My First Half Marathon - HELP!

If you can do 7 miles at your HM pace, you'll have no problem hitting that in a race.

How old is your 5K PR? It's nearly equivalent to a 1:35 HM, while your mile PR is "equivalent" to 1:30. There's a chance you're fitter now than you were for your 5K PR, as your mileage has been decent and your long run is solid.

For a first HM race, a conservative approach would look like:

Mile 1- 7:14-24, not faster.

Mile 2- 7:14-20, not faster. All of this feels super easy.

Mile 3-7- 7:10-14. You're settling into race pace. It still feels easy. You wave to fans and wink at race volunteers, at least up to mile 4 or so.

Mile 8-10- 7:04-14, depending on how you feel. You're working to sustain the pace, letting yourself go a bit faster if you're feeling great.

Mile 11-13.1- 6:5X-7:14, depending on how you feel. This is when the real race starts, but if you've played it right, you'll be passing people who went out too fast and sustaining your fastest pace of the whole race.

This sets you up to run a big negative split and go well under your goal pace. A more ambitious pace at the start might lead to a faster time, or it might lead to you blowing up. Maybe save the ambitious start for your second HM.

Some people disdain GPS watches, but for your situation they're worth it, if it keeps you from going out at 6:40 for your first mile. Also, if there's a 1:35 pace group, you're more likely to run even splits. Some people disdain pace groups, too, but it's your race.

reality czech,

Thanks very much for your helpful response.

My 5k PR is from a little over a year ago. My mile PR is from this past June. Leading up to both races, I got injured here and there (just annoying overuse injuries) and couldn't really get to my potential. This is the first block of training that has actually gone off without a hitch and I'm excited to see what I can accomplish. (18 week Hanson's Advanced HM Training with a few modifications). I feel strong and I'm starting to feel increasingly fresh as I'm going through my taper.

Your mile-by-mile half marathon summary is exactly what I needed. Thank you. I think I'll go out at 7:14 and try to be disciplined not to stray too far from it in either direction at least until mile 8.

And I do have a GPS watch (Garmin VivoActive). I find it extremely helpful, and will use it as my "reality check" throughout the race - especially in the first mile to keep me disciplined in my effort.

Thanks again for your help.

Follow up question: Why do you think that I shouldn't have trouble sustaining 7:14 for the race based off of my 7 mile tempo at 7:14?

***Update

The race basically went exactly as reality czech explained in the mile-by-mile summary. It was super helpful to have that as a roadmap and a way to gauge how I was feeling relative to where I was in the race. I ended up finishing in 1:34:36 (24 seconds under my goal time) and didn’t feel totally thrashed at the end. I probably could have gone out a little more aggressively and ended up running 1:33 mid, but I’m happy with how it played out.

I feel like I have a lot of room for improvement since I’m still a new runner. (Only been running for 2 years). Targeting a Spring half to go sub-1:30.

Happy running!

This is awesome for so many reasons. Not the least is you came back to update the thread! Perfect.

Congrats on the successful PR! It sounds like you did everything right, an I think you were right to go at it from a conservative approach. There are definitely times and places to really chase after a big PR in an aggressive manner, but if you are regularly PRing, I'm kind of inclined to say take the long term approach and just keep doing what you're doing.

A spring half at 90 minutes sounds like it could be very doable for you with some more consistent training. You mentioned some niggling injuries going into previous races, did you have any issues in the buildup for the HM? If not, what kept those away? Not getting any injuries will be huge for your continuing PR campaign.

Thank you for your response. My buildup for the HM was injury free. The niggling issues in prior buildups were from doing too many workout miles on too little total miles. Overtraining. This time around, I built up my base to 40+ and kept it there for a month or two before I started adding in some quality workouts. I also added in 3 recovery weeks to the 18 week plan I was on to give my body some time to adapt and recover. It also helped that I alternated weekends for long runs rather than doing one every weekend.

I’m planning a similar buildup in the Spring, but I think I’ll try to get my mileage up to 50-60 mpw. Looking at an early May HM.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to get sub-1:30 by then. I’ll need to shave 22 seconds per mile off my pace.

How should I approach my HM tempo workouts? Run them at 7:14 pace (today’s race pace)? Or start running them faster? I don’t want to run myself into the ground trying to improve, but I want to make sure I get faster.

Very cool stuff on your progression. And smart training to keep yourself injury free (I need to work on this).

I think a target half in late May is great. That gives you almost 7 months to recover, build, and work back into a serious program.

As to your question about HM tempos, I think it depends. If you are doing some at that pace during your winter build up, it could be fine doing them at your current 7:14 pace. Depending on how much time you recover before building back, you might start up at 7:20 pace or something like that.

But, since you have so much time until your goal race, and your improvement has been solid, AND you are hoping to keep growing your fitness, I might suggest a different approach. Do your tempos in the winter by feel. You just came off a great half-marathon so you know what that pace feels like. Over the winter, if you are doing a tempo workout once a week or once every-other week, just click the lap button on your watch, get into a rhythm, and don't look at the pace (or receive notifications) for the duration of the tempo. Be honest in your effort and evaluate each one afterwards.

I think you will learn a lot about your training and future racing strategies. But then in late winter or early spring, look into doing a 10k race or a time trial or something that might give you an indication of what your current fitness is and what kind of goal half-marathon pace you should go for and how you should appropriately pace the rest of your workouts in your training program.

Might not work for everyone, but for me, I love tempos by feel and fartleks during base building.

DC, thanks for the update, and congratulations on a nice PR. I'm glad to hear my pacing suggestion helped.

As for your HM tempos, I think if you can run 7 miles at a given pace as a workout, you're definitely ready to race an HM at that pace when you're tapered and rested. I can't come close to my actual HM pace in workouts. In my most recent HM buildup, the fastest I ran a tempo run (max 5 miles) was 10 seconds slower than my HM pace ended up being. Even my key HM-specific workouts went from 20+ to 5 seconds slower than my HM pace.

Based on how you responded to your training this time around, think about what it would take for you to break 1:30 by next May. It's a stretch, but you seem to have a lot of potential left in your HM, so it might be doable. It took me a year to drop a similar amount of time, but I ran a comparable 10K time in the same time span you're looking at for your buildup.

Thanks for your suggestions reality czech and keepgoing. I'm taking a week or two of recovery running before starting to build mileage up again. I'm hoping to get to 60 mpw by mid to late December, and then start an 18 week plan in January, ending at the Indy Mini Marathon (May 5th).

I'm not sure if I'll get down to 1:30 or not. 6 months might not be enough time to take my pace from 7:13 to 6:52. I might split the difference and try to run 1:32 or so instead (7:01 pace). I'll have to gauge my fitness throughout the training block.

I'll bookmark this thread and come back to update it, in case anyone is interested in the progression. Thanks again for your help.

**Update:

I thought it might be fun to update my journey a bit for those who followed before. I'm about half way through my HM training block for a May 5th race. I have increased my weekly mileage to the mid-50s as planned, and managed to stay injury free thus far. I'm running one interval session per week (something at 5k pace, or 10k pace) and one HM tempo session per week (increasing the distance week to week from 3 miles up to 7 miles by April), and I'm alternating weeks for long runs (15 miles one week, 12 miles the next).

I'm finding that the increased mileage and consistent workouts have resulted in a real spike in my improvement during this training cycle. I started out thinking that a 6:52 pace was just going to be too much of an improvement in such a short time (21 seconds per mile faster than my previous PR), but as I started to do some tempo work, I have naturally started running these workouts at about 6:35/mile pace . So far I have run a 5 mile tempo at around this pace for the last three weeks, and this week I'll be upping it to 6 miles. It seems like a 6:35 paced HM (1:26) is not out of the realm of possibility, provided I don't feel totally trashed when I peak out at 7 miles at tempo next month.

It feels like my fitness is a moving target. It has made it somewhat difficult setting the paces for specific workouts (12 x 400m @ 5k pace, or 6 x 1 miles at 10k pace). I know this is normal for someone who is still new to running, as my fitness will improve quite a lot during each training cycle (hopefully), but some advice from people who have been where I am would be most appreciated.

Does anyone have any advice for me for the next 2 months leading up to the race?

Thanks for the updates from another hobbyjogger getting into it slightly later in life. This has probably been one of the more wholesome threads I've seen on this website.

It sounds like you're progressing amazingly. Sorry no advice but I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on in May! I have a half next weekend, but I doubt I'll break 1.30 this time around - I'm aiming for October. Good running!

I’d say to definitely stick with what you’re doing. It can be hard to adjust workouts with your improving fitness, but I’ve always thought it better to error on the side of too slow rather than too fast. You’ll still get most of it all the benefit without tearing your body down. Stay conservative with the paces for your workouts until you race again, and keep running the workouts by feel.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

I’d say to definitely stick with what you’re doing. It can be hard to adjust workouts with your improving fitness, but I’ve always thought it better to error on the side of too slow rather than too fast. You’ll still get most of it all the benefit without tearing your body down. Stay conservative with the paces for your workouts until you race again, and keep running the workouts by feel.

Thanks for your response. I think you're right. Conservative is probably the way to go. I would gain very little (a few seconds in a race perhaps) by pushing the workouts to the limit, but would risk injury. I don't think it's worth it at my age (38) given that I'm not chasing prize money. I'm just trying to improve my fitness and enjoy running/racing.

I'll be sure to come back and update as I go. Thanks again.

**Update

So, I'm 2 weeks out from my goal race and I'm trying to put together my race strategy. Here's a quick review:

38, male, 160lbs. Running for 2.5 years. Set my HM PR 6 months ago - 1:34:36. Initially set out to run a sub-1:30 race, but have seen big improvements in my fitness, and I've adjusted my goal. I need to know if I'm crazy or not.

1. New Goal: 1:26:59 (6:38 pace)

2. Stretch Goal: 1:24:36 (6:27 pace - 10 minutes faster than 6 months ago).

Everything has been going great as far as my training is concerned. No injuries. It might seem like a big leap in 6 months, but I think I have reason to believe it's possible. I'd love some feedback, even if it means I am wrong, and need to dial back my goals.

The last three weeks, I was at the maximum distance for my weekly HM tempo run (7 miles). Here's what the workouts looked like:

Week 1: 7 miles averaging 6:35 pace

Week 2: 7 miles averaging 6:32 pace

Week 3: 7 miles averaging 6:26 pace (this was just a couple days ago)

I have averaged nearly 50 miles per week (something like 48 miles I believe) during my 18 week build up, doing an interval-based workout (5k-10k pace stuff), a tempo run (like I've described above, gradually increasing over the course of the build up from 3 miles up to 7), and a long run (alternating between 10-12 and 14-15 miles each weekend). I started out running my tempos around 6:45 pace, but I have been improving gradually through the last 4 months and this is where I ended up (6:26 pace for 7 miles), and I believe that 6:26 pace for the HM is possible. I'm leaning toward going out at that pace and just trying to hold on. Can someone give me a reality check?

What do you think I'm capable of running once tapered (in two weeks)? Let me know if you need more information. Thanks so much for reading!

If you have a solid day, not out of this world but just a decent race, I believe you will hit 1:25:xx.

If you have an insane day, 1:24-low/mid

Thanks for your feedback. I’ll try not to get too greedy. I need to be thankful for any improvement over my last HM.

Ok, we're two days out from the race.

Had a strange taper due to some non-running related issues. The last 4 weeks have been 50 miles, 37 miles, 24 miles and what will be 35 miles this week (including the race). Obviously, I wouldn't have planned such a steep decline in mileage. How will this effect my race? Should I adjust my race strategy?

I am trying to decide between two strategies:

1. Aggressive Plan: Go out at 6:27 pace (targeting a 1:24:36 finish) and try to hold on. Plausible based on the last three tempo runs at the end of a heavy training cycle. 7 Miles at 6:35 pace, 7 Miles at 6:32 pace, 7 Miles at 6:26 pace. Pro: might get a huge PR. Con: might blow up and crawl across the line in 1:28 instead.

2. Conservative Plan: Go out at 6:35 pace or so, and increase pace toward the end of the race if I'm feeling fresh and strong. Pro: probably won't blow up. Con: probably won't reach my potential.

Side note: forecast says it will be 55° at the start of the race, and 61° when I finish. So, not totally ideal, but not too hot either.

Does anyone have any last-minute words of advice for the race?

This sounds like a RW love-in thread.

Hey Man - where are you racing?

I just posted this a few days ago:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8792639

I am hoping to run 1:24-low-mid as well.