Sub 1:10 Half Marathon Training

How did everyone's penultimate week finish up? Seeing that elite entry list was a pretty good way to bring me back down to earth and make me feel like a nobody while I'm likely in the shape of my life up to this point. I'm putting the over/under of me getting beat by females at 5.5.

Things are going well for me. After my 6x1200m workout on Tuesday, I did some hill drills and sprints on Thursday, 11 miles moderate (5:56 avg) on Friday, 14 miles this morning on Sunday (6:11 avg), and easy runs all in between to put me at 80 miles for the week. I didn't mean for today's run to be that quick, but I never checked my watch during the run. The entire run felt like an effort right between easy and moderate. My heart rate was under 140 when I finished too, so I guess that pace was still okay for me for an easier effort compared to my other long runs.

Hopefully I can make it to the line next Sunday feeling as good or better than this morning. My plan is to do 6x1600m LT on Tuesday (maybe on the track to feel fast) and then 8x200m at 1500m pace with full rest on Thursday or Friday. I'll probably get somewhere around 70-75 miles for race week, which won't be too difficult with 15 or 16 miles on race day.

I had a pretty similar week to you, but scaled back for a 1:10-1:11 level. I am at 67.25 miles, without having run yet today, so I will be at 74-78 depending on what I choose to do later (could be my biggest week since my lead up to Boston last March).

- 5 x 1000m at 3:08 with 2:45 active rest solo in the wind on Tuesday,

- 10 miles Wednesday with a guy who was visiting from out of town and is prepping for the LA Marathon and wanted some company, so I went with a moderate progression (5:55, 5:45. 5:35, 5:25) in the middle there.

- 18 yesterday (trying to balance being fresh for Houston with being ready for Boston).

I will likely just do 4 x 1200 at 4:00 with 1:00 rest and some strides on Wednesday, off an easy 6 on Friday which is my travel day. I am guessing I will be around 60 for race week, which is definitely a sacrifice of my Boston training for a shot at a good day in Houston.

Smoove wrote:

I am guessing I will be around 60 for race week, which is definitely a sacrifice of my Boston training for a shot at a good day in Houston.

You're kidding right? Having a slightly down week right now should in no way affect your Boston race. Boston is still 3 months away, this down time right now will probably help you more than anything. But you're right it's definitely a "sacrifice" of a good looking page in the ol' training log.

It baffles me how you're a coach. Do you demand that your athletes always do the exact workout, and hit their exact planned mileage no matter what? Gosh, you are so inflexible and insecure that you can't even handle having a slightly lower mileage week. You're all about having the nice training log so you can come onto the forum here and post your perfect little training week, where you race your workouts, and then soak up all the comments from the hobbyjoggers about how fast you are. It's really no wonder you usually way underperform in races, you let your pride get in the way of doing what's best for your body. Whether it's running too fast in workouts, being to scared to take time off, trying to stupidly make up for time off, etc. we can always count on Ol' Smoove to show us what not to do.

Hahahaha.

Also to some guy above, 6x1600 lt is way too much if you’re racing this week. You’ll gain no fitness from that by Sunday and will only make yourself tired.

I don't know dude, 6x1600m at LT pace isn't that difficult, and it's still 5 days out. I think I'll be fine, but I guess we will find out on Sunday.

Dril wrote:

Hahahaha.

Also to some guy above, 6x1600 lt is way too much if you’re racing this week. You’ll gain no fitness from that by Sunday and will only make yourself tired.

I would have to agree with this - 6x1600 seems very intense for a race week workout. Maybe 3x1600? It's true you will not gain any fitness and can only wear yourself out for race day. But you definitely know your training better than I so whatever works for you I guess.....

Halfway through my training cycle for Houston, I ran a PR 5k on a Saturday when I did a 6 mile LT run on the Tuesday before. So with an extra day of rest compared to that and breaking the 6 mile LT run into intervals, I don't see the problem. If I don't gain any fitness, might as well just not run until the race, right? Have you all ever heard of eating and sleeping? Those are two great things that help you recover after running so you don't have to be tired.

Ben - I'd also jump in the camp of suggesting holding off from doing that much volume that close to race day. With your debut at the distance it's much better to be conservative within the last 7 days or so. The last 5k will be a different experience compared to other distances you've run. There's nothing wrong with doing some cruise intervals, maybe 3xmile plus some long strides. But 6x1600 is excessive if you want to get the line feeling the best you can, and making sure the muscular fatigue stays away as long as possible during the race.

I've been following your R2w log and Youtube series and think you have some good potential, but you should respect the distance in your first go at it.

forcerunner wrote:

Ben - I'd also jump in the camp of suggesting holding off from doing that much volume that close to race day. With your debut at the distance it's much better to be conservative within the last 7 days or so. The last 5k will be a different experience compared to other distances you've run. There's nothing wrong with doing some cruise intervals, maybe 3xmile plus some long strides. But 6x1600 is excessive if you want to get the line feeling the best you can, and making sure the muscular fatigue stays away as long as possible during the race.

I've been following your R2w log and Youtube series and think you have some good potential, but you should respect the distance in your first go at it.

This is really good advice Ben. Forcerunner knows his stuff, and is coming off a recent 2:18 marathon. I know you don't want to change too much from your normal routine, and that's overall a smart move, but 6x1600 isn't going to help you anymore than 4x1600 will. I'm just some anonymous message board poster, but I'll give my workout advice and let you do with it what you will.

I'd recommend something like 4x1600 at tempo pace with 1-1:30 rest, then 2-4x200m at around 3k pace, just to get the legs moving. The 200s should not be hard, and should feel like a long stride-out. Again, you don't know me, I don't know you, but in my experience it's always better to be at 95% than 101%.

As evidenced by my plan to go 4 x 1200 at lT pave, 6 x 1600 at LT pace is more aggressive than I would be, but if the guy knows his body and is confident in hat approach based on past experience, then it's probably not a big deal. Some guys need to stay in rhythm some (from a mental standpoint probably as much as physical). If he were cranking out 8 x 1000 at 5k pace that would be a bit different. But 6 x 1600 at LT pace with plenty of time to recover for a young guy isn't going to break him, even if it's not what I'd personally do.

Ben Barrows wrote:

Halfway through my training cycle for Houston, I ran a PR 5k on a Saturday when I did a 6 mile LT run on the Tuesday before. So with an extra day of rest compared to that and breaking the 6 mile LT run into intervals, I don't see the problem. If I don't gain any fitness, might as well just not run until the race, right? Have you all ever heard of eating and sleeping? Those are two great things that help you recover after running so you don't have to be tired.

You can do too little and you can do too much. It’s a basic concept of training.

It’s just advice. Take it or leave it.

I don't know who you are but your obsession with Smoove is very odd and creepy.

With all due respect if you're a 2:18 marathoner, I'm going to carry out with my original plan. I enjoy coming up with my own plans and being experimental with little things like this and seeing how they work out. The thing that sucks is that we will never know what the better option would have been. If I go out and run a great race, it'd be easy for me to say 'told you so', but I won't do that, because maybe I would've done even better with less volume on the Tuesday before. Same thing goes the other way. If I go out and lay an egg, maybe I would've laid an even bigger egg with doing less volume on the Tuesday workout. You can never pinpoint a single reason for a good or bad race (unless you get super sick or something similar) and there's so much more that plays a factor into that one race.

Here's a story that I like to tell on this topic. Flotrack did a Workout Wednesday with Josh Kerr, and it was released sometime after NCAA indoors when he dethroned Ches in the mile last March. The workout was 3x2 mile with 2:00 rest, so basically LT repeats. He ran 10:56, 10:57, 10:40 (at altitude as well). This was his last workout before NCAAs.

People on here criticized him quite a bit. Why is a sub-4 miler running so slow? Why is he running that much in a workout the week of NCAAs? Why is he doing tempo work instead of something on the track right now? Again, this was knowing that he just beat Ches. The guy just beat the nearly unbeaten Ches and people out there are saying he should've done this, should've done that. I'd say whatever he did worked pretty well. But again, who knows? Maybe he would've beaten Ches by even more if he did a different workout. I'll never know, you'll never know, his coach will never know, and he will never know. Every season and training cycle is different, so even if they tried to replicate the exact same training while changing up that last week, you still can't pinpoint that one reason why he did better or worse.

I'm not claiming to know better than any of you, because how would I know that? I don't even know any of you, but I do know myself and how I typically respond to training in order to race well in general, although I do not know the half marathon distance yet for racing. I can recall other PR races and think, "Man, I bet I could've run pretty quick at xyz distance that day if I raced that instead." I feel like it's more about just showing up, ready to race well regardless of the distance (assuming the training hasn't been geared towards a different race with completely different training principles). When I came up with this plan, I was thinking about an overall taper over the last couple weeks. In my mind, making the workout easier but not too easy is part of that among other things. Key: In my mind. That's probably the most important thing in the last week for me since my training has been nearly flawless up to this point (by that, I mean that it's played out almost exactly how I planned, not that the training plan doesn't have flaws).

All that being said, sorry for derailing a good thread for a bit, rant over. I'm really excited to race regardless. Distance running is great.

Ben- You know best what your body needs, like I said I was just offering an example of what I would do in your situation, in no way am I trying to tell you what to do. I skimmed through a few of your videos, good stuff man. Best of luck in Houston, it seems like you're in fantastic shape, and I think as long as you don't do anything crazy, you're on track to run 67:00ish with good pacing.

I have a buddy who recently ran about a 14:40 5k on a road course, (probably worth around 14:30 track shape) and he's been running halves in the 65-66 min range. Based on your training and build I'd guess that your 14:56 will translate very well to the half. Again best of luck, show 'em how Kansas boys run.

I appreciate it, but I am a Missouri boy who happens to be in Kansas at the moment ;)

I'd love to be anything 67:xx, but I'm not putting any expectations on myself. I'm going to race by feel and let my fitness take me where I am. I'm not setting any kind of goal pace because I think that would put myself at more risk of blowing up or holding myself back too much. My best 10k ever on the track (not my fastest anymore, but probably still my best compared to my fitness at the time) was my very first one, and I think a big part of that is the lack of expectations and feeling the race effort. I ran tons of bad 10k races after that one before I hit another good one because there was always the expectation that I needed to run faster, which meant going out at a faster pace. Going into Houston with that same mindset as my first 10k.

Ben Barrows

I agree with other who talked already about the 6x1600m workout. It is a big workout to do in the week of race. With 5k, you can run ok with workouts close when not drop training but half marathon is different challenge. Volume of training is high and you need to ease off further from race. Fatigue will be bigger factor than 5k and you need to adjust for this. 3xmile is better close to race for you and will keep you fresh and fast.

Why do post here about your training if that's the way you feel? I think you have a very narrow minded approach to learning even if you believe you are open minded which is what that long winded post is you trying to perpetuate through psuedo-philosopy . How can you be experimental and disregard your training as something you cannot know better? I'm sorry but that is a contradiction and a load of bs. You learn through experience and experience of others, how do you think the great coaches got so good? How do you think the theory of high mileage came around? taper? Mile repeats? Because someone learned from experience through expermintation and one does cannot coexist independently.

And please for the love of running how do you manage to construe a 3:35 1500m athlete doing 3x2 Miles repeatd at 5:30 pace as an LT workout as it is beyond my comprehension of what I know as training? That's a moderate aerobic workout for a 3:35 athlete which is simply to keep tabs on his aerobic fitness during a heavy period of racing to make sure his Aerobic threshold does not shift too much when training volume is lower. He did not need many track workouts in this period because he was racing all the time. All you guys think every workout needs to be killed and split to the millisecond and do not realise why workouts are run and for what reason.

But go ahead and do your 6x1600m at LT and never learn from it if you wish but can the philosopical bs of being more enlightened than everyone else. If you post training on public domains, you should be open to advice otherwise I question why you are here at all outside of a public reacharound.

And I just want to say I am not too hot. I have run and coached at a very high level and with all those years of experience have learned some valuable lessons. Number one is that the biggest difference I see between elite and sub-elite runners is that the elites are excellent listeners and learners, the sub elites have bigger egos.

It’s all good, you all could very well be correct as I said (and the numbers are definitely against me). I’m just sharing what I’m doing because other people were doing the same kind of stuff for the past several weeks at a very similar level for the same race. Maybe people can pick out good and bad things about my training and learn from it (obviously a bad thing has been picked out already). Either way, I’ll learn much more from this training cycle once the race is over. Until then, I can’t fully analyze things. Looking forward to racing!

I'll just add that I've had most of my best track and xc races in the middle of high volume weeks following moderately difficult workouts. I don't think it matters if he's racing a 5k or a half. There's something to be said for feeling fast even at the expense of a little residual fatigue.