Training advice

Cerlan

Longtime lurker, occasional poster here looking for a bit of training advice. I am currently training for the Clonakilty half marathon in December. The plan is to go sub 1hr40. At the moment my training week looks like this;

Mon - 6 a side Soccer + Strength
Tues - 10*400m intervals at around 90s with 90s rest
Wed - 8 mile easy
Thur - 1 m w up 4 mile tempo (7.5min pace) 1m w down + core
Fri - 12 miles easy
Sat - 6 miles slow + core
Sun - rest

My problem is that I am having difficulty maintaining planned race pace during the tempo run on a Thursday. Should I increase the length of my intervals? Also should I add some fast finishes to my long runs? I am worried that if I am struggling to maintain a 7.5 min pace over 4 miles now, doing it for 13 in December could be too big an ask.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Cerlan

ronnie085

Not an expert by any means but i would look at doing mile repeats at race pace instead of your 400's. Maybe start with 3 or 4 with .25 mile recovery and add 1 extra every few weeks. Playing 6 a side should be like doing short intervals anyway, if your working hard enough . Also would try to increase your long run to about 14 miles getting closer to the half. That what i would try but there better people than me here for advice

kennyb3

Cerlan wrote: »

My problem is that I am having difficulty maintaining planned race pace during the tempo run on a Thursday. Should I increase the length of my intervals? Also should I add some fast finishes to my long runs? I am worried that if I am struggling to maintain a 7.5 min pace over 4 miles now, doing it for 13 in December could be too big an ask.

What are you basing your race pace for a half on? A 5k time, a 10k time or what?

You probably need to train at current pace until you can complete 4 miles at that before moving up near and to goal pace.

Cerlan

Playing 6 a side should be like doing short intervals anyway, if your working hard enough

That's what I was thinking! Increasing the interval distance sounds like a good plan.

What are you basing your race pace for a half on? A 5k time, a 10k time or what?

That's the problem kennyb3. Don't have any real times that would indicate that I should be running an 1hr40 half. I ran a half in May in 1hr50 and would like to better that time so I'm trying to put together a program that will let me do that. Been training consistently for 5 weeks and I have 11 weeks left so hoping with the right type of training that it's possible to hit 1hr40...

ronnie085

kennyb3 wrote: »

You probably need to train at current pace until you can complete 4 miles at that before moving up near and to goal pace.

+1 esp if you decide to try longer intervals you should consider slowing down your tempo run. To much high intensity work for me normally leads to niggly annoying injuries. 11 weeks is plenty of time for a half training plan as you seem to be starting with a good base