A man with a half plan.

Gambas

Ok, story is that I've run one half last year and I felt the plan I used worked for me and I want to use it again.

The difference this time is that I have spent the winter attempting to build a base, 4 sessions pw including a 13m easy on Sundays. The plan (link below) starts off with 7-8m runs on Sunday and builds up to 10-12m two weeks prior to the race, considerably less than where I'm at now.

Two questions...

My gut feeling is that I should not drop back to the shorter distances on Sundays, but hold what I have now? Am I right?

And following on from this, instead of using a 10k race as prep for the half, I'm thinking of doing a 10m three weeks from the goal race. Good idea/bad idea?

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/rws-10-week-sub-150-half-marathon-schedules/97.html?print=true

ThePiedPiper

Gambas, you're completely right. Forget the RW plan, it's a good enough plan for someone aiming for a get-me-around, but not really maximising your potential.

For a good half-marathon, you might even be better off building your longest run up to 15 miles or so. A 10k race would be a good work-out, probably better than a 10 mile training session, but if you can get a 10 mile race, that would be ideal.

I've never trained specifically for a half marathon, but my best half marathons have always come in slap bang in the middle of marathon training. Might I suggest you do a few interval-type sessions to build speed, and maybe a weekly tempo session with 3-4 miles faster than your planned race pace to build endurance.

Clearlier

Gambas wrote: »

Ok, story is that I've run one half last year and I felt the plan I used worked for me and I want to use it again.

The difference this time is that I have spent the winter attempting to build a base, 4 sessions pw including a 13m easy on Sundays. The plan (link below) starts off with 7-8m runs on Sunday and builds up to 10-12m two weeks prior to the race, considerably less than where I'm at now.

Two questions...

My gut feeling is that I should not drop back to the shorter distances on Sundays, but hold what I have now? Am I right?

And following on from this, instead of using a 10k race as prep for the half, I'm thinking of doing a 10m three weeks from the goal race. Good idea/bad idea?

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/rws-10-week-sub-150-half-marathon-schedules/97.html?print=true

Hi Gambas,

If you're at a higher level than you were when you started that plan the first time then it won't be appropriate for you. The other point to make is that this is a beginners plan - suitable for somebody who is active but hasn't really done any organised running before.

A little search revealed that ecoli gave you a link to Hadd back in October. Have you been able to follow any of the principles in that because that will give you a much better half time than the RW plan.

To train for the half you really want to build on what you have done and where you are now. The kinds of runs that will really help are long ones, marathon pace ones and threshold ones.

My own basic plan at the moment is one of each of the above per week plus whatever easy running I can fit in and switching out the threshold run for an interval session every 3rd week. The aim of the interval work though isn't the classic V02 max but to teach my body to run at a faster pace.

If you can let us know where you are at the moment training wise and what kind of time commitment you're planning to make I can probably put together a better plan for you than the RW plan.

Gambas

Clearlier wrote: »

A little search revealed that ecoli gave you a link to Hadd back in October. Have you been able to follow any of the principles in that because that will give you a much better half time than the RW plan.

To train for the half you really want to build on what you have done and where you are now. The kinds of runs that will really help are long ones, marathon pace ones and threshold ones.

My own basic plan at the moment is one of each of the above per week plus whatever easy running I can fit in and switching out the threshold run for an interval session every 3rd week. The aim of the interval work though isn't the classic V02 max but to teach my body to run at a faster pace.

If you can let us know where you are at the moment training wise and what kind of time commitment you're planning to make I can probably put together a better plan for you than the RW plan.

Sounds good. Information overload, but here you go

I kept as close as I could to HADD until the past few weeks, starting off doing most runs around 140-145HR (that would be under 65% for me) and gradually building up to 150-155HR and introducing a single run around 165HR each week. I'm doing about around 32m/50k a week consistently. 3 by approx 10k and 1 x21 k. in the past few weeks I have started adding in a bit more intensity and trying to bring in hills once a week. So it has gone from 4 easy sesions pw, to 3 easy +one steady, to 2 easy+1 hills+1steady. I was going to continue that for another forthight before starting the 10week half plan.

I'm not seeing the improvement I expected or what HADD led me to believe, but I can only assume it is there but it is obscured in the numbers, I've done the 2400m time trial at the various heart rates twice and I'm due another go in a couple of weeks, so I might notice more of an improvement then. The other thing is that when I switched to base training I was in pretty good shape after the last half I did, and I know I've lost all my speed and have little other than endurance now, which I assume is much better. I do feel much better after the long runs on Sundays now, that is the only real indication, but I'm not seeing the improvement in my running economy at low HR's that I expected.

Pace wise, I do the long run at a little over 9min/m (2hrs even), at about 65%HRmax
my 10k pace based on a recent race is about 7:20min/m (45:50) , avg HR 179
and my half last autumn was done in just over 1:39.

And finally my last HADD time trial came out at

140HR-14:29 (avg 142HR)
150-13:49 (avg 150HR)
160-12.21 (avg 159HR)
170-11:18 (avg 169HR)
180-10:50 (avg 177HR)

Gambas

RunForestRun wrote: »

Gambas, you're completely right. Forget the RW plan, it's a good enough plan for someone aiming for a get-me-around, but not really maximising your potential.

Good point.

For a good half-marathon, you might even be better off building your longest run up to 15 miles or so. A 10k race would be a good work-out, probably better than a 10 mile training session, but if you can get a 10 mile race, that would be ideal.

OK, sounds like I'm on the right track in that regard anyway.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice.

Clearlier

Gambas wrote: »

Sounds good. Information overload, but here you go

I kept as close as I could to HADD until the past few weeks, starting off doing most runs around 140-145HR (that would be under 65% for me) and gradually building up to 150-155HR and introducing a single run around 165HR each week. I'm doing about around 32m/50k a week consistently. 3 by approx 10k and 1 x21 k. in the past few weeks I have started adding in a bit more intensity and trying to bring in hills once a week. So it has gone from 4 easy sesions pw, to 3 easy +one steady, to 2 easy+1 hills+1steady. I was going to continue that for another forthight before starting the 10week half plan.

I'm not seeing the improvement I expected or what HADD led me to believe, but I can only assume it is there but it is obscured in the numbers, I've done the 2400m time trial at the various heart rates twice and I'm due another go in a couple of weeks, so I might notice more of an improvement then. The other thing is that when I switched to base training I was in pretty good shape after the last half I did, and I know I've lost all my speed and have little other than endurance now, which I assume is much better. I do feel much better after the long runs on Sundays now, that is the only real indication, but I'm not seeing the improvement in my running economy at low HR's that I expected.

Pace wise, I do the long run at a little over 9min/m (2hrs even), at about 65%HRmax
my 10k pace based on a recent race is about 7:20min/m (45:50) , avg HR 179
and my half last autumn was done in just over 1:39.

And finally my last HADD time trial came out at

140HR-14:29 (avg 142HR)
150-13:49 (avg 150HR)
160-12.21 (avg 159HR)
170-11:18 (avg 169HR)
180-10:50 (avg 177HR)

Ok..

Reading between the lines a little bit it doesn't sound like you've upped your training stimulus by an awful lot when doing Hadd. One of the benefits of Hadd is that you can do more miles because you're doing them at an easier pace. If you drop the pace but don't add enough miles you won't see much improvement.

I've got two options for you.

Option 1. Get the 'Advanced Marathoning' book by Pfitzinger and Daniels. Your current fitness is ideally suited to their "up to 55 miles plan" which starts at just over 30 miles per week. You could either do their 12 week plan or the first 12 weeks of their 18 week plan. The latter would be better for long term development, the former might get you a slightly faster half. Either way, you come out of the plan at a much higher level than where you are now and a nice PB to boot. If you would like to go this way you can PM me your email address and I'll send you an excel sheet which will calculate the heart ranges for each of your runs.

Option 2 - Copy me. Risky one this and I can't recommend it. My ideas about training are constantly developing. Ask me 2 years ago and I would have said that P&D was near optimal for marathon training - now I think it's best for half marathon training.

So my plan is simple. One tempo, one marathon pace run and one long run each week supplemented by as much easy/recovery running as possible. Every 3rd week is an easier week in which I replace the tempo with intervals which are faster than the tempo but overall place less of a training load on the body. That 3rd week is also my 'easy' week. I want to get the long run to 2hrs+ before I play around with it at all.

Even if for some mad reason you go with option 2 it's worth buying the Advanced Marathoning book if you haven't already got it. My ideas have moved on a little in terms of how to put together a good marathon training schedule but it gives good insight into training. It's also essentially an interpretation of Lydiard which is also what Hadd is based on.

Gambas

Clearlier wrote: »

Ok..

Reading between the lines a little bit it doesn't sound like you've upped your training stimulus by an awful lot when doing Hadd. One of the benefits of Hadd is that you can do more miles because you're doing them at an easier pace. If you drop the pace but don't add enough miles you won't see much improvement.

I've got two options for you.

Option 1. Get the 'Advanced Marathoning' book by Pfitzinger and Daniels. Your current fitness is ideally suited to their "up to 55 miles plan" which starts at just over 30 miles per week. You could either do their 12 week plan or the first 12 weeks of their 18 week plan. The latter would be better for long term development, the former might get you a slightly faster half. Either way, you come out of the plan at a much higher level than where you are now and a nice PB to boot. If you would like to go this way you can PM me your email address and I'll send you an excel sheet which will calculate the heart ranges for each of your runs.

Option 2 - Copy me. Risky one this and I can't recommend it. My ideas about training are constantly developing. Ask me 2 years ago and I would have said that P&D was near optimal for marathon training - now I think it's best for half marathon training.

So my plan is simple. One tempo, one marathon pace run and one long run each week supplemented by as much easy/recovery running as possible. Every 3rd week is an easier week in which I replace the tempo with intervals which are faster than the tempo but overall place less of a training load on the body. That 3rd week is also my 'easy' week. I want to get the long run to 2hrs+ before I play around with it at all.

Even if for some mad reason you go with option 2 it's worth buying the Advanced Marathoning book if you haven't already got it. My ideas have moved on a little in terms of how to put together a good marathon training schedule but it gives good insight into training. It's also essentially an interpretation of Lydiard which is also what Hadd is based on.

Thanks Clearlier.

So you think that from where I was at at the start of base training I needed extra mileage to really see the benefit of Hadd because I was already coming off a half program?

I've ordered the Pftzinger/Douglas book and I'll take a look at that plan. I see Noakes has one of the plans in his book but it is the 96km pw + one.

Clearlier

Gambas wrote: »

Thanks Clearlier.

So you think that from where I was at at the start of base training I needed extra mileage to really see the benefit of Hadd because I was already coming off a half program?

I've ordered the Pftzinger/Douglas book and I'll take a look at that plan. I see Noakes has one of the plans in his book but it is the 96km pw + one.

To get fitter you need to increase your training stimulus. You can do this by either upping the intensity or the duration. At this point in time you need to up the duration. The P&D plan will help you with both.

Gambas

Got the spreadsheet. Thanks again.