I found a 15 week Half Marathon training plan while I was looking at the Grandma's Marathon website and thought it looked interesting. I decided to give it a try and see how I do at the Earthday HM at the end of April in St. Cloud MN.
I'm into week four and am discovering that I need more recovery time and cannot keep up with the three days of speed work along with the mileage. If you guys could look at the plan in my calender and recommend what speed workouts to drop for a recovery day I'd really appreciate it. Next week only has two so I'm good there, just let me know in each subsequent week and what your thoughts are behind dropping one of the three.
Or do I just need to HTFU?
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
2014 Goals:
Stay healthy
Enjoy life
Just a dude.
Is the swimming on your plan actually swimming in a pool for nearly a mile?
Is that taking enough out of you that your easy days aren't easy enough?
-Kelly
Getting back in shape... Just need it to be a skinnier shape...
My question is: Are you doing the Hills as intended and what effort are you supposed to be running those at. 9 - 10 at 300 - 400 meters would be a tough friggin workout. And they progress from there!
In the last 4 weeks I think we can simplify your entries and say that you have been doing 3 tempo's/week. My guess is that your running them just a tad too hard though...Don't know. I think 2 would be plenty. If you want more then when you start your longer runs just add a strong finish where you run the last 15mins hard.
I like to put 2 easy days between hard workouts. (but I'm 46). When I have a good solid base and I want more quality I do better with back to back hard days vs 1 easy day in between.
Feeling the growl again
Two workouts, plus some quality in your longer run, should be plenty. Say long run Sun, then workouts Tues/Fri.
IMHO you are asking a lot of quality out of yourself for the overall volume you are running. Heck, I used to do the one easy day in between thing...I am only 33...and right now I need two easy days between even though I'm running ~70mpw.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Prince of Fatness
I find that I get run down when I try to do this, but I am 48 so maybe that has something to do with. I've been successful with just one mid week workout and quality in the long run. I do that Wed/Sat. That's conservative, but doing it that way I have never had to cut a workout short or bag it altogether. I've also never had to sacrifice weekly volume either. Just something to consider.
I agree with spaniel though, that plan looks pretty aggressive for the volume that you are running.
Not at it at all.
I find that I get run down when I try to do this, but I am 48 so maybe that has something to do with.
I have not yet formed an opinion on how much is truly age-related...ask me in a few years. It is standard to hear older pro/elite runners commenting on how they have to pay more attention to recovery than when they were younger so there must be something to it, they should know.
If you MUST completely drop a workout, I'd keep the tempo running -- cut the intervals -- but then do the intervals instead every 3rd week...then maybe a couple weeks in a row before any taper.
Is the swimming on your plan actually swimming in a pool for nearly a mile? Is that taking enough out of you that your easy days aren't easy enough? -Kelly
Yes, its swimming in a pool and I try to get 2.5 to 3 miles a week in three to four days per week over my lunch break. It used to take alot out of me when I first started swimming, but these days I don't feel like they hinder anything else I do in the evening when I swim at noon.
I also use a 2 beat kick technique when I swim which is 2-3 times less kicking then a normal freestyle kick.. I hardly use my legs as I want to save them for the bike and run portion of a triathlon and honestly they just use up too much oxygen for the little propulsion you get from them. I'm faster with a 2 beat kick then a 4 or 6 beat kick. That may be why the swim eorkout is easier on me then it used to be.
For "easy" I genrally use a HR monitor (actually pretty religously) and keep my HR in the mid to upper Zone 1, which for most HR people would be classified as a recovery type run.
My question is: Are you doing the Hills as intended and what effort are you supposed to be running those at. 9 - 10 at 300 - 400 meters would be a tough friggin workout. And they progress from there! In the last 4 weeks I think we can simplify your entries and say that you have been doing 3 tempo's/week. My guess is that your running them just a tad too hard though...Don't know. I think 2 would be plenty. If you want more then when you start your longer runs just add a strong finish where you run the last 15mins hard. I like to put 2 easy days between hard workouts. (but I'm 46). When I have a good solid base and I want more quality I do better with back to back hard days vs 1 easy day in between.
I hven't ran a Hills workout yet and I just wrote in what the plan called for as a Hills workout. I'm pretty sure I can not complete them as listed and would experiment with the distance and reps. Got any suggestions for those? I'll be using a dreadmill for those workouts.
As for running my tempos too hard, I was using McMillians pace calculator and my estimated 15k pace after plugging in what I feel is a realistic 5k run right now. I'm thinking of doing a 5k on Saturday so I can plug that time in and go from there. I've been running the last 3/4 miles closer to 5k/Sprint pace though and I'm not sure why, I just seem to want to kick it in towards the end. I'm definiately feeling the three day and need to change that. The plan actually calls out for a run @ 85% MaxHR which would be around 168 bpm for me and I'm averaging much less (158 to 162 bpm) during the tempo portion of the run.
I know most of you guys don't do the HR monitor thing, but it helps me keep things in check and kept me running when I started out 2.5 years ago.
Two workouts, plus some quality in your longer run, should be plenty. Say long run Sun, then workouts Tues/Fri. IMHO you are asking a lot of quality out of yourself for the overall volume you are running. Heck, I used to do the one easy day in between thing...I am only 33...and right now I need two easy days between even though I'm running ~70mpw.
The plan looked pretty doable when I was looking it over and set it up, but its a hell of a lot tougher then I imagined it would be. I'm going to modify it down to the two days and long run on Sundays.
I'm 43 and going on my third year of running. I did a Pfitz 18-55 plan last spring and that went well until the Mono hit me about three weeks from my race and took me out for the rest of the summer so I never got to see the payoff with that plan.
I have not yet formed an opinion on how much is truly age-related...ask me in a few years. It is standard to hear older pro/elite runners commenting on how they have to pay more attention to recovery than when they were younger so there must be something to it, they should know. If you MUST completely drop a workout, I'd keep the tempo running -- cut the intervals -- but then do the intervals instead every 3rd week...then maybe a couple weeks in a row before any taper.
Thanks for the advice, this is what I was after.
This is pretty much what I do when training for a half. I alternate weeks. So, one week I would do a 45 minute tempo close to HM effort. The other week would be longer intervals with short recovery jogs (6x4 minutes 10K effort w/90 second jog mainly). During the peak of the training cycle I would do the intervals more often. This worked very well for me.
A little late to the game here but Spaniel is spot on as usual. If you had to drop a workout, it would be the intervals. You will get much more benefit by being able to keep your miles up and hit the quality day with either a progression, fartlek or tempo run. I basically kept that pattern when I could while training for the marathon last year. Each week I would do one quality workout- progression, fartlek or tempo- and one long run for the week. Between the prior achilles issues and occassional hamstring issue issue, I stayed away from the intervals. For marathon training, this worked well for me.
I ran my second half in 2010 and spent too much time worrying about trying to get intervals in versus building that aerobic engine. I did OK in the race but could have done a ton better if I actually knew how to train. If I could go back, I wouldn't have the intervals as a key focal point. Live and learn!
Each week I would do one quality workout- progression, fartlek or tempo- and one long run for the week.
Yes, don't let yourself get stale. I love 4 mile tempo runs but you can skin the cat many ways.
Earlier in the season, I would throw in a building run (hill work + maintenance mile) as a quality workout too. I liked the rotation I did and it seemed to work pretty well for me. By far my favorite was the progression run. I was surprised that I could drop ~10 sec per mile with nothing but mile markers and a regular watch - no garmin to give me pace. It forced me to not only stay disciplined but also pay more attention to effort and pace as I went.
I modified my plan after some helpful input from the hurt locker. Take a peek and critique if you have the time or give a shit.