Trying to Knock as Much Time as Possible off Half Marathon time in One Month

A little more background probably neccessary....how's training been going, what kind of training sessions & paces have you been doing for the last 12 weeks, any recent races which would suggest a better half time than 1:58?

If 1:38 is to be possible, and assuming that you feel you have the training in the legs for it already, a bit of central governor resetting might work for you.

Try a session of 3 x 2 miles with 4min recovery (walk or jog) between each rep. Try 8:15 pace per mile for first rep, then 8:00, then 7:45. if you can cope with that, then maybe the week after try 8:00, 7:45, 7:30. If you hit that, then one week out from the HM try it again with 7:45, 7:30, 7:15. Completing the week 1 paces should be tough enough and maybe beyond you if you were really stretched to do the HM in 1:58.

Have you been doing any hill work or easy runs on hills? If not, then you would certainly benefit from a bit of hill work over the next 3 weeks.

ger664 wrote: »

No i would not rest 4 weeks before a half marathon but neither would I have ran a 13 mile race pace run four weeks prior to my goal race.

I think the point here is that the OP is quite obviously someone with little previous race experience so we do not know whether his 13 mile run at the weekend was race pace or not. In fact it quite probably was not. He has a 15k time which suggests capability of a HM in the region of 1:40. Without knowing what his training was prior to that 15k (i.e had he trained before the 15k?) his capability could be a lot more.

Initially the predominance of 6/7mile runs at 8min per mile and the lack of long runs would suggest he would be stretching things to run 1:38 which would be a 90sec per mile improvement. But it would just be a 90sec improvement over a solo training run. Actually, since he's regularly running 6/7 miles at 8min/ml pace he could well be capable of a HM at 8min/ml or better pace in a race atmosphere.

To say you will not get a training effect 4 weeks out from a race is not correct espectially for an inexperienced runner. I mentioned the central governor in a previous post, half in jest, but what I meant was for an inexperienced runner, running a tough interval session can 'reset' what the mind thinks is fast. This is one reason why a runner who joins a club and does a few track sessions can improve quite rapidly even after only 2 or 3 track sessions...because when pushed they suddenly realised what they're capable of. Its not the physical training from the track session, that would take maybe 3 weeks to come through, its the mental training & realisation of what they're actually capable of. Breaking time barriers in races is the same...breaking 4 hours for a marathon, breaking 50min or 40min for a 10k....its acheived much easier the next time.

So if you have 4 weeks to a race and have not been doing any speedwork or interval sessions then a quality hard session could see big improvement. For the OP, he seems to train at the one pace all the time so 4 weeks could see a huge improvement. Even in the last week before the marathon, a run of 5 easy miles with 10xstrides would not stress him but would mentally make HM pace seem a lot easier so you can even improve while resting.

Of course, if you've been following a HM plan with all the facets of quality training included like intervals, tempos, hills, strides, LSRs, B races, then the possibliity for a 'leap' in improvement in the last 4 weeks is a lot less.