Half marathon - Legs not ready?

Battery Kinzie

I'm doing a half marathon on Saturday week but due to niggling injuries, I haven't been able to stick to a training plan. As a result, I only really have 5/6 weeks of good quality training done. I went out on Sunday for an 18k LSR, and all was going well until about kilometre 16 when my hips and legs in general started hurting and I slowed down from a pace of about 5.45 per km to 6.20 for the last two. My breathing was still fine at this stage and I didn't feel out of breath, I just didn't have it in my legs. This was the longest run I've done so far and since training hasn't gone amazingly, I haven't done as many long runs as I would've liked.

Anyway, is there anything I can do in the next week and a half to help get my legs ready? I plan to do about 12k this Saturday and then a few very slow miles next week leading up to the race. Is this a good idea or should I be doing more/less in the next 10 days? Is rest the best thing for now or is there a way to get my legs more ready for the 21k?

Cheers.

What pace were you planning on running the race at?

Battery Kinzie

Deleted User wrote: »

What pace were you planning on running the race at?

Still not 100% sure since this'll be my first race so I don't have a lot to compare it against. I originally planned for 5.15 min/km but now I'd be happy with somewhere between 5.30/5.45. I think I may have been doing my training runs a tiny bit too fast(most at 5.45), but after the lower distances (up to 15k anyway), I felt grand so I never thought it was a problem.

Cona

TBH there isn't a whole lot you can do in a week that will be of use to you in the half. The body needs time to soak up training and improve which all take a few weeks. Your best bet now is to get yourself to the starting line as fresh as possible but without losing any fitness gained. This doesn't mean stop all running. I would recommend easy running each day. Maybe 2-3 miles a day. Enough to keeps the legs moving but not enough to tire you out. If you find yourself tired after the runs, take a day off.

Irish_rat

Give the legs a rest, do some light running up to the half. Run on lower impact surfaces like grass to ease the pain. If you can run 16km now, you will do the half on the day.

Vancity

I would ease up significantly. My first half marathon training plan went like yours - tons of niggly injuries and didn't run as much as I wanted; the longest training run I had was 16.5k before the day and I took a full week off before the race. I finished that in 2.01 despite being terrified I would never manage the full 21.1km. It's surprisingly fine on the day - I didn't get tired until about 18/19k and by then I was almost home. Definitely don't try to get in more long or fast runs before the race, it will only tire you out.

Battery Kinzie

Thanks for all the replies, I feel a lot better about the race now.

Vancity wrote: »

I would ease up significantly. My first half marathon training plan went like yours - tons of niggly injuries and didn't run as much as I wanted; the longest training run I had was 16.5k before the day and I took a full week off before the race. I finished that in 2.01 despite being terrified I would never manage the full 21.1km. It's surprisingly fine on the day - I didn't get tired until about 18/19k and by then I was almost home. Definitely don't try to get in more long or fast runs before the race, it will only tire you out.

Cheers and well done. What sort of time were you doing your training runs in? Were you aiming for about 2hrs or were you expecting a faster/slower time?

Baggirshorts

Irish_rat wrote: »

Give the legs a rest, do some light running up to the half. Run on lower impact surfaces like grass to ease the pain. If you can run 16km now, you will do the half on the day.

Agreed!
You have enough in your tank to get you through to the end. Just re jig your goal time....and good luck...

Vancity

Battery Kinzie wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies, I feel a lot better about the race now.


Cheers and well done. What sort of time were you doing your training runs in? Were you aiming for about 2hrs or were you expecting a faster/slower time?

When I started training I was aiming for 2 hours, then I revised it to anything below 2.07 I would have been happy with. So I was thrilled with 2.01 and slightly frustrated that I was so close to sub 2. I did most of my training runs at a slightly slower pace than yours - around 6 minute kilometres slowing down towards the end of the longer runs. I took it really easy at the start of the race because I knew my legs would tire towards the end so I ran a negative split - 62mins for the first half and 59 for the second which I was very happy with.

It'll be easy to go faster in future, just enjoy the first one! Good luck