I was wondering if there were any good predictor workouts for the half marathon distance.
For example, I’ve been told that workouts like 12 x 400m on the track or 6 x 800m are great predictors for 5km road races.
Likewise, 6 x 1 mile at the 10k race pace is a good predictor for 10km road races.
Are there any good workouts that would help to predict the pace for half marathon races? I would imagine something like 40-45 mins tempo, but I’m not quite sure, as I’m a slower runner (PB is 1:31) and the 40-45 mins tempo is only half the time of my PB, but, I find that anything longer than 60mins tempo really breaks the muscles down and doesn’t let me train hard for a few days after.
I have had good personal success and with the athletes I coach at the marathon distance- I would be interested to hear about you trying it and dividing in half for the Half marathon. I imagine you’ll go 5-10 mins faster than an even split of the marathon time but it would be interesting to test.
I did the following workout as prep for a half-marathon.
10 miles easy, 4 miles at goal race pace minus 10 seconds. That effort for 4 miles felt just about all out at the end.
If you did the reverse approach…10 miles easy, 4 miles all out, you could extrapolate your sustainable race pace by taking the average pace the last 4 miles and adding 5-10 seconds.
Can you find a local 10K to race real hard? Gauge your pace and HR ( I work for Polar, give me a break) Are you getting long runs in at 13 miles in length or longer?
Yeah, volume isn’t a concern right now. I ran 15 miles on Sunday with 2 x 15" at a tempo pace. I’ve done about 3-4 runs of 2:00 to 2:15 in the past 2 months. I was initially training for Ironman but decided I can’t afford it, so I’m doing a few local half marathons.
My limiter appears to be sustaining a pace under LT for a period of 90 minutes…
“My limiter appears to be sustaining a pace under LT for a period of 90 minutes…”
I’m not sure if anyone in the world can do that…Your LT pace is roughly the pace you can sustain in a 1 hour long race…usually 10-15secs/mile slower than your 10 K pace.
I find a hard, evenly split 13.1 mile run, with a timing chip on my shoe, is an excellent predictor of how fast I will do in a half marathon.
There’s this guy, funny name, sounds like a kind of bourbon or whiskey or something.
He’s got this chart, this table. M.dot? S.dot? Something like that. Might be useful.
There’s this other guy, MacDougal? MacSorley? McDonalds? Some kinda Mick, they all look the same anyways.
He’s got some kinda calculator or something. S’posedly helps with things like this.
Any answers you’ve been receiving have failed to state that it’s all course dependent. Doing 21K on a flat coastline is different from 21K over rolling or hilly terrain.
Thanks for the replies. The course is the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon course and aside for 1 or 2 slight inclines (not hills), it is flat.
Here’s some more “data” that you guys can work with -
I ran 15.5 miles yesteday in roughly 2:05, with the first hour at 8-8:30 per mile pace, and the second hour was 3 x 15 minutes at 6:50 per mile pace (which is my target race pace for the half marathon).
Some additional questions:
I’m feeling a bit tired today - legs are heavy and hamstrings are tight. Is this normal?
And based on that workout I did yesterday, how close am I to a sub 1:30 half marathon, which is sub 6:52 half marathon pace?
I’ve got 4 weeks until the race, what should the long runs be like from here on in?
Should I focus on short interval work midweek? Last week, I did 9 x 800m, descending from 3:20 per 800m to 2:55 by the end of the workout (roughly 2-3 seconds per rep).
I’m feeling a bit tired today - legs are heavy and hamstrings are tight. Is this normal?
You ran for 2 hours, 45min of it at your goal race pace. If your legs weren’t heavy I would say you were setting your goal way too low! Your body is going to take 3-4 days (more really) to recover from a run like that.
My half PR came during HIM training last spring, and my staple weekly long runs generally had 8-10 miles about 15-20 seconds above goal HM pace. As an example, for a 15 mile run, I’d have 4 or 5 x 2 miles around 6:25 pace. For the whole run, I’d do something like 5x (1 mile easy, 2 miles fast), then a short cool down at the end. I was able to run a 1:20 off of this sort of weekly long run.
Doing some faster running at the end of a workout is great, as you have tired legs. I’d also try mixing some faster parts into the middle of your runs with some easier pace in between.
In past years my go to workout was a 1 mile out and back that I’d do up to four times (so up to 4x2 miles) with a 1/2 mile jog in between the intervals. I’d target around a 6:10-6:15 pace, but this only resulted in a half marathon time of around 1:23. I think the lesson was that more overall volume with some faster running mixed in translated to faster race times, at least for me.
This season has been one to forget, as I battled ITBS for a large chunk of the year. My run fitness has gone to hell and I’m fighting to regain what I had last year.
I’m not a big fan of track workouts as good predictors for any race over 10K on the road. IMO, a better predictor for 13.1 fitness would be a 15K cut down tempo starting with the few miles at or below race pace (you’ll need GPS for this workout). For example, say your race pace is 6:20 miles.
