HALF-MARATHON TRAINING: RUNNING FOR MY LIFE
September 21, 2018
Pittsburgh Fitness Project
Half-Marathon Training: Running for my Life. I’m pretty lazy. If I don’t have some sort of fitness goal or scheduled exercise time, I’ll find something else to do. Usually, that “something” isn’t very productive. I might play Wordscapes on my iPhone. Or I’ll mindlessly snack. It’s why I almost always schedule my personal training workouts on a consistent basis. I’ve been running for about 40 years now. Long-term wear and tear led me to an altered gait. Which in turn led to lots of pain when running. Our running coach here at PFP, Jake Boyer, managed to correct my gait. My personal trainer and gym co-owner, Tom Duer, gave me exercises to strengthen my weak hip flexors. Suddenly, running seemed possible again. It was time to try training for a race! I had run the Philly Marathon twice before and decided to give the Half Marathon a go.
I asked Jake to create a half-marathon training program for me based on my goals (1:45 half, 8:39 min miles) and my estimated fitness level. After using some fancy formula which I don’t understand, he created a schedule for me.
HALF-MARATHON TRAINING PLAN:
Paces for this 12-week cycle will be based on the Daniels Running Formula VDOT tables. You can research what goes into that more but it’s essentially a very good performance based indicator of aerobic fitness that roughly equates to VO2max. I’m going to have you spread out your mileage over 4 days instead of 3 so that you can spread out the mileage and train your body to recover on the go. I think you had good success with that the last time I wrote your plan up too.
Let me know if you plan on doing any races in the middle of the buildup also so we can adjust your VDOT accordingly. Right now your VDOT for a 1:45 would be 43. The training intensities for that fitness level are a bit aggressive for just starting out so I’m going to have you start at a VDOT of 41 and if you race or time trial into a higher VDOT we’ll adjust accordingly. The paces are as follows:
VDOT: 41 Paces and abbreviations (in parentheses)
Easy mileage (E)
Marathon pace (M)
Threshold (T)
Interval (I)
Mile RP (R)
9:20-10:30/mile
8:39/mile
8:02/mile
1:50/400m
51/200m, 1:42/400m
MY INITIAL THOUGHTS
When I first looked at the pacing, I thought: Isn’t that slow for my goals?
Jake’s response: “No, I want to keep you healthy and ease into your mileage. You’ll do faster workouts later.”
Of course, he was right. I am into Week 3 of the program, and I’ve had no excess muscle soreness or fatigue. I must foam roll and stretch after every run, as I discussed in my previous Old Man Series post about stretching. That has helped a lot. I get a massage about once a week, something that’s also really helpful.
MY WEEKS
I thought it might be fun to blog about each week’s run and add comments. Here was week 1 of half-marathon training. This was based on my previous run mileage of about 15+ miles/week and goals.
WEEK 1: AUG 27-SEPT. 2ND (GOAL MILEAGE – 19-22 MILES)
Monday: 4-5 miles @ E
Tuesday: 3+ miles @ E
Wednesday: Off running
Thursday: 3-4 miles @ E
Friday: 6x Strides (50-100m) after travel to shake out. Full recovery between (let post-stride-HR drop by at least 15 bpm before the next one).
Saturday: Option to move Sunday’s run to today.
Sunday: 8-mile run at E. Last 10 minutes at M (at or under 8:39/mile)
It was a hot week to start, and it actually took some time for me to adjust to maintaining the easy pace consistently. I use a Garmin watch to pace but seemed to get things down by the end of the week.
WEEK OF SEPT 3: (BUILD TO 25 MILES)
Monday: Off
Tuesday: 6 miles @ E + 4xstrides
Wednesday: 4.5 miles @ E – or slower
Thursday: off running (cross train optional)
Friday: 6 miles @ E
Saturday: off (or move Sunday’s run)
Sunday: 9 miles @ E with 6x incorporated strides (work up to fast pace for short burst then relax the pace until recovered. The spacing doesn’t matter, as long as your heart rate drops down into the easy zone before you start the next one and you get 6 of them in within the 9 miler)
Beach week for me at Rehoboth Beach, DE. Hot and humid so got up early every day to run. Good workouts but had some chafing, which I’m still trying to heal from. Returned from the beach during Saturday’s rain and Sunday was a washout. I was able to talk to Jake about a modification: 5 miles on our PFP self-propelled Air Assault treadmills immediately followed by 45 min on a Hurricane bike. The 5 miles would still be at E pace, and my bike pace would be enough to keep my heart rate elevated.
The modification was tougher than I thought: self-propelled treadmills are great for formwork and quick interval workouts but tougher to maintain for more than 3 miles. The experience was a great confidence booster in that I managed to maintain a consistent pace for all the workouts and actually had a prolonged workout high after I was done. I’ll post Week 3, which I’m halfway through, next week!
INTERESTED IN RUNNING OR HAVE RUNNING CONCERNS?
If you would like to have a running assessment to check your gait or just want to do strength training with a run coach/personal trainer, contact Jake Boyer at jake@pittsburghfitnessproject.com. It doesn’t matter your level of running either! Sure Jake can help you with half-marathon training. But he can also help you if you just want to learn to like running! Jake can provide a customized training schedule to help you meet your goals!