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Help needed with a half marathon plan!

  • 04-07-2016 2:45pm
    #1
    ncmc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,852 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks, I’ve signed up to do Charleville HM in Sept, 11 weeks away. I used to run a lot, did a couple of marathons back in 12/13, but since I had my baby two years ago, my training has been intermittent at best. I’ve done two HM previously, 1hr 49 and 1hr43. I was disappointed with the 2nd race as I was going for 1hr 40. Both of those were raced as part of a marathon training plan, so while my mileage would have been higher than it is currently, I wasn’t doing specific HM training. I would love to break the 1hr 40, 1hr 45 would be the ‘b’ target. If I’m being honest, I don’t know how realistic those times are, I haven’t done any races recently.

    Due to family commitments, I’d prefer to keep the training to 4 days a week, I *could* do 5 if it really is needed, but 4 suits me better. So I was thinking of one LSR, 1 session and two easy days.

    Can anyone advise what sort of sessions I should be doing? How long should my LSR be? What sort of mileage overall should I be doing? Any advice appreciated!


Comments

  • #2
    Dilbert75
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,724 ✭✭✭Dilbert75


    Welcome back N!

    I'm far from an expert but what exactly you do is obviously far more important than how many times a week you do it: if you did 3 or 4 focussed sessions per week it'd be far better than 5 sessions of junk mileage. How you feel about what you do is also much more important than how it compares with your pre-baby times. You need to set yourself up to succeed and that includes not setting the bar too high first time back.

    I'm not sure from your post what your fitness level is currently but would you be better to consider yourself a newbie for the purposes of this half? It'd take a lot of pressure off you and let you see where exactly you are, so you can use that as your baseline for the next one.

    Other than that, I'd go first to our old pal Hal (Higdon) for a training plan and see what he's got.


  • #3
    ncmc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,852 ✭✭✭ncmc


    Thank you C, sage advice as usual! Yes, it's fair to say I'm very much at 'newbie' level. It's funny, even thought I effectively did no running for two years, my fitness stayed quite good, I'm able to increase mileage without too much difficulty, but my speed has really suffered. I did get a list of sessions from a work colleague that is in a running club, they're probably fairly standard and not that hard, but at the moment I reckon I'd need roller blades to hit some of the paces! I'm currently only doing up to 20 miles per week, so I would need to really ramp things up if I've any hope of hitting my target.


  • #4
    Dilbert75
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,724 ✭✭✭Dilbert75


    ncmc wrote: »
    Thank you C, sage advice as usual! Yes, it's fair to say I'm very much at 'newbie' level. It's funny, even thought I effectively did no running for two years, my fitness stayed quite good, I'm able to increase mileage without too much difficulty, but my speed has really suffered. I did get a list of sessions from a work colleague that is in a running club, they're probably fairly standard and not that hard, but at the moment I reckon I'd need roller blades to hit some of the paces! I'm currently only doing up to 20 miles per week, so I would need to really ramp things up if I've any hope of hitting my target.

    So adjust those target paces to suit where you are now. Otherwise you could get disheartened and start to stop.

    If you're doing an lsr, a tempo run and a speed session every week, with maybe a midweek medium slow run for good measure, you'll do fine. Most importantly don't do too much too hard too soon or you'll be on the Physioterrorist's table before you know where you are.

    And maybe do a tune-up 5k (or Parkrun) flat out a few weeks before Charleville to let you know what your pace is likely to be. Then set your race target based on where you are.


  • #5
    annapr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,936 ✭✭✭annapr


    You might want to have a look at the plans Myles Splitz developed on the DCM 2015 graduate thread... Link below. The 10k-HM plan has 3 sessions per week and could be adjusted for the number of weeks you have left. There's a link to a calculator included to figure out paces... Which are based on either your target or recent performances. Good luck with it!

    https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/763816/384242.xlsx


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