I've been working on my speed on my short base runs. Not actually doing intervals or anything. Just pushing the pace to the point that my heart rate is at the top of the range I'm comfortable with, but making sure I'm still maintaining my form and able to maintain the pace the entire run.

When I started running the best I could do was a 14 minute pace for about 2 miles. Now I'm running 4 miles at about a 10:50 pace. Max I've done is a 6 mile run at a 12 minute pace. I don't really care about the pace, but it's a good metric to show progress. Plus, if I can run faster without increasing effort much then that's less time on my feet, and a faster recovery.

Oh, and finally had to poop in the middle of a run. I think that makes me a legit runner now. Thankfully, I was close enough to a gas station and I didn't have to do it in the middle of a field.

Lol, one time I was deep back in the woods in California all by myself on a long run when the urge to go #2 became so urgent that I had no choice but to get off the trail and go. Unfortunately it was not a totally solid movement and I ended up sacrificing my underpants to wipe and just abandoned them deep in the woods.

Surprisingly, I've not had this happen yet. But my regular trail running friend has. Once, while we were on a city run, she really had to go. In about the worst part of Houston I've ever run in.

We found a recently abandoned homeless area and she went into the shrubs. Came out wearing no socks and we went on about our run.

When they chopped up my liver, they took out my gallbladder. Ever since then I've had some real close calls on runs. Pretty quickly learned to carry one or two single packaged wipes on runs.

In other news, I don't know if any of yall have run Ragnar. But, they're going through some stuff right now. Canceling races and not communicating with teams. It's made for some pretty decent drama as of late.

Also, just signed up for the SA Half Dec 6th. Looking for a PR if I can stay healthy.

Halfs are so much more fun to train for than marathons.

It just feels like the bang for your buck on training workouts is so much more acutely felt. Like I can build speed from 5k to 10k to half and it feels like each step leads to the other logically and then the results matchup with what you expect.

What time are you targeting for the SA half?

I wish that more of the big races were halfs instead of fulls.

I just feel like for the normal person you can still get the actual feeling of a race at the half distance. Like I can compete with other runners and depending on what they do I can change my approach on race day. By contrast the marathon is just me vs. the clock.

I've PR'd on halfs before simply because I attached myself to a pack of fast runners and stuck to them at an aggressive pace. No way I'd ever try that in a marathon because of the danger of totally wiping out on the back half.

I've been doing the "Wind" program in Marathon Excellence for everyone.

Using it for both half and full training.

More so trying to build my volume than anything else.

I'd love to do a half under 1:30.

The key for me to break 90 on a half was to get to the point where my "comfortable pace" on 7-10 mile runs was about 7:45 a mile. Once I hit that comfort level it wasn't hard to turn that into a sub 90 minute half. I had specific things I did with repeat miles and tempo work to make sure I had the speed to run a 6:50 pace for the whole half, but IMO the speed work is only a really small part of the equation.

The same held true when I pushed down to an 85 minute half, I think I was only able to do that because 7:15 began to feel like a relaxed pace.

Note that for me, relaxed pace doesn't = my slow pace. Relaxed for me is the pace I run if I just go out, put on music or an audio book and don't think too much about how far or how fast I'm running.

That does align with the pacing I'm working towards now.

Last Sat was 8 miles total with the middle 5 miles at 7:30. I temp adjusted it to 7:50-7:55. Last mile was fastest mile. Program definitely seems to want to grow this up to roughly a half at those paces.

Todays workout is

4x
3min at 6:50, 1 min jog,
2min at 6:30, 3 min jog

Biggest thing for me is to increase my fitness enough to handle the miles. This should be the first week i go above 50 miles in my life. Need to string those together.

This feels like the first summer where I've really said **** it with my running sadly. Heats been kicking my butt. Only doing a couple shorter runs during the week and a couple bike days to help maintain some aerobic level. 4 days in the gym as well.

Ready for some cooler temps

What kind of training do I need to do to get in a mid-December half-marathon? I did one 20 years ago. I figured now was a good time to do another. My kids are gonna run the other half. That's my main incentive (getting kids involved).

I walk a lot now. I don't jog as often as I use to. Got in 2 miles yesterday, though, and it felt pretty good.

TyHolden said:

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What kind of training do I need to do to get in a mid-December half-marathon? I did one 20 years ago. I figured now was a good time to do another. My kids are gonna run the other half. That's my main incentive (getting kids involved).

I walk a lot now. I don't jog as often as I use to. Got in 2 miles yesterday, though, and it felt pretty good.

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If the goal is just "completion" and you don't care about time or how uncomfortable the last few miles will be, you just need to train yourself out to about 9 or 10 miles. And you don't need to do any specialized training, just slow comfortable mileage slowly building towards that.

If you do have time goals, that changes the training quite a bit and requires more information to give any real advice.

AggieEP said:

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TyHolden said:

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What kind of training do I need to do to get in a mid-December half-marathon? I did one 20 years ago. I figured now was a good time to do another. My kids are gonna run the other half. That's my main incentive (getting kids involved).

I walk a lot now. I don't jog as often as I use to. Got in 2 miles yesterday, though, and it felt pretty good.

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If the goal is just "completion" and you don't care about time or how uncomfortable the last few miles will be, you just need to train yourself out to about 9 or 10 miles. And you don't need to do any specialized training, just slow comfortable mileage slowly building towards that.

If you do have time goals, that changes the training quite a bit and requires more information to give any real advice.

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lol no time goal. Just want to finish. Thanks!

AgLiving06 said:

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That does align with the pacing I'm working towards now.

Last Sat was 8 miles total with the middle 5 miles at 7:30. I temp adjusted it to 7:50-7:55. Last mile was fastest mile. Program definitely seems to want to grow this up to roughly a half at those paces.

Todays workout is

4x
3min at 6:50, 1 min jog,
2min at 6:30, 3 min jog

Biggest thing for me is to increase my fitness enough to handle the miles. This should be the first week i go above 50 miles in my life. Need to string those together.

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I should have added that everything really clicked when I started hitting 160 plus miles a month consistently. The baseline fitness makes a big difference.

Good luck with hitting your time goal. I'm 12 weeks out from the monumental marathon in indianapolis and shooting for somewhere between 3:25 and 3:30 with a reverse split. I want to qualify for Boston next year but the marathon distance has been my kryptonite so far. Just trying to experiment and gain some confidence that I can reverse split and finish strong. Last time I cratered, 96 minute half to start and then 120 minute second half as I faded hard.

TyHolden said:

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AggieEP said:

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TyHolden said:

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What kind of training do I need to do to get in a mid-December half-marathon? I did one 20 years ago. I figured now was a good time to do another. My kids are gonna run the other half. That's my main incentive (getting kids involved).

I walk a lot now. I don't jog as often as I use to. Got in 2 miles yesterday, though, and it felt pretty good.

---

If the goal is just "completion" and you don't care about time or how uncomfortable the last few miles will be, you just need to train yourself out to about 9 or 10 miles. And you don't need to do any specialized training, just slow comfortable mileage slowly building towards that.

If you do have time goals, that changes the training quite a bit and requires more information to give any real advice.

---

lol no time goal. Just want to finish. Thanks!

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Yeah then just slow and steady long runs on the weekends to stretch the miles out.

How did you end up choosing that plan? I'm not familiar with it at all. I'll be starting Pfitz 12/47 in a few weeks.

Most important thing is going to be tied to adhering to your plan on the long runs.

It's impossible for me to explain just how different mile 20 is from mile 6 and you need to have conditioned your body to still function when you get out there.

I think most novice plans say you don't need to race a half marathon before your full, but I think it's helpful in a couple of ways. First you figure out some of your personal logistics in terms of getting to a race, pooping, eating, and dealing with the adrenaline of racing. You also get to live test some fueling strategies and see how to best make use of aid stations.

2nd, it's the easiest way to get a long run in and get really good information about your current fitness level. One cool thing that most marathons have is a pacing group, so having a better idea about how you run on race day can help you choose the appropriate pacer (they hold up signs) to stick with when you do your full.

You could get most of this benefit with a 5k also, but a half is better IMO because you get feedback on how you feel running a 13.1 mile race.

Heck… the difference between mile 20 and 22 is hard to describe

AggieEP said:

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Most important thing is going to be tied to adhering to your plan on the long runs.

It's impossible for me to explain just how different mile 20 is from mile 6 and you need to have conditioned your body to still function when you get out there.

I think most novice plans say you don't need to race a half marathon before your full, but I think it's helpful in a couple of ways. First you figure out some of your personal logistics in terms of getting to a race, pooping, eating, and dealing with the adrenaline of racing. You also get to live test some fueling strategies and see how to best make use of aid stations.

2nd, it's the easiest way to get a long run in and get really good information about your current fitness level. One cool thing that most marathons have is a pacing group, so having a better idea about how you run on race day can help you choose the appropriate pacer (they hold up signs) to stick with when you do your full.

You could get most of this benefit with a 5k also, but a half is better IMO because you get feedback on how you feel running a 13.1 mile race.

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Great advice, thank you!

I forgot to mention that I signed up for the Oktoberfest half in CS. This plan actually calls out running a half and that race just happened to fall on the weekend that I'm supposed to run one. It'll be really good experience, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I think my only issue, other than the heat, is starting too fast. I know it'll come with experience, but I need to make sure I'm taking it easy until fully warmed up. Unfortunately, short 3 mile runs are not great for that.

53 days until the Chicago Marathon.

Been averaging between 70-80 mpw the last several weeks.

Fall marathons suck.

Good Poster said:

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53 days until the Chicago Marathon.

Been averaging between 70-80 mpw the last several weeks.

Fall marathons suck.

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Those are my favorite, struggle through the summer heat training and then cash in when the fall weather rolls around.

Chicago is a great PR course. I've done it twice and had good weather both times.

Swarely said:

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How did you end up choosing that plan? I'm not familiar with it at all. I'll be starting Pfitz 12/47 in a few weeks.

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There were a couple reasons I wanted to try it:

It came out this year, and the author (John Davis) went on several podcasts I listen to, so I got hear more in-depth talks on it. He's apparently a follower of Canova, so some of that style finds its way into

What I really liked about it is that he puts together plans for a wide range of mileage. The plan I'm on now has me build up into the mid 60s, but there are other programs that go up to and above 100 miles that you can build into.

I really wanted to try and build mileage and having programs that let me go as high as I wanted was important.

I've been training for Berlin and am also having a fairly miserable time. I've never run a fall marathon but my confidence is really low due to having to slow my paces way down in the heat