Advice for 2nd half marathon (Read 619 times)

I was looking for that same plan and saw it was gone (think they want you to buy there plan). There is a Ryan Hall plan from Nissan (the car company) you can google, not quite as specific as RW plan but still very good. I'm no expert but with your base of 33 a week you should be in pretty good shape, if it were me I would keep on base building and do some type of speed work once a week until its time to start plan. I just started last week of RH plan and have half next week so will see how I do.

 Here's the archived version of the Ryan Hall plan courtesy of the internet wayback machine:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20100724182349/http://www.runnersworld.com/charts/hallchart.html

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20100211195401/http://www.runnersworld.com/images/cma/hallspaceguide800x333.gif

 

The first link is to the plan, while the second is the pace chart.  The plan worked very well for me when I used it in late 2011/early 2012.

I think it's possible that you could hit 2-2:05 in April if you keep up your training and the course isn't excessively hilly and you pace yourself properly during the race.  But wait until you're closer to the race and see how you feel your training has progressed, etc before finalizing what your goal will be.

 

I've been running for a little over two years, and it took me ~10 months to go from 2:15 (Dec 2011) to 1:58 (Oct 2012).  At the time I was running a 2:15 half, my 5K PR was ~26 min and 10K was ~56 min so it seems that you're probably in about the same place I was then speed-wise.  You run a little more weekly mileage than I do so that'll help you.

 

The other thing that could trip you up is pacing strategy.  I run half marathons about once a month, so over time I've developed a pretty good feel for what it means to go out at a pace that I can hold for the whole race--in my earlier halves I used to always go out too fast and then I'd die later in the race, so if you haven't had as much practice with pacing yourself you could fall victim to that, and if you go out to fast and then blow up it's unlikely you'll get the time you want.  (I still go out too fast on occasion, but I've gotten much better!)

That doesn't necessarily mean you won't go out too fast and blow up if you're aiming for a time that you're really not ready for yet and go out at a pace that you really can't hold for the whole distance.  You can always try going out somewhat conservatively to hit a time you're pretty confident you're capable of, then when you get to ~9-10 mi if you're still feeling good then try to pick up the pace a little bit.  Or you be more aggressive--at the end of July of this year I hit a new PR of 2:05:36 (previous PR was 2:08-something from February).  Had a couple great months of training where I increased my typical easy run mileage and found that my easy run pace had picked up a bit too, so in mid-Oct I had another half coming up and decided I wanted to try for sub-2.  I was willing to take the chance that I'd blow up later in the race, so I went out on pace for ~1:59 and was able to hold it and come in at 1:58:00, but it could have all gone south pretty easily!  

 

Sometimes you have to take a little bit of a chance, and as long as you won't be horribly disappointed if you miss your goal then go ahead and be a little aggressive.  But if you get de-motivated easily, then it might be better to be a little more conservative in your goals and work your time down more gradually.  Since I run halves so often, if I aim for a goal one month and miss it then I just try again the next month so it's no big deal, but if you only run a couple of them a year then you may enjoy it more to be a bit more conservative and go for a more certain PR each time even if it means taking a little longer to get to the 2:00-ish range.