Hi there
@DopeyBadger ! I'm finally in the home stretch of the Hanson's Half Marathon Training book and was hoping I could pick your brain:
1. Should I do the beginner plan or the advanced plan? My base mileage is about 32 mpw with unintended speedwork of 3 miles twice a week. I ran 2 halfs in April and May of this year. I've only raced one 10k. I think I maxed out around 39 mpw, but I also don't do any type of warm-up/cool-down.
2. Speaking of warm-up/cool-down runs, how fast should I do that? Like 12:00 pace? That seems to add a lot of time. Would half a mile be ok?
3. The book talks a lot about intervals - do I program this into my garmin?
4. A track would be best for some of the prescribed runs, but I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to run on the local high school's track during school. How do you get around this?
I'm pretty excited to run again. I even got to run my "hilly" course which I both look forward to and dread and then curse during my run. When should I start "training"? 18 weeks before my "A" race (2/5/2017)? So just keep plugging away with my general runs until then?
M, W: 3 miles 7:00 pace
T, Thurs: 6-8 miles (have been running them 8:30 pace recently, not sure why, usually I go slower)
F: 1 mile incline (treadmill)
Sat or Sunday: 10 mile slow long run
Any recommendations would be welcome! Oh yeah, just to refresh, I'm trying to hit a 1:40 half PR.
I don't have the Half Marathon book (my mom does right now), but I don't think seeing the plans would change this plan philosophy. I am pretty sure the Beginner full and half follow the same cycle method.
Given your race is 2/5/17, you have 34 weeks (including this week) until your "A" race. I would break up your training from now until then into two training cycles.
Phase 1 - Hansons Beginner Plan (start at 13 weeks to go)
Starting next week (6/20/16) begin the Hansons Beginner Plan at the point that it has 13 weeks to go. If my notes are correct from when I made my mom's plan, this should be starting around 32 miles and the beginning of the speed sessions. Set your pacing at a goal time of 1:40:00. This plan will wrap up with a half marathon race the weekend of 9/17/2016. The race can either be a real one, or to save money just one you do on your normal route. Run this race (either real or not) with your best effort.
Then take off the next week with no running (9/19/16-9/25/16)
Then do 6 days a week of running at EA or EB and no longer in duration than 60 minutes each day the week of 9/26/16-10/2/16
Phase 2 - Hansons Advanced Plan (start at 18 weeks to go)
Starting this week (10/3/16) start the Hansons Advanced Plan at the beginning of the plan (18 weeks to go). Set your pacing based on how you did on your HM. If you ran a 1:38 the weekend of 9/25, then set the pacing there. If you run slower than a 1:40, we'd need to evaluate why that happened to decide what the next pacing cycle should be. This plan will take you up to your race.
Warm-ups and cool downs are done at the recovery pace through the easy A pace. Which means for you and the Phase 1 cycle that would be 9:35-10:13. I would err on the side of being at 10:13 in the beginning of the training cycle just to see how you respond. The rest intervals during the speed/strength work should be at 10:03-10:23 (+/- 10 sec on the recovery pace). The 0.5 mile WU/CD is the absolute minimum. I would try to be on the side of 1-1.5 miles of WU/CD as both the WU/CD offer great benefits (WU improves the workouts benefits through working muscle systems that are primed and CD provides a stimulus for training on tired muscles).
I would most definitely program the speed/strength into the Garmin. You can do this on Garmin Connect and it's quite easy to do. I would set an alarm pace range for +/- 5 seconds for both of these sessions (thus speed 6:54-7:04 and strength 7:23-7:33). The goal of every workout no matter the distance is to get each and every interval within this pace. If interval 1 isn't within pace, no worries just try to get #2 within pace. This is the same reasoning for the long runs as well. If you're suppose to do a 8:37 min/mile, and the first mile is 8:57, don't go out and run a 8:17 to average out the paces. Just try to hit the 8:37 every time. My pacing window for Tempo, Long, and Easy is +/- 10 seconds.
Now the disclaimer, it's getting hot because of the summer. Which means it gets harder to run hard. So your ultimate goal when running is to run by the same effort level necessary to complete the workout in ideal conditions. Let's say one morning it's 60, cloudy, and essentially perfect. You go out and do your tempo run and nail all of your paces. Memorize what that effort level felt like to do that run. Then the next week when it's 95 degrees for the same type of run just run at the same effort level as the week prior. Maybe that means your pacing is at 8:20 instead of 7:38. That's ok as long as you're giving the same effort. What you don't want to do is increase the necessary effort level to try and still hit your paces when the conditions aren't ideal. This significantly raises the difficulty level of the workout and reduces the benefits we were trying to get in that individual workout and could potentially hinder future workouts (because of increased recovery time needed).
Running the speed sessions doesn't have to be done on a track if you don't have a good option. That's what makes the programable Garmin a joy. It will tell you when you've hit each interval and when to switch up running or recovering. It may not be 100% accurate (because of GPS variability), but it's a good enough substitute for a track workout. I would go out and scout a flat loop somewhere near your house. Choose something that has few to no cross streets and is relatively flat. We want something where we can focus on our running form and less about the traffic and other runners (Obviously still focus on this peripherals, but a route with less distractions is ideal.) Personally, I run on a 0.66 mile loop in the opposite direction of traffic that hits a park for half the run. It's a 4-lane (2 driving + 2 parking) neighbor hood road with speed limit of 15mph and the park has a table I can drop off water at.
Every other run you do Tempo, Long, Easy, and Strength should be done on routes that incorporate hills. Hills are your friend when it comes to running because they make you stronger.
The last thing I would recommend that the Hansons plan doesn't have is something I like to call "blinded runs". After a few weeks on the plan and once you've had a few runs in ideal conditions, then plan to do a run where you start your Garmin but you never look at the pacing during the run. These "blinded runs" are meant to teach you to run by effort and not by what the Garmin tells you. This way when race day comes up and the conditions aren't ideal you won't be forced to make any adjustments to how you run. That is, in the race you'll run by effort and not by pace, thus if it's super hot that doesn't change the planned effort only the pace it ends up equaling. Here's the key to "blind run" training. You have to be honest. It doesn't do you any good to have an EA run at 9:35 and then go out and do a run you "think" is EA and run it at 9:00. Did you REALLY think it was a 9:35 effort? Or did you actually try to do just a little bit better than 9:35? In the end the results are inherently neither good or bad, but an assessment on how good you're getting at training your internal GPS. Now once you can be honest with yourself with these paces and you keep hitting the prescribed paces, then and only then when you're effort equals a pace faster can we start to make judgements about improvements. For example, during my last training cycle prior to my May marathon I did some blind runs that assessed my marathon goal at 3:18 even though I was training for a 3:26. During my blind running race, I hit an estimated finish time of 3:18 from miles 1-19. The wind prevented me from miles 19-26 to hitting the actual time (3:18), but it was reinforcement that under ideal conditions I would have finished in 3:18 as I predicted. But this method necessitates being honest with your blinded training pacing.
So, thoughts on my answers?
