My 3rd Half Marathon was not very satisfying. I trained for about 5 weeks when I should have trained for 12-16, and I crashed at mile 7 and walked the entirety of heartbreak hill. I’m glad I finished, but I’m not interested in doing that again. The point of races for me is getting the chance to feel proud of the hard training I did to improve! (See my post To Feel Proud, You Have to Train Hard.) I’d like my next half marathon to feel more like my first and second, which were the result of months of training and reflected enormous progress as a result.
Goal: Train adequately for my next half marathon. I know that I want to run two half marathons in the fall, the Maine Half Marathon in October and the Chilly Half Marathon in November. I like the idea of training and running for two, because the Maine Half Marathon will ensure that I prepare in time for Chilly, the race I enjoyed so much last year.
The Training Plan:I’ve pulled out Run Less, Run Faster, a book Greg gave me over a year ago that I’ve under-utilized. It has a 16 week half marathon training plan. I printed out our monthly google calendars and counted the weeks backwards from the Maine Half Marathon. I have 15 weeks starting Sunday. The plan has you do three key runs, an Interval workout, a Tempo workout, and a Long Run. Two days a week you’re supposed to aerobically cross train (bike, swim or row) – something I can actually do easily because rowing is one of the options and I’ll be spending a month this summer on a lake with a row boat that I can toss the kids in.
Challenges: I want to train well for these half marathons, but I don’t want to do it at the cost of having a great summer. I’ll be up in Maine for four weeks with Greg joining me on weekends, and it will be hot, so I’ll want to run in the early morning. That means asking grandparents to watch the boys early in the morning three days a week, or twice a week and sacrificing time with Greg on the weekend in order to run.
Solution: I’m going to put in my best effort to get those runs in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ll ask family for help, and give them the option of having me drop the kids off for breakfast and then going for a run, having them come up in the morning so I can go, or having them spend the night at the house on the lake and I’ll wake up at 5 and go, getting back not too long after breakfast! If it works, awesome, if it doesn’t, I can always go for a run on Saturday or Sunday when Greg is up for the weekend, so regardless I will get my long run in. If the morning is hard, I can slow it down and tackle the workouts in the heat… but I’m hopeful that with two sets of grandparents around I can find coverage 2-3 times a week to run.
Ideally it’d be in the early morning so it’s not as hot… but it doesn’t HAVE to be. Ideally it’d be three times so that I don’t have to give up time with Greg on the weekends for my long run… but it doesn’t HAVE to be. Ideally I won’t miss a workout… but I’ll still have 11 weeks left when I get back to Wellesley. It’ll be ok.
Once I’m back in Wellesley, I can work out a schedule with Greg so I can go early in the morning on days when HE’S not running early in the morning. If we both get in the habit of waking up early to run because of the heat, we’ll hopefully both go to bed earlier, and it won’t be a big deal. I also have some time with the boys in camps for a few hours in the morning here or there, when I can run outside if it’s cool or on the treadmill if it’s way too hot.
Targeted workouts: I’ve never used an official training plan before – when I trained for my first half marathon, I made up my own based on how many days and miles I was able to run, focusing on gradually adding distance to my long runs until I could make it the 13.1 miles. Now that I’ve completed 3 half marathons, I think it’s time to train smarter and actually have time goals for some of my runs to target an intensity that’s do-able but hard enough so I make progress. The “Run Less, Run Faster” book has a very specific formula for determining what your interval speeds, tempo speeds, and long run speeds should be based on your 5k race time. This is great, because the one time I ran intervals, I ran way too fast for my ability and haven’t done one since. That was 9 months ago. No wonder my pace has stayed so steady!
If I have trouble completing the workouts, I’ll tone back to a slower 5k time to get my numbers until the workouts are challenging but manageable. I don’t want to get injured OR demoralized.
My first long run was today – 8 miles at 10:32 pace was the target, and I completed 8 miles at 10:33 pace. Yay me! Except I stopped the clock whenever I drank water, which was five times, which probably was enough to add a minute onto my pace per mile. Still, a few minute long breaks but maintaining the desired pace during the portions when I was running doesn’t seem as bad as if I’d run that much slower without a break. Right? RIGHT? (This type of rationalization is why I’m so slow.)
But… I had a beautiful run, I felt great all morning from it, and I’m optimistic and excited about this upcoming half marathon in October… and the fact that the training will carry over to my favorite half marathon, the Chilly Half Marathon in November that I’m excited to run for the second time this year.
What’s on your race schedule for the fall? Anything?
Sounds like you have a great plan! I don’t really do interval or tempo runs, just some fartleks and hill repeats. Maybe I should change that up a bit!
I’m running a big half tomorrow morning that I’m kind of nervous about, but I’m sure it’ll be fine! This Fall I’m planning on running the Ragnar Relay (well, August really), then a 10K in Sept, with a Rock’n’Roll half marathon as my finale in Oct. Our weather in MN gets a little too hairy come November, so it’s hard to plan a race that late in the season. Happy running!
Have a great race tomorrow!!! That’s exciting. The day before race day is always a tough day for me… I just can’t wait to be running, and then for the rest of the day when I am not over-analyzing what I’m eating or drinking or how rested I am because I’m worried about the upcoming race! Instead you’re exercise endorphin high as a kite! I’ll be very jealous of you twenty four hours from now… hope you enjoy the run! I’ve heard great things about the Rock’n’Roll Half… someday that might make it onto my bucket list 🙂 Have fun!
I found your site while looking for descriptions of the Chilly Half Marathon course. Thanks for the write-up! I signed up for it – my first half marathon, and am excited but nervous about the hills. Are you doing any targeted training to prepare for the hills? I was thinking I might drive over to Newton for a Saturday long run just to test them out!!!
I try to incorporate hills into my long runs, and that helps! I was stronger than I expected on the hills last year, and it came from living in an area where they’re hard to avoid! I recommend checking elevation maps or using your garmin if you have one to do some long runs with comparable elevation gains and losses. I also find that slowly rising long hills are sometimes harder than short steep ones! Mixing up my running routes helped me prepare for both. Lots of people do hill repeats – I prefer to incorporate hills into my running route instead. Best wishes for a great race! I’m signed up again this year too 🙂