Forums >Racing>Sub 1:30 Half Marathon in 2018
RIP Milkman
Steve - you don't have to jump into long tempos. I actually think doing it by minutes is best, with a 5:1 work ratio. Generally, you should limit your weekly T paced work (what Daniels calls it) to about 10% of your weekly mileage. So, if you were running 50-60 miles per week (80-100KM), I would do the workouts in this type of progression:
4x5 minute with 1 minute walking rest
5x5 minute with 1 minute walking rest
6x5 minute with 1 minute walking rest
3x10 minute with 2 minute walking rest
2x15 minute with 3 minute walking rest
20 minute with 4 minute walking rest, then 10 minutes
I guess the point is you make the workout harder by slowly increasing the distance, not necessarily changing your rest. Also, you will naturally speed up on these, i.e. you shouldn't keep your pace the same on these as your fitness progresses.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Steve what sort of weekly mileage have you been hitting lately ? Maybe just build some base miles first before attempting speedwork. You need the foundation to support the speedwork.
Keen one thing about high mileage is requires a level of running talent to cope with it and not get injured or mentally burnt out. You obviously have this talent and it will help you reach your potential.
Mark yeah you would think 120kms would trump 80kms any day. For me it is probably the difference between a 1.24 half and a 1.21. Not huge gains but certainly a good improvement.
Thanks its nice to have a running goal to look forward too. I have a brother in Brighton and another nearby. The one in Brighton I havent seen for 30 years. I should get up into a weekly average of 100kms for the 4 month cycle.
Bit of a pain in my left calf yesterday and today. Was going to do 5x1000s tomorrow but will assess it on the warmup.
55+ PBs 5k 18:36 June 3rd TT
" If you don't use it you lose it, but if you use it, it wears out.
Somewhere in between is about right "
Hot Weather Complainer
Thanks JMac.
Piwi, I'm only at about 65km/week at the moment but that is close to my previous maximum. It's about what I cope with without getting injured.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:34:49 6/23
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Cobra Commander Keen
Steve - As a fellow Daniels fanboy, I agree with JMac's recommendation, though Piwi does have a point about the base. Since you said you've been at about your max you should be good to go.
Piwi - It actually occurred to me a while back that I seem to have the knack for high mileage that some lack. With my current (tentative) plans for next year I'll probably need it. It would be so much easier, though, if I could do all this on 60mi/100k per week!
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
OKC Memorial 5k - April 27
Bun Run 5k - May 4
Piwi - I'm so excited for you to come on over in sub 3 and see you run a marathon. I get glimpses into your fitness when you put these blocks together and just throw in a sub 1:30 half in training. I think you have a good shot at an age-graded PR. Now only if we could get Mark to run another one.
Steve - I agree with the others in that building up to higher KM is probably helpful. You may have been getting injured because of too much too soon. If you truly want to stay around 65 KMPW, then I would stick to the lower end of what I was saying. A steady diet of 5x5 minute will treat you well for half marathons. 3x10 here and there would be okay, but I would wait until later in your cycle. I would not do the 2x15 workout, it's probably too stressful at your weekly volume.
Thanks for your thoughts guys.
JMac - I feel like I should be able to handle stepping up to the 15 minute blocks but I'll be careful about it. I'll try the 5x5 mins today - I also slowly add tempo to my long run, up to 6-8km 2 weeks out from a half. Do you think I'd be better off keeping the long run easy and extending it a bit, and keep my tempo to a dedicated mid week session?
Thanks for your thoughts guys. JMac - I feel like I should be able to handle stepping up to the 15 minute blocks but I'll be careful about it. I'll try the 5x5 mins today - I also slowly add tempo to my long run, up to 6-8km 2 weeks out from a half. Do you think I'd be better off keeping the long run easy and extending it a bit, and keep my tempo to a dedicated mid week session?
This is probably better suited for Mark given his expertise at the half distance, but it's about building up such that you can do a combo workout. Your first goal should be to get your long run up to about 2 hours. Once you do that a couple of times, then you can start adding in things like fast finish long runs, which for me used to be something like 12 miles easy plus 3 miles at tempo.
Thanks Jmac its pretty exciting and should keep me focused. High mileage does not come easy to me but Im coping with 80km/week which is the base for Pfitz 18/70.
Steve - a couple of the tempo workouts I used to really enjoy were:
That was when I was doing ~65km/week so pretty similar to where you are mileage-wise.
Agree with JMac that the focus for your long run should be just getting the time up, don't worry about anything too fancy with it for now. 2 hours is ideal if you are focusing on HM distance, you don't need anything longer than that. There are some good workouts that you can incorporate later on but I'd say just do a separate tempo workout for now.
JMac - I'm gonna do another marathon sometime. Just... not soon. This may sound counter-intuitive but running is too important to me to run a marathon right now. Running basically keeps me sane and is an essential offset to work stress - I can still remember the utter frustration of those ITB issues I had post-marathon and I'm just not prepared to run the risk of that. HMs and 10km's are a good distance for me and I like that the recovery time is not too much so if you have a bad race you can regroup and bounce back quickly. Aside from the fact I don't really have time to commit to proper marathon training volumes, I'm just not prepared to run the risk of investing that time and effort and it not paying off for whatever reason (race weather, had a bad day, etc.) and then potentially also leading to injuries etc. I know my FM PB is soft but I also know that the decision to focus on shorter distances this year ended up with two national championship silver medals and HM/10k PB's. I always tell my team at work to focus on what they're good at and what they enjoy and so I'd be silly not to follow my own advice.
3,000m: 9:07.7 (Nov-21) | 5,000m: 15:39 (Dec-19) | 10,000m: 32:34 (Mar-20)
10km: 33:15 (Sep-19) | HM: 1:09:41 (May-21)* | FM: 2:41:41 (Oct-20)
* Net downhill course
Last race: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Mark - I think you’re gonna be fine for a couple more years. The marathon will call your name once you can’t PR at shorter distances anymore.
Piwi - That’s a perfect base.
Cool, thanks Mark. I think it will be easy to extend my long run, and reduce the pace a bit too. I did 100 mins last weekend in pretty warm conditions, probably 10 seconds per km too fast so I'll make the adjustment.
I tried the 5x5 min tempo at lunchtime today but went to pieces in the heat and decided to just jog it home after 3 - was getting seriously lightheaded towards the end. It's the first really warm week of the year so maybe it's just a bit of a shock to the system. We get a nice southerly change and showers tomorrow.
Steve can you get up early and run ? Its so much nicer. I ran at 1pm today and it sucks donkey balls compared to early
Mark very sensible with your marathon aspirations. You are only 3 years or so into running. Marathons can wait. You will be able to run a really good marathon at 40. Ive never had an addiction for marathons like some runners.
I finally got to watch the Chicago Marathon replay albeit in Spanish Mo Farah was so well controlled.
Im into my 3rd day of calf pain in my left calf. But I still ran 10kms on it....
I think I can do it earlier on the weekend - usually during the week I'll go late afternoon or evening which I find much better, even though the temperature is higher, the sun is lower.
Calf pain...you need The Stick!
Steve Ive got the elcheapo KMart roller
I think I can do it earlier on the weekend - usually during the week I'll go late afternoon or evening which I find much better, even though the temperature is higher, the sun is lower. Calf pain...you need The Stick!
Totally agreed on the sun comment. I find it much easier to run at 6 or 7 PM in the summer when it's technically hotter than 11 am specifically because the sun is so much lower in the sky. I'd have to be done with my run by 9 am to avoid that brutal sun, and I'm just not a morning person as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of my runs on Strava are "evening runs"
Steve - you need to use pace adjustments for heat and dew point (Kiwi - dew point talk is back!). Here's the chart I used all summer, it was pretty spot on for any sort of tempo work assuming there's no mitigating factors, e.g. you're running in the direct noon sun. It's in Fahrenheit so you'll have to do some conversions, but you just add your temperature and dew point together and look up the pace adjustment. Most of our summer is in the 151 to 160 range, and I did find I was running those paces about 5% slower.
100 or less: no pace adjustment
101 to 110: 0% to 0.5% pace adjustment
111 to 120: 0.5% to 1.0% pace adjustment
121 to 130: 1.0% to 2.0% pace adjustment
131 to 140: 2.0% to 3.0% pace adjustment
141 to 150: 3.0% to 4.5% pace adjustment
151 to 160: 4.5% to 6.0% pace adjustment
161 to 170: 6.0% to 8.0% pace adjustment
171 to 180: 8.0% to 10.0% pace adjustment
Above 180: hard running not recommended