Sub 1:10 Half Marathon Training

Shane33 wrote:

Someone found me on strava :)

Nope. Sorry for the mistake.

For those who care, I ended up with a 1:10:42. I had a strong training run about 2 weeks out from the race where I averaged 5:40 for a half. The workout was 1,2,3,2,1 mile intervals on a relatively hilly course. The training run, along with some comments here, gave me the confidence to go out at low 5:20 pace. Other than a strong wind the race was fairly ideal. 40s and flat (300ft of climbing). Fairly even splits with my fastest being 5:13 and slowest being 5:28. Thanks for all the input and good luck with your fall races!

Shane33 wrote:

For those who care, I ended up with a 1:10:42. I had a strong training run about 2 weeks out from the race where I averaged 5:40 for a half. The workout was 1,2,3,2,1 mile intervals on a relatively hilly course. The training run, along with some comments here, gave me the confidence to go out at low 5:20 pace. Other than a strong wind the race was fairly ideal. 40s and flat (300ft of climbing). Fairly even splits with my fastest being 5:13 and slowest being 5:28. Thanks for all the input and good luck with your fall races!

nice work man. what do you think were the positives and negatives you can take away from your training and the race itself?

reed wrote:

nice work man. what do you think were the positives and negatives you can take away from your training and the race itself?

Thanks! Most of my take aways are very specific to me as an individual, so I doubt there will be much value to any other reader, but here you go:

Positives: Setting big goals and working hard to achieve them is beneficial in many ways including outside of running. Also, learning about the sport has been terrific. I have loved reading and listening to JD, reading Hanson, listening to Sage and Ben Barrows, and learning from you all. I think I am well on my way to leaving the "newbie" realm.

My eye is always a race or two down the road. My 1:10 training's purpose was to get me to a speed required for my next (overly ambitious) marathon goal. Time will tell, but I believe being on the higher side of milage while doing my workouts specific for half marathon was a good choice when looking at my long term goals.

Negatives: As I have stated I don't race often. As such I was up and down emotionally through the training with each good or bad workout. I was attempting to run my 5K PR for 21K. I ended up succeeding in that regard (though missing the overall sub 70), but the low moments made me too negative and I am sure very annoying to my wife. I think one or two well planned races would have baselined me better to know my training was actually going well. I raced once coming off a 110 week and I ran a ~16:30 5k which destroyed my confidence. Another negative was not focusing enough on recovery early in the cycle. I was learning and didn't do any type of cool downs, stretching, rolling, etc. I think that hindered me a lot when the training got hard. Last negative is that the training is tough. I know that might sound dumb. I work more than 40 a week and have a family and thus sacrifices have to be made. I wish that the hours I put in would equate to a much better runner than myself, but that isn't the case. Training seems to take a long time for your body to adapt and the bar is ridiculously high (i.e. there are a lot of runners a lot better than me). Luckily I have been able to put in the work via early morning runs and some extra miles at lunch breaks, but I will struggle to put more time in than I do right now.

From the race itself, I don't have many negatives. I wasn't going for the win or any specific place so I let the person in front of me go from very early in the race and ran my own race at the paces I felt I could run. Maybe this would be a negative if I was trying to win, but I was racing myself and I feel like I did it well. I had a bit more in my tank at the end than I normally do, but not the 40 or so seconds required to go sub 70. I think with more experience I will be able to gauge my gas tank better in the middle stages of the race to know what my pace should be to complete.

Shane33 wrote:

reed wrote:

nice work man. what do you think were the positives and negatives you can take away from your training and the race itself?

I had a bit more in my tank at the end than I normally do, but not the 40 or so seconds required to go sub 70. I think with more experience I will be able to gauge my gas tank better in the middle stages of the race to know what my pace should be to complete.

I've been having this problem for 7 years and rarely get it right.

reed wrote:

Shane33 wrote:

I had a bit more in my tank at the end than I normally do, but not the 40 or so seconds required to go sub 70. I think with more experience I will be able to gauge my gas tank better in the middle stages of the race to know what my pace should be to complete.

I've been having this problem for 7 years and rarely get it right.

I guess I may not figure it out then, but keep improving. Any tips from your experience? Seems hard to quantify the feeling.

I have a full this weekend, so I will get more practice :)

It took me another 6 months, but I finally got the sub 70. 68:02. Just excited, so I am telling someone other than Strava. Same training as I previously outlined for the most part. More intensity and more miles. Kept extending my intervals from 800m to 4miles. This was actually marathon training, but the two training plans are pretty similar.

Shane33 wrote:

It took me another 6 months, but I finally got the sub 70. 68:02. Just excited, so I am telling someone other than Strava. Same training as I previously outlined for the most part. More intensity and more miles. Kept extending my intervals from 800m to 4miles. This was actually marathon training, but the two training plans are pretty similar.

Wow! Congrats!

Wow! Congratulations. Great run. Would love to hear more about your training approach for this breakthrough.

Thanks. My training age is young (though I am 30), so I am afraid to say anything in particular about my training helped the "breakthrough" other than consistency.

Here is the basic summary anyways. Went from 80-90 mpw to 100-110 and slowly added intensity. But to be clear, I could not have done this last year and I don't think this much effort is needed if your goal is sub 70. For me, the most confidence boosting and perhaps the most performance enhancing workouts are longer intervals. 2 to 4 miles. I have done a better job this cycle of working in each workout type. E.g. Hit shorter speed/economy workouts when I needed an easy workout. This is based on some advice on this thread. So thank you to those on this thread who gave me advice.

My key workouts in no particular order:

- 2x4 @ 5:20 1m recovery

- 4 mile/20 minute "tempo" @ 5:11. Add bursts after some easy miles of recovery.

- 20 mile - Mixed speeds, most of the work done around 6:00, but some slower too . 4 individual miles @ 5:27 and my last mile at 5:00 (surprised myself)

- 1, 2, 2, 2, 1 @ 5:17 - Was supposed to be 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, but I couldn't do it and didn't really think I was ready for it at the time either.

Nothing on the track because of the winter. Also note that those are "key" or hard workouts. When I say I slowly added intensity, I am talking like 4-5 800s as my only quality for the week at the start of the build and that was all I could handle.

HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:

(...) The weather is rarely every good for Boston - let's just hope it's not hot. 2015 (cold and rainy) would be great ..

Njord heard your wish from the early 2018post!

Hey Shane! I’m from SoFlo as well, currently live in Orlando. Would be cool to follow your training and such if you want to follow me on Instagram we can chat about it. It’s the same as my username on here!

Whoops. Replied to the wrong person. Meant to respond to SoFlo runner. Got the usernames confused.

reviving this thread. anyone else out there going for under 70 as the fall season winds down?

I am shooting for it in December. I just recently completed a workout that I found on this thread and I think it could be possible. My problem now is I'm trying to come up with some workouts to complete these next 3 weeks. Any ideas from anybody that has gone sub 70?

I'm training for a sub 110 this year after running 1:10:50 and 1:11 and a bunch of 1:12's over the last 5 years. Coming off a 2:31 marathon PR last month at CIM, I'm working on my speed now while also raising my mileage (I trained and competed at CIM on extremely low mileage). Next shot will be Naples next weekend but realistically 1:12 is my goal there (weather looks to be warm). I need the perfect weather day with great competition and exceptional fitness.

Hi lads,

I ran 71:50 last sep. Covid lockdown has ended all racing here. I was in good shape after that running 5:05 to 5:10 paced Tempo's without going to hard each week. Ran sub 32 in a TT in early January on a super flat course. Decided to only do 1 session a week since then. I'l be joining the sub 70 training bus if I know we will get a race!.

I found this interesting thread, I'm from italy and 2 week ago i attempt for 1h10' Half marathon, unluckily there were a lot of wind and i close in 1h11'49''.

I want to retry on 17 of July, considering the schedule posted by SUPER COACH JS time ago, how i can organize some double for achieved a 95/100mile week ?

Monday AM 10mile Easy / PM 5 mile Easy

Tuesday 3mile warm up + 20x400 rec. 1'30'' + 1mile warm down (10mile tot)

Wednesday AM 10mile Easy / PM 5 mile Easy

Thursday AM 3mile warm up + 6x 1mile T-pace rec. 2' + 1mile warm down (10mile tot)

Friday 10 mile Easy / PM 5 mile Easy

Saturday Long Run 19 mile

Sunday 10mile Easy

now i'm doing some double but on PM i prefer to do cross training like 40' on Rowing C2 or 60' Bike .. Yesterday i try the long run suggested

22km @4.01 (x km) + 6km of 1' @3.15 / 1' @3.55 + 2km @3.55

thanks for the help, sorry for my bad english

Hello! You really seem to be close to your goal, a sub 1:10. But to make your training more effective to reach your goal you really don't have to run 95-100 mpw. It should be enough with 50-60 mpw for you. The main thing for you should be to run your miles in training at individual best pace to soon reach your sub 1:10.

If you want personal coaching just send me a message.

J.S 🧙‍♂️