Forums >Racing>The Waltons aka Advanced Half Marathon Training Thread - 2022 edition
Work continues to be super busy so I won't be around much but it looks like Hash, DW and Mark had excellent weeks. Fred take it easy till the body is ready. James, solid week. Piwi and Steve, glad that you two are on the mend!
My week was very simple. Run 40 minutes until the body feels ready to do more which finally happened on Sunday. I'm still coughing but it's decreasing in both frequency and severity. I did absolutely no crosstraining which I'll have to rectify soon just to survive my triathlons but I'm happy to be running again.
1600 - 5:23 (2018), 5k - 19:33 (2018), 10k - 41:20 (2021), half - 1:38:57 (2018), Marathon - 3:37:17 (2018)
Waltons ThreadLord
As for nutrition, honestly when you're racking up decent mileage, being able to enjoy some junk food is half the fun!! Anyways good week and I hope that ticking up the mileage does the job you. Fred - you're still post-race, so easy weeks are all good!
As for nutrition, honestly when you're racking up decent mileage, being able to enjoy some junk food is half the fun!! Anyways good week and I hope that ticking up the mileage does the job you.
Fred - you're still post-race, so easy weeks are all good!
Mark - You're probably right about me being post-race, though usually it doesn't take me two weeks. That said, usually I don't manage the race well enough to be totally spent by the end. As to nutrition, I think the reality is running supports my eating habit. Nice job last week.
Flavio - Looks like we'll both be running halves on the same day (which is also Mother's Day here as well as my wedding anniversary, so it could be a high-cost race for me).
Steve, Piwi - It's nice to see you both picking it up a bit. I hope the virus is firmly in your rear view mirrors by now.
5 easy for me today, but feeling better than I have in a while. If the overnight rain stops early enough, I may do some track work tomorrow morning.
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming races: Clinton Country Run 15k, 4/27; Running is Back 10k, 5/12
Fred thanks I feel pretty good apart from low energy at times.
Flavio I think you were the only one who watched my video .
Good nutrition advice. I thought bacon would be not recommended but happy to eat it if you say so
Hash an increase from 50km/week to 80km/week should bring huge benefits as long as it's over several months. I would be around 10 mins faster in a half.
Steve hope things are going well for you. I read your post on the other thread. My legs were a bit beaten up when coming back. Right now I'm finding I have to run almost recovery type pace as my energy levels are low.
I did a couple of runs at 4.30/km for around 10kms and it was quite tough.
I won't be back in Christchurch for a while as my daughter is heading over to Australia.
Zeb nice week considering the flu bug.
Watched the Boston highlights.
American Scott Fauble ran exactly the same splits for the first and 2nd halves.
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 "
Good nutrition advice. I thought bacon would be not recommended but happy to eat it if you say so American Scott Fauble ran exactly the same splits for the first and 2nd halves.
bacon is a lifestyle.
I saw that with Scott, super impressive. Heck the fact that he runs sub 2:10 with his paltry (for a pro) 10k times is pretty amazing. He's really optimizing his fitness for the marathon.
I went to the track at lunch time, thinking about the 6 x 1 mile or 4 x 1½ mile workouts I did during my winter/spring training. I opted to start with a 1-mile run at the usual 8:16 pace. It was not easy (and the blowing-over-benches-strength wind certainly did not help). Rather than the usual 1-lap recovery, I did 2 laps and then ran another mile, which was still very hard. In this workout, the first two miles should be easy enough, just building up some fatigue for later in the workout, but not today. Since I can't run a 2-hour workout at lunch, I headed home, but I can't honestly say I would have been able to do more than 1 more mile at the target pace, let alone 4 more. I've never taken this long to recover from a half - maybe it should make me even more proud of the effort I put in at half almost 3 weeks ago.
Fred, a couple plethora of thoughts.
1. strong wind absolutely makes workouts require adjustment and I don't mean when you eat too much broccoli.
2. have you been doing your strides on easy days and have your easy days been easy enough? If I don't do both of those then otherwise simple workouts can become a much bigger effort than they normally are.
3. How is your warmup? As I've gotten older, mine has gotten longer and longer and currently takes about 25-30 minutes before I'm really ready to run hard.
4. Have you considered ignoring pace for awhile and just gone out to run HM effort without looking at the watch and see what happens latter? Maybe HM effort is 8:30 for the next couple weeks but I bet you're back to your 8:16/mi pace within a month.
5. When was the last time you ran considerably faster than HM effort? 3k-5k pace intervals really really suck, but running them makes those tempos feel much easier. Hansons' (i.e. Humphries) plan clearly works for you but sometimes doing something different gives the body a useful jolt to continue making adaptions.
6. obligatory comment that everyone recovers from race efforts at their own pace which is partly determined by other factors like non-running stress, eating well and sleeping well.
Happy to share/discuss.
Fred, a couple plethora of thoughts. 1. strong wind absolutely makes workouts require adjustment and I don't mean when you eat too much broccoli. Agree 100%. 2. have you been doing your strides on easy days and have your easy days been easy enough? If I don't do both of those then otherwise simple workouts can become a much bigger effort than they normally are. Plenty of easy runs, not a lot of strides. 3. How is your warmup? As I've gotten older, mine has gotten longer and longer and currently takes about 25-30 minutes before I'm really ready to run hard. Warmup was 2 miles today (about 22 minutes). 4. Have you considered ignoring pace for awhile and just gone out to run HM effort without looking at the watch and see what happens latter? Maybe HM effort is 8:30 for the next couple weeks but I bet you're back to your 8:16/mi pace within a month. This workout target was 10 seconds faster than HM pace, the first time since the race I've tried to hit that. I tried an HM pace run last week and could only hold the pace for a little more than 2 miles. 5. When was the last time you ran considerably faster than HM effort? 3k-5k pace intervals really really suck, but running them makes those tempos feel much easier. Hansons' (i.e. Humphries) plan clearly works for you but sometimes doing something different gives the body a useful jolt to continue making adaptions. Last time running that pace was 12 days prior to the race, so about 4 weeks ago. 6. obligatory comment that everyone recovers from race efforts at their own pace which is partly determined by other factors like non-running stress, eating well and sleeping well. Yeah, it's just taking me longer than usual to recover. In the past I've been able to run halves with as little as 3 weeks in between, including resuming training after 1 week of down time. I have to consider 1) I've never run that fast/hard in a half before and 2) I have to realize I am getting older. 56 in few weeks.
1. strong wind absolutely makes workouts require adjustment and I don't mean when you eat too much broccoli. Agree 100%.
2. have you been doing your strides on easy days and have your easy days been easy enough? If I don't do both of those then otherwise simple workouts can become a much bigger effort than they normally are. Plenty of easy runs, not a lot of strides.
3. How is your warmup? As I've gotten older, mine has gotten longer and longer and currently takes about 25-30 minutes before I'm really ready to run hard. Warmup was 2 miles today (about 22 minutes).
4. Have you considered ignoring pace for awhile and just gone out to run HM effort without looking at the watch and see what happens latter? Maybe HM effort is 8:30 for the next couple weeks but I bet you're back to your 8:16/mi pace within a month. This workout target was 10 seconds faster than HM pace, the first time since the race I've tried to hit that. I tried an HM pace run last week and could only hold the pace for a little more than 2 miles.
5. When was the last time you ran considerably faster than HM effort? 3k-5k pace intervals really really suck, but running them makes those tempos feel much easier. Hansons' (i.e. Humphries) plan clearly works for you but sometimes doing something different gives the body a useful jolt to continue making adaptions. Last time running that pace was 12 days prior to the race, so about 4 weeks ago.
6. obligatory comment that everyone recovers from race efforts at their own pace which is partly determined by other factors like non-running stress, eating well and sleeping well. Yeah, it's just taking me longer than usual to recover. In the past I've been able to run halves with as little as 3 weeks in between, including resuming training after 1 week of down time. I have to consider 1) I've never run that fast/hard in a half before and 2) I have to realize I am getting older. 56 in few weeks.
In the end, I'm just going to have to keep listening to my body and take the recovery as it comes. I'm better off changing expectations than pushing myself to the point of injury. If I'm not ready to run hard at my next half in 2½ weeks, then I'll dial it back a bit and try to enjoy myself (it's a race I haven't run before). I think we're on the same page in general - I just have to be patient.
Fred - I think Zebano made some good points. It's been really windy here the last few mornings and it does make it really tough going at times. I think you should be OK for your next half, just don't force it too hard.
Zebano - bacon is awesome. Hope that cough is improving.
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"
Fred - I have had similar experiences these past few weeks with workouts not going how I planned. So you are not alone my friend! I just took it as a sign that I was either over training or under recovering the previous few days. 3 weeks is a decent amount of time to recover, but running a hard half can obviously be super taxing. Maybe this is the culmination of so much training for your half that your body needs an extra bit of time to recover physically and mentally. No science to back up my thoughts, but I wouldn't be worried. Just put an extra focus on recovery and take a step back for another week then reevaluate.
Training this week for me fell off a bit. Only got about 25 miles. I could make excuses (work, travel, etc) but those would just be excuses so I won't even go there. Training already off to a much better start this week.
Have a great week my friends!
I hope everyone is having a good week
I didn’t get a chance to post last week training but I think I ended up with about 30 miles. Not as much as I had hoped but life happens. We are having a good time so far. We are getting ready to go on a shore excursion to Chaccohoben Maya Ruin.
Keen Caitlyn I’ve ran on the treadmill this far but maybe I’ll try running on the deck with the GPS and see how that turns out. it might produce an interesting track!
I’ll catch back up with everyone later.
PR's
1m 5:38 (2018)
5k 19:59 (2019)
HM 1:33:56 (2018)
FM 3:23:07 (2018)
Mark, Zebano, Noah - I appreciate the input, thanks. Your suggestions are welcome (as are those of others who've written in response to my posts i the past), and often useful. Just to be clear, I'm not saying "Oh, what's wrong with me?" so much as "Hey, this is what I'm going through." I'm not in desperate search of a solution (or perhaps I'm misreading the other posts here - quite possible too, so keep the ideas flowing).
I'm taking a rest day today and so far I actually feel somewhat rested. I'm hoping to go on a more aggressive run with my RP tomorrow - we'll see how that goes (forecast is 40º and no wind).
Piwi, so is that 3 ailments down to 2? Nice improvements
Mark, very nice week. I get wanting to wait to assign you a week to take last week into account but I think it would drive me a little crazy never knowing what was coming next.
Steve, very glad you’re back to normal. I’m sure you didn’t lose much so 3 weeks might be enough to get back to where you were.
Hash, very nice week. Good luck adding the non-running healthy habits.
Flavio, nice week. Interesting thoughts re: nutrition.
DW, that must have been a hard call pulling out of the Boston 5k. Good for you for listening to your body.
Zebano, I like your approach of really listening to your body. Hope it’s all increases from here.
Noah, good to hear the week’s starting well for you.
Cfarr, yes run on the deck! I want to see circles drifting apart on the GPS. Hope you’re having a great time
Fred, it sounds like you have a healthy attitude about your longer than usual recovery. Good luck with the aggressive run.
Sorry if I didn’t go back far enough to catch everyone.
I had a really great workout last Wed and then my body just quit on me. Partly physical(no specific injury just very lethargic) and partly mental just lost all drive to run. Took a couple days off but still feel out of sorts. I’m going to take a break from any structured training and go back to what usually feels best-- high volume very easy runs. Hopefully in a week or two my body will let me know what it wants to do next. The 10k this Sat is definitely off but since the turn around point in 3 blocks from my house we’ll go cheer the runners on.
5k 24:53 (2020) |10k 52:24 (2021) |HM 1:57:14 (2019) |FM 4:24 (2007) |50k 5:57 (2022)
All good. That's a very healthy mindset to have!
Caitlin - sorry to hear you hit a bit of down patch. But listening to your body is absolutely the right approach.
Caitlin yes that's a perfect strategy to combat low energy and motivation. Don't worry about not wanting to race. I barely ever race but I have enough motivation to get out the door daily from doing it for fitness and good health.
Ccoakley - I hope your planned reset works for you. I know from recent experience the mental component of running problems.
I met up with my RP today for another shot at an HM pace run. He suggested we run the route counterclockwise, which is actually harder as it puts the hill climb first, and is the steeper way up the hill. I figured "why not?" This way I'll find out early what I have in the tank. Nature was kind to us, giving us a crisp, clear, windless morning with a temperature of about 40º. I'm happy to say that we ran the 5 miles at an average pace of 8:28, which was right at target (it was far from an even pace, since the first mile is almost all uphill and took 8:45). 8 miles run in total with warmup and cool down. I'm feeling pretty good about what I hope is getting my mojo back.
In other news, going from mid-40 weekly mileage with multiple workouts to mid-30's of almost all easy runs has had the side effect of me gaining 3 pounds. Just goes to show: I run to support my eating habit.