advice, John - and I will have fun!

Congrats on finishing (although sorry it was in pain!) And thanks for sharing the pictures!

Thanks Redleaf and Ennay