To PR in half, should I increase my weekly/monthly mileage?

Training Advice/Discussion Marathon

10 years ago 05/01/2013 10:02pm EDT

First a little background: I've been a casual runner for 3ish years now. Now that I have graduated from college, I have more free time & I'm finally getting a bit more serious, especially about racing. I did two half-marathons during college, off of very minimal training (like, an 8 mile long run was the longest run I did to prep) and on a course with 1200 ft elevation gain/loss. My times were 2:12 & 1:48. These days, I'm a smarter runner & incorporate speedwork, hills (mountains, really, considering where I live), and weight training. I recently had an acute issue with my IT band (related to non-running trauma, not overuse) and am on the mend. Recently I did a 13 mile long run in about 95 minutes. I am doing a half-marathon at the end of May and I'm expecting to complete that around the same time.

My question is this: to really get faster, should I be logging significantly more miles per week? I've never really run any more than 25 miles per week. I see a lot of runners doing at least 40-50 miles per week and some around 85-90. I really want to push myself and continue to PR my half-marathon time. Is adding a lot of mileage advisable or am I going to just end up injured at that level of mileage?

10 years ago 05/02/2013 9:40am EDT

re: mountainrunner7

When I ran my first half I peaked around 43 miles a week. Your race is coming soon, so I don't know if you want to get too much higher then you are at right now. The best rule someone taught me was to add about 10 percent to your max mileage a week if you aren't accustomed to high mileage. So when I hit 30 mpw, the next week I hit 33, then 37, etc. In my history, that was the best way to avoid injury. Your long run shows you should easily be able to PR. Also, see if you can get in a 15-16 mile long run in the next two weeks. That and a few tempos were keys (for me) to feeling really good during my race. Good luck!

10 years ago 05/02/2013 11:49am EDT

re: mountainrunner7

To PR in any event over 1500m, I always recommend higher mileage structured to a peak. You have to train smart, there's phase for everything, but the place to start is getting your mileage up and building injury resistance. Forget the speedwork for now. Just focus on running more often, twice a day if possible, and every now and then pick up the pace. When you get over 60 mpw for this cycle, I would recomend entering a phase of more specific work.

10 years ago 05/03/2013 10:51am EDT

re: mgm

Thank you for the advice.

I wasn't planning on increasing my mileage before the half marathon at the end of May. I was mostly wondering about how to approach my training this summer for some fall half marathons that I want to do. These will be at lower altitudes for me (2800 ft) so I feel like I will able to go sub 1:30 by fall. It sounds as though increasing my overall mileage will help with speed for longer races in the long haul, which is what I was wondering.

mgm, I guess I don't understand "peaking" - how do you know when you actually peak and how do you predict this time as to not peak too early or too late? I've never been coached so I'm not really familiar with training cycles...could you offer any brief insight into the matter of a training cycle and peaking? For reference, one of the races I will be doing this fall is a half on November 2nd. What kind of training cycle should I enter before this race?

10 years ago 05/03/2013 1:02pm EDT

re: mountainrunner7

Do a quick search on these boards for "periodization"

If you start in the summer, that gives you about 20-24 weeks to break up your training into components.

Mileage->Strength->Anaerobic capacity-> Specific goal pace

The higher your base, the more benefits you will reap from the speedwork later. You also avoid getting burned out on stuff like intervals. Good luck.

10 years ago 05/03/2013 1:15pm EDT

re: mgm

Perfect - I will do some more research. Thanks so much for the help!

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