5 replies to this topic

[zandrsmum]

Hi there, just about to run my first half in many years next Sunday and am confident of making the distance. Looking ahead to Melb in October I have decided to really have a good crack at it and bring my time down. I have been doing some good tempo runs in lead up to 10k races. Could I get some ideas for doing the same for a half? I have found it has helped greatly.

Currently I am doing 10-12k runs, 2k warm up, 8k just over 10k race pace then 2k cooldown. So about an hour.

Is it just a matter of increasing the middle part gradually or is a tempo session always a shorter session and I should be aiming to go a little faster?

Any other tips for training for this distance, I think I may stick at it a while. Thanks, K

[TrackRunner]

Hi Zandrsmum, doing 8k at 10k race pace is not realy a temp run. A tempo run is a pretty hard run at around 90% intensity. Think of it as the pace that you should be able to hold with a bit of training for up to an hr. You should finish a tempo run feeling like you have a little left in the tank, it shouldnt be an "all out" effort. The purpose of a Tempo run is to increase the Lactate threshhold, and in order to do this the run should be "just" at the point where if you went any faster you would be forced to slow down due to the accumulation of lactic acid. So it is basicly running just below or at lactate thresh hold. In most cases this is around 90% of all out effort.

The distance of the tempo run is also determined by the race distance you are training for. Like the shortest tempo run i do is 20 minutes and the longest is say around 40, but my longest race distance is 4klm. Somebody like yourself doing a half marathon would try to build up to an hour if possible. Good Luck

[walker1st]

I agree with LOVE22RUN,

the basic training units are just tick over 20 minutes and tick over 40 minutes, and this time periods should be used as basic blocks for hard tempo running.
margin for error is very small, should not exceed 22 or 45 mins repectively.

longer run than this at serious tempo is too hard and could not be sustained in regular weekly schedule, the treshold as 60 minutes run is only OK as a standalone race or test with few days of tapering, rest and recovery, which disrupts teh regularity of weekly cycles.

so next time units up - 60 minutes and 85 minutes could not be done as tempo runs, the terminology should give them differnt name as teh pace would 1- 2 gears down.

But for hlafmarathon of course the sessions needs to be mainly based on 60 and 85 units.

margin is few minutes again, so maximum is 65 and 90 mins but idealy should not realy be as tartget.

at least every second week You also need a run from next time unit - around 2H, where depending how You judge teh pace and how recovered You are from the whole week could be either
1:50 or 2:10, so aim for about 2H and if need be cut it ar 1:50 or continue to 2:10 if feeling too good.

back to tempo - You can split the time unit into long reps, so the 40 mins could be done as :
3 x 14, or 2x 21 or 4x10

the shorter unit 20 mins could be split into 3x7, 4x5, 5x4, 2x10...

the pace of 20 mins is of course bit faster than of the 40 mins, so do not get confused, if doing say 40 mins as 4x10, do not run faster just because its 10 mins, keep it like 40 mins pace...

planning the training system in kms - distance instead of time does not make sense, confuses teh discussion, is not comparable transferable between runners could not be copied and could not be realy learned.... also as Ypu progress, improve or have setback after injury etc, it is not comparable or reusable.

It is all in THE TIME

[twosheds]

Due to injury this year I was forced to do all my running a little slower than previously/ My "threshold" runs were probably done at more the pace they are supposed to be done (12-20s.km slower than 10km pace) . I always tended to go closer to 10km race pace for my longer threshold run-Anyway- my point is that I ended up racing really well in the half- totally surprising myself. I had alway noticed a few people who seemed to train very "sensibly" often performed well at training.
A couple of 10km races is always valuable too for half training- I think
There might have been other factors but other than running a biot slower - my training was identical and despite injury ran my secomnd fastest half ever- feeling quite under sone.
Good luck

[loubee]

I followed Hal Higdon's half mara (intermediate) for my first half last year. This included a tempo run every second week and an interval every other. The interval run increased by one interval every fortnight and the tempo run increased from 30mins to 45mins including w/u & c/d over a 12 week period. So pretty much in line with what the pp's have already mentioned.

If you do want a longer run you could do what my coach has me doing in my mara program which is an easy 45 min out building to threshold pace on the return. You could use the same principle by running for 30min out and build on the return.

[zandrsmum]

Thank you, this info is very valuable to me. Will use it to work out a couple of sessions, may ask for some feedback to make sure I have got the right idea. Thanks again, K