Is this a good half marathon indicator workout?

5-6 miles at goal pace. Stop practicing resting. You don't get that in a race.

The best predictor is a 10k race. Do it. Instead of doing prediction workouts, do the workouts that build your performance. See Malmo's 5min hard, 5min_moderate for 70min workout. I PR'd off that workout.

I don't think your workout would really indicate anything regarding what pace you could do a HM in (it is still a good workout, though).

A favorite of mine (although it is a very hard workout that needs appropriate recovery) is 3 x 5km @ goal pace w/3 min recovery. It is a real confidence-builder and a good indicator (it was for me).

This would be incredibly difficult without a training group

half specialist wrote:

5-6 miles at goal pace. Stop practicing resting. You don't get that in a race.

vbgbgrb wrote:

This would be incredibly difficult without a training group

half specialist wrote:

5-6 miles at goal pace. Stop practicing resting. You don't get that in a race.

No. It's just difficult.

Hm workout wrote:

3x2 miles, 3 minutes rest at goal hm pace?

I did that workout 2 weeks before my HM. Ran the race this Saturday and finished within about 5 seconds of that pace. Here's the post I made:

I would say it's a decent predictor if these two conditions are met:

1) You feel pretty under control during the workout.

2) You're running plenty of mpw.

The potential pitfall of trying to use these workouts as predictors is that (as AGIP pointed out in my post), it's hard to define what "under control" is. So you could go out at a really high intensity, hit your paces, and tell yourself that you were "under control."

Good luck!

I did 3 x 3200 in 10:55, 11:00, 10:41 with about 450m recovery and then ran 1:12:00 about 25 days later. The first two reps of the workout were super easy / in control, and were done at almost exactly half pace. I had been running 55 MPW for the past 2 months or so. The workouts were on an indoor track whereas the HM was outdoors in March with a temp around 40F and on a windy day.

A. Depends how fast you are.B. Depends on mileage/experience etc.5-6 miles at goal marathon pace in practice if you are a sub 1:08 runner is very hard! If slower, it becomes a lot easier (and also there is more of a chance that you run less mileage). Think of it this way as an extreme example: If you are a 4-hour plus marathon runner, it's not that hard to roll out the door at marathon race pace....if you are a 2:25 runner it's very tough without a warm-up! 3 X 5km is pretty good...but I won't do anything as a "predictor" type of workout. Think of it as a Lactate Threshold session...for runners sub 1:15 or so that is close to current half marathon race pace velocity...for slower runners it's probably a little closer to current 10km race pace, plus 10-15 sec per mile (i.e. actually faster than current half marathon race pace). 2-mile repeat workouts are always good as well, but also having some decent quality Long Runs (i.e. over 16 miles at least) is going to really bring out your strength in the half. (of course depends on weekly mileage, experience and speed).Thrown in a couple Vo2max type sessions like 1km and/or 1mile repeats at 10km to 5km pace and maybe a session of a solid 20min Tempo Run (or about 4-miles at HM race pace if faster) and you're golden.

half specialist wrote:

vbgbgrb wrote:

This would be incredibly difficult without a training group

No. It's just difficult.

S. Canaday wrote:

5-6 miles at goal marathon [sic] pace in practice if you are a sub 1:08 runner is very hard! If slower, it becomes a lot easier (and also there is more of a chance that you run less mileage). Think of it this way as an extreme example: If you are a 4-hour plus marathon runner, it's not that hard to roll out the door at marathon race pace....if you are a 2:25 runner it's very tough without a warm-up!

That makes zero sense at all. If anything that workout is harder for slower runners. A 68min half marathoner should have an LT around 5:05-5:10 per mile...so 5-6mi at that pace only takes 26-31min. People regularly do LT runs that last 20-25min and those are not hard workouts at all when done correctly. Somehow 1-6 more minutes of running is going to make that an insurmountable challenge?

A prime example of how stupid people pretend to be smart by referring to physiology.

half specialist wrote:

vbgbgrb wrote:

This would be incredibly difficult without a training group

No. It's just difficult.

Fast runners push themselves harder in races and therefore working out at race pace is difficult. Slow runners don't push themselves in races and therefore working out at race pace isn't really that hard.

OverTheHillAndBack wrote:

half specialist wrote:

No. It's just difficult.

Fast runners push themselves harder in races and therefore working out at race pace is difficult. Slow runners don't push themselves in races and therefore working out at race pace isn't really that hard.

Not sure who you are supporting here or what your definition of fast is. My point is that it is difficult to run 5-6 at half pace but not "incredibly difficult without a training group".