Am I increasing mileage too quickly? Should I work on speed?

10% a week increase is safest with a drop back of about 20-25% every 4th week.

so

30 - 33 - 36 - 30 - 40 - 44- 48 - 38 - 50

forget speed for now. base work is best. get to 50 and stay there for 3 months before attempting any sort of speed work.

Base = try to stay in Zone 2 for most of my runs with (naturally) some harder effort on hills?

One rest day a week sufficient?

Doubles two days a week alright? (Tuesdays/Thursdays = 4/5 in the morning on the treadmill, 4/5 in the evening outside)

My last week was: Mon = easy 5, Tues = med 4, Wed = 0, Thurs = easy 5.5, tempo 4.5, Fri = easy 7, Sat = easy 5, Sun = long 11.

So should I keep adding to tuesday, friday, and sunday mileage until I get to 50-60 mpw and hold that for a few months?

You are right in principal, with the drop back and everything, but I wouldn't recommend 10% every week. 10% every 2 or three weeks makes a lot more sense, your body needs time to adapt to every new workload/stimulus, so if you up the mileage every week, you are never fully adapting to the new added volume. Plus if you are also adding in workouts through these weeks, or changing another stimulus, there is too much change. Consistency is important, so staying at a certain mileage/volume for a few weeks before changing is a good idea.

so...

30-30-30-25-33-33-33-28-36-36-36-31, etc.

Only problem here is that with such an incredibly low starting volume (for a half marathon), building up to reasonable mileage seems almost impossible.

To the OP...why not focus on a shorter distance (5k?) during this training cycle, and once you are more adapted to a little higher volume then think about working your way up to running another half marathon. It seems foolish to be concerned with how well you can do in a half only running 40-45 mpw...unless your goal is just to finish, you might as well run a distance better suited to your volume until you can raise your volume during future training cycles.

seach under Malmo

I disagree wrote:

To the OP...why not focus on a shorter distance (5k?) during this training cycle, and once you are more adapted to a little higher volume then think about working your way up to running another half marathon. It seems foolish to be concerned with how well you can do in a half only running 40-45 mpw...unless your goal is just to finish, you might as well run a distance better suited to your volume until you can raise your volume during future training cycles.

In hindsight, I should have waited for the Spring to do a half-mar (if ever). The distance isn't really an accomplishment since I've done that before multiple times, so I'm not really sure why I'm doing it...more of just a training run I guess and to have the experience of a "big city" event.

I'm running a 10K this weekend and think I'll focus on that distance just a gauge for how my body's responding over the next 3 months or so. I feel like I enjoy that distance more anyway unless I'm doing long trail runs.

Maybe once I get down <7:00 as a relatively easy pace for me then I'll look at going up to 1/2 mar distance for races.

Thanks for the tips. 10% every two weeks does sound better. Maybe what I'm feeling right now is just some general mild over-training from trying to increase too quickly.

Here are my two cents.

You need to chill and look at the bigger picture. You've been inconsistent for the last several years , and this is the first thing you need to address. Coach Canova talks about 85% of training being nothing more than preparing you for future training... and that's only when you are ready to do some quality work. What you are setting yourself up for is more inconsistency. I don't have a problem with you participating in the half marathon, but go at it with no expectations. It's just one race. It isn't the olympics. There will be plenty of races down the road for you to blaze pr's - that is if you are running consistently. The only way for you to achieve that, is to back off any intensity.

If I were you, I would read through this old thread :

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=42240&page=0

There will be those who chime in and say heart rates are a waste of time, Hadd training sucks, blah blah blah. That's too bad, because I can guarantee you, those people never truly took the time to fully understand Hadd's advice on building an aerobic base. It is only one person's perspective, true, but for starting off on the right foot, and giving yourself every opportunity to begin developing as a distance runner properly, there is no better training model I have come across.

Everyone wants to jump right in and start running hard all the time. Look into this stuff for yourself and be one of the few who trains smart.

Applying silly "X% every N weeks" rules gets even sillier if they make no distinction between an absolute beginner building from zero vs. someone who's trained for and raced marathons recently. Or between say a frail 60 year old woman and a 21 year old dude with all that testosterone at his disposal.

If you take three weeks off for injury, or rest after a marathon, do you start over from say 10 miles a week and build by 10% again?

A week is pretty arbitrary, no? If you measure in fortnights or months instead, increasing every two or four weeks still has your numbers always moving, implying (by this logic) that there's no full adaptation before moving on.

Who said you had to adapt 100% (and what does that even mean?) before inching up - really, where does that idea come from? My vision of a training cycle is that you're always pushing your boundaries, and generally running at (to pluck a number out of my ass) an 80% +/- recovery level. Recovery only approaches 100% during a taper. If you're 100% recovered every two or three weeks, you're not really pushing yourself.

I do largely agree with this. Build the mileage up to where you want it, then add hard workouts. You can do some tempos and short quick stuff like strides while building, but better to put more energy into just building miles first... the bigger base will really help with the workouts when the time comes.

Sounds like excellent advice. I'm copying and pasting that whole thread to go through. I tried some Maffetone type training back when I was cycling more seriously, but always had a hard time applying it to running...need to develop more patience. Thanks for sharing. All the advice is pointing to "chill out and develop base". Guess that's the way to go from here.

Okay, so I read through ALL of the Hadd post, including a link back to his original 25 page treatise on base-building. And I totally buy it.

But before I can get into the training part of what he recommends or even doing the 2400m tests, I need to get up to a comfortable 50mpw.

I'm in the low-40's-mpw right now, but running mostly with a HRAvg around 165-170...too hard; and only equating to a 8:15m/mile pace unless the runs are 5K or less (indicating a poor aerobic engine).

From previous trail running in Colorado, I know my HRMax is right about 193-194bpm. Mt. Sanitas can do that pretty quick if you're running angry ;)

So by Hadd's formula, my easy runs should be at <145hravg.

Does that mean all my runs over the next 8-9 weeks should be at that effort level?

If I build this up properly, I expect I can start into the test phase and the sub-LT training (two runs at 155-160HRAvg/wk building from 50 up to 80mpw or so) on Jan. 1st and carry that training through to a May half-marathon as my first real test of the training plan's effectiveness.

Everything sound sane here? I love running and want to develop a sustainable relationship with it so I can quit this inconsistent year-to-year issue I've had for the past few.

Okay, so I read through ALL of the Hadd post, including a link back to his original 25 page treatise on base-building. And I totally buy it.

But before I can get into the training part of what he recommends or even doing the 2400m tests, I need to get up to a comfortable 50mpw.

I'm in the low-40's-mpw right now, but running mostly with a HRAvg around 165-170...too hard; and only equating to a 8:15m/mile pace unless the runs are 5K or less (indicating a poor aerobic engine).

From previous trail running in Colorado, I know my HRMax is right about 193-194bpm. Mt. Sanitas can do that pretty quick if you're running angry ;)

So by Hadd's formula, my easy runs should be at <145hravg.

Does that mean all my runs over the next 8-9 weeks should be at that effort level?

If I build this up properly, I expect I can start into the test phase and the sub-LT training (two runs at 155-160HRAvg/wk building from 50 up to 80mpw or so) on Jan. 1st and carry that training through to a May half-marathon as my first real test of the training plan's effectiveness.

Everything sound sane here? I love running and want to develop a sustainable relationship with it so I can quit this inconsistent year-to-year issue I've had for the past few.

When you are under-trained aerobically it sucks. What can I say? Good news is, if you suck it up now, you will never have to go through it again. What's the "it?"

The "it" is slugging around at 9+ minute miles to keep the hr in check. Having said that, I would take Hadd's advice here and allow yourself a little flexibility in the beginning. You aren't used to doing this type of training, so how about capping everything at 160 right now ( I'm sure there's an alarm on that model you've got right?) and not making yourself too miserable. When your pace starts to improve every day at the 155ish neighborhood, take it down to 150, and so on. Do not keep chugging along at 155. Eventually, you will be doing your easy aerobic running at 145 or lower, and most likely, faster than what you can currently manage at 170.

I think your plan sounds good. I'm sure you can easily increase the volume over the next few months if you resist the urge to hammer.

Continued thanks.

Yes, my HRM has a wonderfully annoying beep that I intend to make friends with.

I ran 4 miles last night keeping it under 150 and yes it was slow, but if I have a goal in sight, I can do it. The key for me is to keep my form together, keep my forefoot strike and quicker turnover despite running at a slogging pace. Long hills will be interesting. I can see some walking at first.

But I imagine in 5-6 weeks I'll be running quick enough at 145 to not be too annoyed anyway. We'll see. Perfect training for fall days.