Thought I’d try a 1/2 marathon and incorporate that in my “off-season” Tri) training. I’m currently running 3 days per week, and my longest run before that 1/2 marathon will be 2 hrs. 10 min.
I am not sure how to set up the taper before the race. I used to run marathons and started to taper about 3 weeks out for those, however I am not sure how to set up the taper schedule for a 1/2 marathon, - off days; how many weeks out from the race to start the taper???
I’m running my first 1/2 Mary and it is my first ever long distance race as I’m building my base.
Two weeks before my half I peak at 25 miles with four runs (2, 10, 2, 11 on Mon, Wed, Thur, Sat). The following week goes down to 23 w/ four runs (2, 8, 2, 11). The week of the race I drop down to 3 runs including the race. 2 on Mon, 5 on Wed, Thursday off, Friday off then the race on Saturday.
I got the training plan from the Smart Coach calculator on runnersworld.com. It is is based on millage instead of time. My last run will be around 1:45 compared to your 2:10. Don’t know if that changes anything.
Thanks for your input. I was interested to see what your last couple of weeks looked like number of days you will train and how much to back off. I’ll probably do something similar, but use timed runs -vs- distance.
Personally, I just treat them as an off/rest week leading up to the race and then treat the race as a long training run. I would likely do some shorter runs during the week with some intervals and then not run the 2 days before the race. Small run the day before and you are good to go. But that is what works for me. It also depends if you REALLY want to do well at this race or do you just want to see what a 1/2 marry feels like?