Switching from marathon to half in 6 weeks - Daniels calls for 15 mi @MP this weekend give me a substitute workout please

1. Race the full marathon.

2. Why would your friend drop to the half six weeks out? I could understand if he was sick the week of the race but it's still six weeks to go.

3. If you run the half, race the half marathon.

Just race it wrote:

1. Race the full marathon.

2. Why would your friend drop to the half six weeks out? I could understand if he was sick the week of the race but it's still six weeks to go.

3. If you run the half, race the half marathon.

Did you read the post? I plan to race the half. He and I are about the same in terms of fitness. The long runs were killing his legs and he got sick, so we agreed to drop to the half. I prefer racing halves anyway which will let me get into some shorter race training cycles sooner.

I'm asking for a singular substitution for this workout. I already have plans for the other workouts and will mostly continue to focus on the threshold work Daniels prescribes from now until the race. That'll be just fine for the half marathon at this point. I'm asking for advice on this one workout.

LetsEatDoughnutsInstead wrote:

I think the long-winded thread title says it's all. I was originally going to run a marathon in 6 weeks but I'm now running the half. I'm still in decent shape and only switching to run with a friend who I've been running with but who decided to downgrade after getting sick. I'm looking for a good substitute workout. The original workout calls for 2 miles at Easy pace, 15 at MP, 2 at Easy pace.

I was considering 6 at Easy, 7 at HMP, 2 at Easy. My impression is that this should the toughest workout of the whole cycle and a decent predictor, so I would like a good substitute. Thoughts?

For your hardest workout something between 6-9miles around HMP. Hard to say if you can do the full 9 but that’s the max. I don’t think it needs to happen yet. If you haven’t spent time working HMP recently I would build to it. I only need 2-3 weeks of recovering, max. Usually go with more like 10 days. So for 3 weeks build up to 9 HMP max. Maybe 6 continuous or as intervals this week, 7 as intervals next, and then go for broke and try 8 continuos if you must.

I personally am less interested and don’t see the point of the overly long warmup. The goal is to spend time at HMP. You don’t need any extra fatigue going in. Get your mileage in another day or later that day and focus the workout.

What's your goal HM or HM PR?

The thing is, for a HM, you shouldn't be hitting your peak workout 6 weeks out. What you need right now isn't a predictor or a replacement for 15 @ MP, but something to transition from marathon to HM workouts. If you have a good marathon base, 6 weeks is plenty of time to get in a good HM buildup, but you can't waste time on more MP training. Get going on your main HM workouts. If you're doing a buildup centered on long intervals, pick something achievable to start with, like 4 x 1.5 miles.

No you should NOT do 6-9 miles at half pace. 6 at half pace is effectively a race and 9 at half pace is basically impossible in a training run. Half place plus 15 seconds is more reasonable or a long set of repeats like 3 x 2 or 8 x 1 at half pace.

no you shouldn't wrote:

No you should NOT do 6-9 miles at half pace. 6 at half pace is effectively a race and 9 at half pace is basically impossible in a training run. Half place plus 15 seconds is more reasonable or a long set of repeats like 3 x 2 or 8 x 1 at half pace.

Hanson's Advanced HM Plan has three sessions of 7 mile tempos at HMP for what it's worth. These do seem VERY tough, but doable.

The plan is a pretty standard two workouts a week plan - speedwork and HMP tempo - just like their full marathon plans. Anyone ever try the Hanson's Half plan?

no you shouldn't wrote:

No you should NOT do 6-9 miles at half pace. 6 at half pace is effectively a race and 9 at half pace is basically impossible in a training run. Half place plus 15 seconds is more reasonable or a long set of repeats like 3 x 2 or 8 x 1 at half pace.

Technically 6 at half pace is less than half of a race... Half plus 15 seconds is reasonable for people who overestimate their fitness. For example you tell your friends you are in 70 min shape (5:20/mile), when in reality you will run 73 min (5:34/mile) on race day. Imaginary race pace 5:20 plus 15 seconds is 5:35 pace. We all know this guy.

But 6 continuous is a reasonable max for mortals. 5 is always achievable even on dead legs. Using intervals up to 8 miles is very doable.

akot wrote:

no you shouldn't wrote:

No you should NOT do 6-9 miles at half pace. 6 at half pace is effectively a race and 9 at half pace is basically impossible in a training run. Half place plus 15 seconds is more reasonable or a long set of repeats like 3 x 2 or 8 x 1 at half pace.

Technically 6 at half pace is less than half of a race... Half plus 15 seconds is reasonable for people who overestimate their fitness. For example you tell your friends you are in 70 min shape (5:20/mile), when in reality you will run 73 min (5:34/mile) on race day. Imaginary race pace 5:20 plus 15 seconds is 5:35 pace. We all know this guy.

But 6 continuous is a reasonable max for mortals. 5 is always achievable even on dead legs. Using intervals up to 8 miles is very doable.

When you're soloing it on the roads mid-training week, 6 at half pace is a race. Think of it this way: If you're aerobically fit, half pace is only about 15 seconds per mile slower than 10K pace. Running a 10K within 90 seconds of your goal 10k pace, untapered, middle of a training week, by yourself, is not a tempo, it's a race. Period.

no you shouldn't wrote:

akot wrote:

Technically 6 at half pace is less than half of a race... Half plus 15 seconds is reasonable for people who overestimate their fitness. For example you tell your friends you are in 70 min shape (5:20/mile), when in reality you will run 73 min (5:34/mile) on race day. Imaginary race pace 5:20 plus 15 seconds is 5:35 pace. We all know this guy.

But 6 continuous is a reasonable max for mortals. 5 is always achievable even on dead legs. Using intervals up to 8 miles is very doable.

When you're soloing it on the roads mid-training week, 6 at half pace is a race. Think of it this way: If you're aerobically fit, half pace is only about 15 seconds per mile slower than 10K pace. Running a 10K within 90 seconds of your goal 10k pace, untapered, middle of a training week, by yourself, is not a tempo, it's a race. Period.

Gotta disagree here. I think 6-7 at HMP is fine. But I typically run them on a track and by feel - so it's a bit easier and I'm not tied to set pace, just essentially getting in the 6-7 mile hard tempo effort.

HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:

no you shouldn't wrote:

When you're soloing it on the roads mid-training week, 6 at half pace is a race. Think of it this way: If you're aerobically fit, half pace is only about 15 seconds per mile slower than 10K pace. Running a 10K within 90 seconds of your goal 10k pace, untapered, middle of a training week, by yourself, is not a tempo, it's a race. Period.

Gotta disagree here. I think 6-7 at HMP is fine. But I typically run them on a track and by feel - so it's a bit easier and I'm not tied to set pace, just essentially getting in the 6-7 mile hard tempo effort.

You seem to be agreeing with the person you're disagreeing with.

You both agree 6 at 1/2MP is fine.

He stated 9 is too much and your post, although not explicitly stating, it seems to agree.

The only point of contention is that You think adding a 7th mile is fine, he doesn't. That's not a big difference particularly if 1/2MP pace is say 5:30/mile.

Uhhh wrote:

HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:

Gotta disagree here. I think 6-7 at HMP is fine. But I typically run them on a track and by feel - so it's a bit easier and I'm not tied to set pace, just essentially getting in the 6-7 mile hard tempo effort.

You seem to be agreeing with the person you're disagreeing with.

You both agree 6 at 1/2MP is fine.

He stated 9 is too much and your post, although not explicitly stating, it seems to agree.

The only point of contention is that You think adding a 7th mile is fine, he doesn't. That's not a big difference particularly if 1/2MP pace is say 5:30/mile.

Not really, HahaRiiiiiiight and I both believe, and from the sounds it know from experience, that a solo 6 at HMP is not an all out race and is doable. The go to week in and week out 5 mile threshold is 5 miles at hour race pace. That's something people can do every day of the week when not training specifically for the half.

If you are training specifically for a half marathon and the HMP workout is your focus of the week, 5 miles is the absolute minimum you would do at HMP pace. 6 is basic. 7 is good. 8 is great. and 9 may be too much. Again this isn't the week in and week out tempo run we are talking about. This is 1 to 3 key workouts as part of a buildup which should be the entire focus of the week. With that mind if you can't hit 6 at goal pace without going in to the all out, deep dark, race mode place then you need to re-calibrate your goal pace.

I've decided to go rogue against all of you. 2x3.5 mi @ HMP, 3 min rest. That feels sufficiently Daniels-esque.

In my last HM race (1:20), I was in a deep, dark place by mile 4, even running close to even splits. No way I could do a sustained run beyond ~3 miles at HMP in a training run. My "HMP" intervals were 5-10 seconds slower than my eventual race pace. It's interesting to hear that HMP is more doable in training runs for some people. But for me, trying to hit that pace in a long tempo would require a race-like effort and take a week to recover from.

more mischief than I durst wrote:

In my last HM race (1:20), I was in a deep, dark place by mile 4, even running close to even splits. No way I could do a sustained run beyond ~3 miles at HMP in a training run. My "HMP" intervals were 5-10 seconds slower than my eventual race pace. It's interesting to hear that HMP is more doable in training runs for some people. But for me, trying to hit that pace in a long tempo would require a race-like effort and take a week to recover from.

Same for me on marathon pace - about 15-20s slower per mile, then on race day it's faster. I think there's a lot to be said for group training though. If I'm with a training partner of similar ability, I can usually do a MP workout close to my pace.

more mischief than I durst wrote:

In my last HM race (1:20), I was in a deep, dark place by mile 4, even running close to even splits. No way I could do a sustained run beyond ~3 miles at HMP in a training run. My "HMP" intervals were 5-10 seconds slower than my eventual race pace. It's interesting to hear that HMP is more doable in training runs for some people. But for me, trying to hit that pace in a long tempo would require a race-like effort and take a week to recover from.

My new favourite term ‘...deep dark place...’, it captures the racing psyche so well.

The longest repeat I did at HMP was 2 miles. I would do workouts like 6-8 miles,3x 2 miles, 10x1k at 10k to HMP. I would do workouts like 2x3 miles or 2x 4 miles at 5:05-510 pace. This got me to run 64 low to mid couple of years ago. The longest I can see myself hitting is 5 miles at HMP but never really attempted to. Any longer and the effort would be really high. I always race faster then I train though. Crazy how everyone is different.

Hahshdj wrote:

The longest repeat I did at HMP was 2 miles. I would do workouts like 6-8 miles,3x 2 miles, 10x1k at 10k to HMP. I would do workouts like 2x3 miles or 2x 4 miles at 5:05-510 pace. This got me to run 64 low to mid couple of years ago. The longest I can see myself hitting is 5 miles at HMP but never really attempted to. Any longer and the effort would be really high. I always race faster then I train though. Crazy how everyone is different.

Agree 100% with this. 6x1 mile at race pace, 4x2 mile at race pace, 7-9 mile tempos at 20-30 seconds per mile slower than race pace were all tough but doable workouts for me in heavy training. Started at 67:30, got down to 64:30 with this kind of training.

LetsEatDoughnutsInstead wrote:

I've decided to go rogue against all of you. 2x3.5 mi @ HMP, 3 min rest. That feels sufficiently Daniels-esque.

So I was actually going to run 3x2

mi with 2 minutes rest. I believe I'm in better shape than I thought because I did 2 miles and felt great, so on the fly I decided to do 3mi x 2. I still felt great, so I kept going, thinking I was going to stop at 6. I ended up running 7 @ HMP telling myself I wasn't going to run further at that pace to avoid a race effort, but I think I'm going to be a little more optimistic on my goal race pace (weather permitting) because this workout felt more like tempo work than a race indicator.

So to recap - I ended up running 5 miles easy, 7@HMP, 2 mi easy. I think this was also a good choice because I've had issues before with muscle fatigue in the last 3 miles, so hopefully the longer hmp effort will help with that. I could feel the calves twitching in the last easy mile, so hopefully that helped acclimate them. Thanks for the discussion everybody.

sounds like a run fun. 7 miles is the most I've ever done as a tempo at HMP. once at 6:10 pace and years later at 5:30 pace. both probably same effort, for what it's worth. nowadays I wouldn't ever do that, I'd do 3x2mi instead or 3-2-1 or whatever, but not more than 5-6 at goal HMP (as a 70-75min half guy)