Half marathon plan

ncmc

Hi folks, I have just come out of a marathon training plan (P&D up to 55 miles) and completed Cork City Marathon. My next goal is a half marathon in August, I am hoping to knock 3-4 mins off my previous PB to bring me in under 100 minutes. I have a good mileage base with over 800 miles done for the year so far, I would prefer to cut the mileage a little as I found the 50+ mile weeks a big time commitment, preferably would like to cut the 5 days a week to 4 days a week also.

So was thinking of 2 easy runs, 1 long run and 1 tempo run per week. A couple of questions, how long should the LSR for a half training plan? And should I just follow the Lactate Threshold runs from the P&D plan, building from 3-4 miles at PHMP to 7-8 PHMP?

How does this plan sound to the experts? Am I likely to see improvement on it, or should I really stick to the 5 days/higher mileage plan.

drquirky

ncmc wrote: »

Hi folks, I have just come out of a marathon training plan (P&D up to 55 miles) and completed Cork City Marathon. My next goal is a half marathon in August, I am hoping to knock 3-4 mins off my previous PB to bring me in under 100 minutes. I have a good mileage base with over 800 miles done for the year so far, I would prefer to cut the mileage a little as I found the 50+ mile weeks a big time commitment, preferably would like to cut the 5 days a week to 4 days a week also.

So was thinking of 2 easy runs, 1 long run and 1 tempo run per week. A couple of questions, how long should the LSR for a half training plan? And should I just follow the Lactate Threshold runs from the P&D plan, building from 3-4 miles at PHMP to 7-8 PHMP?

How does this plan sound to the experts? Am I likely to see improvement on it, or should I really stick to the 5 days/higher mileage plan.

Dropping milage and amount of days running isn't a great way to run a PB imo

ncmc

I can see your point there, though the last HM I ran was in April in the middle of the marathon training plan, it wasn’t my goal race and I felt my legs were tired going into it. I was hoping that with a more focussed HM plan with more emphasis on the tempo run, that I could maybe get away with doing slightly less mileage. Am I totally dreaming

drquirky

ncmc wrote: »

I can see your point there, though the last HM I ran was in April in the middle of the marathon training plan, it wasn’t my goal race and I felt my legs were tired going into it. I was hoping that with a more focussed HM plan with more emphasis on the tempo run, that I could maybe get away with doing slightly less mileage. Am I totally dreaming

Why not focus on shorter distances (10k/5k) then? You could easily get away with 35-40 miles a week (including a 12 mile lsr) and get quicker- I'd keep the 5 days though, consistency is really important. 55 m/p/w isn't a huge amount of milage for H/M training and honestly if you wanna PB I just don't see it happening if you go much below that

ThePiedPiper

I wouldn't rule it out either though drquirkey. I PBed in the half marathon this year off less than 30 miles per week. And, I would have felt like I was in peak shape last September, so the previous PB was one of my stronger ones.

I did it this year by really focusing on quality. From Jan-March, I really had no easy or recovery runs, most were tempo and threshold sessions, with the long run of between 10-14 miles. A couple of the key sessions were 40 minutes at HMP, 13 miles at MP (HMP+30 seconds), 10 miles at HMP, but also crucially, 1000m intervals, 800 metre intervals, 5k races, cross-country races and loads of 4 mile tempo.

There was no concrete plan there OP, but a very definite focus on what needed to be done.

ncmc

RunForestRun wrote: »

I wouldn't rule it out either though drquirkey. I PBed in the half marathon this year off less than 30 miles per week. And, I would have felt like I was in peak shape last September, so the previous PB was one of my stronger ones.

I did it this year by really focusing on quality. From Jan-March, I really had no easy or recovery runs, most were tempo and threshold sessions, with the long run of between 10-14 miles. A couple of the key sessions were 40 minutes at HMP, 13 miles at MP (HMP+30 seconds), 10 miles at HMP, but also crucially, 1000m intervals, 800 metre intervals, 5k races, cross-country races and loads of 4 mile tempo.

There was no concrete plan there OP, but a very definite focus on what needed to be done.

Thanks RFR, that's what I was hoping, cut the quantity of the miles, but increase the quality. So would you recommend something like one lactate threshold run, one interval run, one long run and maybe a recovery run in between the two faster runs? (I work better with a concrete plan in case you haven't noticed from my posts!)

ThePiedPiper

Yes, thats the sort of thing I'd do if it was me.. But, I'd have to put a caveat on that, because I'll be honest, I really surprised myself with the time I did in the half marathon this year, wasn't expecting it based on the training. The less is more approach might work for you, but then again, it might not. I'm back on 50-70 miles per week, I certainly haven't thrown in the towel on high mileage, but I'm happy to say that good times can be achieved off lower mileage.

ncmc

I will do the higher mileage again in future, definitely for another marathon. Just fancy easing back on the mileage a little after a tough 18 week plan.