meaghansketch - Thank you for your thoughts about the overall mileage.  My plan is a 12 week canned plan that was elongated to 20 weeks.  Before I started this plan, I was running 30 to 40 mpw in the 10:30 mm to 11:00 mm range or GHMP +1:30 to 2:00.  March is a good example of my running habits/capacity.  When I started this plan I thought I was trading lots of long slow miles for fewer faster miles.

 

I'm now 12 weeks from race day and I think it is time to pivot.  I'll add the suggested 2 mile warm up and cool down to the Tuesday fartklet fun., keep the tempo work where it is at, and double the easy miles with a GHMP +1:00 to 1:30 pace or 10:30mm which is where I was before I started the plan.

 

As to the sub 2:00 group in the racing forum I stick my head in there from time to time, but I find the multiple conversations really hard to follow.

 

Thanks all for your help.

 

Rick

: How did you choose your goal HM pace? Is it based on a PR at a shorter distance, using McMillan? My 5 & 10k PRs indicate between 1:55 and 1:58.

Hi Julie:

I used math to determine my goal half marthon pace.  A sub 2:00 half marathon requires a 9:16 mm pace.  I don't really have any good or recent race day data to drop into McMillan.  I don't race a whole lot.  I'm a relatively new runner.  I'm approaching the end of my second year running.

Also this is the first race that I've used fartleks, tempo runs, or a goal pace.  Before this training cycle, my training just involved running a whole lot, and my race day goal was to break my personal record for the distance.   I'd use the fitness gains from all the training (haphazard as it may be) and break my PR. My last 5k was in October.  My current PR at the half marathon distance was set in January at Disney World in a race that I considered a fun run.  The race was on day 2 of a week long Disney vacation.  I had no desire to hurt myself or wear myself out on day 2, so I took it easy.  At 2:21:20, I set a new PR anyway.

This is the first race that I've entered that I am streching myself and I'll actually race.  I believe I can run a sub 2:00 half, but As LTH staed above, a two hour half may be beyond my present fitness level.    I'll let y'all know on the afternoon of September 1st.

And 4outa5 - I've been a bit quiet on the board.  the late winter/early spring is the manic time in my practice.  I haven't had a whole lot of time to read and write to the board.

Rick

ETA - I have adjusted the plan.  I have added a long run to every weekend, added a longer warm up and cool down to the fartklet sessions and removed the time references to the easy runs.  I think I was getting hung up on the time on the easy runs.  I was treating them like tempo workouts, just easier tempo work outs.

Thank you for your thoughts George.  A sub 2:00 half marathon may be too ambitious.  It may not.  I'll take a look at my 12 mile easy pace once I start running 12 miles again (over the next month or two) and once I start running easy again (tonight!).

Rick

I might be the odd one out here, but my "easy" runs are about HMP + 2 min.  This is based on an actual half marathon race time which I believe was the absolute best I could do on that day.  I arrived at this pace for easy runs based largely on what most of the pace calculators out there predicted, and it felt right so I stayed with it.  If I'm REALLY fatigued and running closer to a recovery run, that pace will slow to HMP + 2:45 on occassion...

I can't imagine running an "easy" run at HMP + 1:00... That would still be a pretty effortful for me and is in fact my goal marathon pace for a race coming up this fall.

I'd be hesitant to relate easy pace to HM or marathon pace or any other race pace for that matter. 

Agreed, my half marathon and marathon times are soft, so they would be of no use to me in that regard.  Also, my easy pace may change depending on what I have done in the days before an easy run.

My normal easy pace is around 8:20 (loosely based on Daniels vdot pace table), but an easy run a couple of days after a 10k may produce a pace of 8:35.  Or, one a day after 1 mile race pace repeats may have me running easy at 8:50.  I spent three days days traveling earlier this spring and could not run easy below a 9:00 pace for those first couple of runs back.  On the other side, there are days when 8:18's just roll off without any effort whatsoever.

Therefore when I run easy, depending on what I have run that week (or drank the night before), I can expect to see a pace variance of up to 45 seconds, something I understand and make no effort to change.  If you are trying to run easy at a certain pace, then you are likely not running by effort.  But that is just my view on the subject, one of many and they all have merit.

If something else works for other people that is quite alright.  We are after all, an experiment of one.