Forums >General Running>Question about upping quality work in preparation for Ryan Hall's HM plan.
I've been working on building up my mileage for a while and am currently about 35 mpw. I've been pretty casual about doing any kind of quality/speed work. I run one "long" run per week, and sporadically throw in a little speedwork- fartleks, a progression run (usually because I get antsy to be done on the treadmill), that kind of thing.
I have a HM in July that I'd really like to use the 10 week Ryan Hall HM plan for- which gives me 2 weeks between now and when I would be starting the plan. My current mileage would support the plan, but my concern is that the quality work in the plan is more aggressive than what I've been doing. Would adding in some quality over the next couple of weeks be sufficient to transition to what is included in the plan, or should I plan to have to dumb down the plan?
Would really appreciate some feedback, thanks!
"...You have to have faith, to know that you can do what you want to do." -Joseph Nzau
Hi Kristin! Which Ryan Hall plan are you looking at? Is it the one from Runner's World that was published like 5-6 years ago? Or is there a more recent version? Could you provide a link?
I remember the one in Runner's World was pretty intense, something like Tues - intervals/Thurs - tempo run/Fri - steady state run/Sun long run with quality...which would be a lot to just jump in and start doing. I would think you'd need to adapt it to your current level or risk doing too much too soon. But maybe that's not the plan you mean.
You seem to have a good aerobic base, so it shouldn't be a problem to do some more intense training before your next half. It's just a question of finding the right mix and, as you said, taking a few weeks to get your body ready for it.
You have 12 weeks, right? Have you looked at Running Wizard (www.running-wizard.com)? I'm doing a RW half marathon plan now for a race on 5/5, and can very much recommend it. I think 12 weeks is the minimum number of weeks you can do, and it will guide you through the transition from easy aerobic running to intervals and sprinting via hills, fartlek, and tempo runs. My 16-week plan started with hills about 8 weeks out from the race, then a 2-week phase of intervals (think 400m-1600m repeats), a 2-week "coordination phase" involving a lot of 100m sprints, and then 2 weeks of taper. When you sign up, you enter a bunch of information about your running including a recent race time and your current longest run, and the plan starts from there.
Anyway, it sounds like this might be a good match for you, as it will offer similar types of workouts to those in the Hall plan, but tailored for your fitness. Let me know if you want to hear more about it
MTA: Yeah, that didn't really answer your question - just wanted to throw it out there as an alternative. If you post the Hall plan I'm sure more people will chime in with input! And you can easily start doing strides ASAP to strengthen your legs for speedier running. If you have access to hills, running up and down them is also a good strengthener.
MTA2: I was just going to go out for my run and it was bothering me that I didn't mention this, so here I am again Looking at your log, I see your weekly mileage doesn't include a regular long run of 90-120min. You have a recent 10 miler in 90 minutes, and the last long run before that was back in March, and before *that* the longest seems to be around 6 miles. You probably know this already, but the long run is key to running a good HM! If I were you, I'd make that my priority for the next 6 weeks, maybe also think about running a little longer mid-week, before I started doing any faster work.