How Long Should Race Pace Tempo Be for Half Marathon

9 or 10 miles alone and untapered while training sounds far too long, and probably would be much harder than 13 miles during the race when fully tapered. I've usually heard people say 5 or 6 miles, though it varies from person to person.

Good question. In my last Half race, I ran 9 seconds faster than a 6 mile tempo that I ran one week before. The tempo run averaged 86-87% max HR and got up to LT in the last mile.

Leading into a recent half marathon PR I didn’t do anything more than 4 miles at or under what would be my race pace. I’m guessing everyone’s a little different with this, but I’ve found a pretty hard 4 mile tempo usually ends up being right around the pace I can hold for somewhere between an hour and 75 minutes. I don’t think I could run 8+ miles at HMP outside of a race setting and if I did, it would take too much recovery to bounce back from to be worth it.

Before my last Half, the biggest specific workout I did was 4 x 3k @ Race Pace, with a 1k float recovery. I did it 4 weeks out.

I then did a 10k @ Race Pace 10 days before the race.

I ended up running 3 secs/km (or 5 secs/mile) faster in the race than in either of the these workouts.

I don't think you need to go any further than 12kms (or 7.5 miles). Even then, I'd break it up.

However, it depends on what the rest of your training looks like. Some people tend to respond better to "super-sessions", but others just tend to burn themselves out. Personally, I prefer to save an extra gear for race day. That way I get to enjoy the additional bonus of exceeding my expectations.

I did a 6 mile @ threshold with 1-2 mile warmup and 1-2 mile cooldown about a month before my recent half and it really gave me confidence during my half and made it feel much easier. It’s a hard workout but it really helped physically and mentally.

I think a straight tempo @ ~threshold should be 5-6 max in half marathon training. Stuff like 2 x 3-4 miles is good for a little more volume when you break it up.

The half marathon is all about hitting your threshold workouts. You don't necessarily need to crank out long tempos -- you're doing long runs, maybe with marathon pace thrown in every other week. Your weekly workouts should be a healthy dose of 800/1k/1 mile/2k/2 mile reps @ threshold on short rest. Slightly longer rest for the longer reps but maybe :45 on 800s & k's, 1:00 on miles & 2k's, 90s-2:00 on 2 mile reps.

It's also possible that if you could hold race pace for 9-10 miles you could actually race faster.

Everyone is very different I used to neglect tempos when I was young. I would only do things like 3x2 mi, 4x2 mi and last tough tempo would be a 3x3 mi with 2-3 min rest in between, this was at goal pace. All this during HM training obviously. I do remember other guys doing like 6-8 mi tempos at goal pace. No way I could do more than 4-5 mi at goal pace on my own during a normal week of training.

I hate to say this, but It depends

If you are fast, your HM pace is very close to your actual threshold, and going too far at any one time will get fairly difficult.

If you are slower, your race pace is probably well below your threshold and you could go further at it without the workout being overly hard.

To sum it up. 9 miles at HM rp would be very hard for a 1:02 guy, but not too bad for a 2:02 guy

Half marathon race pace is hard during a training block.

You should be able to run 6-7 miles continuous at goal half pace. Or interval sessions such as 2x3mi (3min rest) or 4x2mi (2min rest) or 3x3mi (3min rest). The longer workouts are really hard.

Two weeks out I ran 2 x 4.5 mi w/ 4 mins jog recovery at around 6:55/mi.

"Tapered" and ran the half at 6:42/mi pace.

Obviously it depends on what your weekly mileage and long runs are. I would say the sweet spot is 7-10 miles. As for pace I would say don't worry about that (if you train correctly you will be 10-15 sec faster on race day when tapered and rested). Pace doesn't make you fit, correct effort does! Aim for an effort around 85-88% and start the first mile closer to 80%.

The most HM pace I've ever run in a workout was 2x4miles with 5 minutes rest. I averaged 6:25 pace for the workout and 2 weeks later ran 1:22 on a fast course (6:16 pace). I highly doubt I could have ran 6:16 pace for this workout... although I did progressively get faster in the workout.

Generally I do my longer tempo's closer to marathon pace and run threshold pace for shorter tempos. The only reason I ran HM "race pace" workouts was because I was coming back from injury and trying to make up for my low overall volume with a higher volume of specific tempo training.

I used to like run 2x3 miles (with a short jog between, no more than 1 mile) at goal HMP in the middle of a longer run, 16-20 miles. So 4-5 mile warmup, workout (6-7 miles), 5-6 mile cooldown.

I like doing this kind of thing in a low key race - ideally a 15k, but anything 7-10 miles is fine. Typically I'll do the first 2/3 controlled, and the remainder at goal pace. Obviously this is a hard effort, but it gives some experience running your pace with miles on the legs.

4x3 mi SHORT jog recovery

When I asked about this in the past, the general view was that you should be able to comfortably (as in working but not straining) handle your race pace for 5 miles. That worked for me. Any tempos of 6+ miles I did at goal pace +15 seconds/mile

Last half was 5:55ish pace.
my go to was broken tempos 3-4 x 10min with 2 min in-between @ 6:10-6:15 once a week

every 3rd week a 10-12mile at 6:35-40.
every 3rd week 4-5 x mile @ 5:55 with 90 sec recovery.

To me it depends also from the type of runner you are. Fast twitch vs Slow twitch . Endurance vs Speed. Personally I ve found very very hard in training to do a lot of km at HM race pace. I did 10 k or 11 while coach was saying 15 km .It was just too hard for me I even went slower than race pace for 10k. My pb and best times I always did without that tempo run but doing specific workout like 5k (rec slow 1k) 4k (rec 1k) 3k (rec 1k) 2k or alternations 8x1k at race pace (rec 1k 20/25sec slower) or any combinaton of 3k ,2k, 1k with 2 or 3 minutes rest.I m more on the speed side so always hard to do long interval or tempo run near threshold.