Forums >Racing>Suggested final Long Run, 2 weeks prior to Half
My Half (Nashville) is in less than 3 weeks and I'm wondering what, if anything, I should throw into my last long run this Sunday. I had thought to do my 15 miler with 7 @ LR pace then throw in 2 x 3 @ HM pace with a 1 @ LR pace after each interval. Any other suggestions out there from you half marathoners? I'll do a 10 day taper starting next week.
bump. I think everyone is in Nantucket this morning...
What is LR pace? And when you say 2 x 3 at HM pace, what is the "3"? Minutes?
I'd probably just run it and not worry too much about it. If the mood struck me, maybe I'd do a little progression run over the back half.
Runners run
Hello
Yes 15 sounds good and the 2x3 if your talking miles with 1 mile @LR isn't bad, but I think you would be better off hitting 5 or 6@HM. This is assuming your working off an achievable HM pace, maybe something just a little better than a previous race. The 2x3 isn't bad but 1 mile between is a full recovery. I think you should drop it to 2 minutes. This is your critical run 2 weeks out and getting around 6@HM is important. Good luck on your workout and your race in two weeks.
LR pace? Sorry...my abbreviation for Long Run aerobic pace which I usually keep around 9:15-9:30. And yes, I was stating 2 x 3 miles for a total of 6 miles at half marathon pace over the last half of my long run. Being 12 weeks back from an injury and just working on getting in mileage, I don't have any recent relevant Half times from which to pace. So, I raced a 10k last week (47:3X) to get my 8:10 target for the Half (McMillan = 8:06).
Writing this, I realize that the HM pace makes me nervous (I did a bit better than expected in my 10k) which is why I had thought to throw in the 6 HM miles at the end of my long run to see how that felt. I guess it's more of a validation point, because otherwise I would be satisfied with a long progression run (which I would enjoy more).
Thanks for both of your recommendations. Feel free to add on...
I think it's important what workouts you have done at that pace or faster. If you have not done a lot of long intervals on the roads at 8:10 then this could be an absolutely monster workout.
I am fairly certain that 2 weeks before my most recent half marathon (in March) I could not have done 2 x 3 miles in a solo training run at the pace I wound up racing my half. I tend to not try workouts like that because they wind up just being discouraging and I know I can always race faster than what I can pull off all by myself in workouts. Race magic is real.
So I usually use tune up races as peaking workouts, and I when I do long tempos or long intervals on the roads, I don't worry too much about hitting the exact pace--I go by effort and let the pace fall where it may.
So if it's mostly a validation point, I personally would skip it. I know the most likely outcome is I would struggle with the workout and it would cause unnecessary doubt to creep in. But this is one of those case where you have to know yourself a bit.
I'm going to echo mikey. There's no way in hell I could have done 2 x 3 miles at HMP two weeks out from my last half. About three weeks out, I did 20 minutes at tempo. It felt comfortably hard, but it would have felt like murder to do 20 more. That is, it would have approached race effort for me, and I don't like feeling like suffering unless I'm racing.
Ending with a few miles at HMP is good stuff for a number of reasons, and for me it's more psychologically enjoyable.
You've got a lot of tempo work in the bank--more of it and more consistently than I did. The physical gains are negligible at this point. If you know your recovery enough to know that 15 w/ 6@HMP (which is a brutal workout) won't take you too long to recover from, do it if you need it to have the confidence to shoot for your race goal. If you don't need that assurance, it's a risk you probably don't need.
"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Emil Zatopek
I really appreciate sharing your wisdom, guys. I'll back off any considerable quality in Sunday's long run and trust the training + the race day magic!