running a sub 1.5 hr - 13.1 (Page 2)

What track workouts would you recommend?  While there are speedwork sessions that may well fit perfectly with the OP's goals and background, I would contend that there are significantly more sessions that would be detrimental.

The problem (IMO) is that many athletes will see a track workout or think they need to include one, head to the track, do a short warmup, hammer a couple of 400's with a couple minutes of gasping recovery between, short cooldown and then wonder why they aren't racing any faster.

Shane

I'm with the OP and looking to PR a 1/2, except mine's this month(Oct 30th).  Can't wait to see what happens.  My best half was March of 2009 and ran it in 1.33.40.  I believe my weekly mileage was right at 40-45MPW when I ran that...no speed or hill work.  The upcoming course looks to be faster. 

The track workouts should vary depending on the length of the race. For a half marathon I was doing mile repeats (usually 4-5) a little quicker than 5K pace to get my body accustomed to going fast. Rest time was 2 laps, which brings my HR back to the aerobic zone. This total workout would end up being around 9-10 miles with warm up, cool down, and the 'rests.'

For shorter races I'll do 800m repeats below 5K pace, which for me may be around 2:50-3:00 for 800m.

I'll only do these sort of workouts every week or 10 days. I definitely feel that I've gotten a bit faster this year and part of it is pushing on these track days to be a bit uncomfortable, so come race day you can do well.

Edited by natethomas2000 2010-10-13 10:33 AM

^^^THIS

i haven't broken 130 though. my goal this saturday is sub 135 which would break my PR by 5 minutes. and i hope to break 130 in March. i feel extremely confident i can do this because of tempo runs, speed intervals mixed into long runs, and track workouts.

good luck to you. i'm sure when you add tempo/ track workouts you will get there.

i can tell you that is something i have never done....but i plan on doing something based on a good plan of course in the future.

Maybe I am over simplifying this, but when I ran the 1/2 I had a pretty good idea of what HR I would be at to hit that pace and it was upper Z3 for the first half of the race, slowly climbing to upper Z4 by the end.

The problem was I spent very little time training in those zones and it was extremely uncomfortable doing so. So I just spent time in the last month training in higher zones and it was fine. The tempo runs helped a lot, the 800m intervals helped and the mile repeats as well.

For the tempos, I just tried to go longer and longer, starting at 20 min and climbing to 45. For the 800m and mile intervals, I would use the Jack Dnaiels formulas to figure out pace and do them until I felt doing another would be next to impossible.

Personally I think I just need to get my HR up there 4 to 6 weeks before the event for a 10k and 1/2marathon.

When training for the HIM I found I spent a lot of time mid Z2, low Z3 and it took a bit of time to get used to the high Z3 and Z4 ranges. But after a few weeks I get more used to it. I just needed to gradually work into it.

How are you running 5x1mile at Sub 5k pace on that sort of recovery and being able to complete workouts later that week? that blows my mind. (regardless of that being a good idea, it seems like either more rest, or slower pace would be needed to have that work..).



To the OP/others looking to this distance, frequency and volume are going to be the single largest thing that helps with this distance (and really anything 5k and over). Yes faster running has its place and should be incorpirated assuming you are running it smartly in your overall plan, but the volume is still going to be king (and more so the longer you go). Yes, you can get faster running less and doing it faster, but the more you shift in that direction, the more likely you are to platue, and/or get hurt.

Just because you ran X time doing that, does not mean it's right or you could not have gone X faster with an approach that allows you to run more.

With all that said, i understand we cannot all put in 40, 50, 60, etc miles per week, we have lives, other sports to train for, things like this. When you max out time wise how much you can run per week, then faster running is the only answer. But i think most would be well served by spending at least some time at their volume limits for any given time first. (FWIW everything i have raced/tested down to my 1 mile time has been getting faster with this approach).

Just out of curiosity, how do you quantify how difficult it is ? The reason I ask, what I do is I enter the workout into Raceday, see what kind of score it gives me, if reasonable, go out and try it until the intervals become very hard to hit.

So last night for example I did 3x (2km at 5kpace with 500m marathon pace for recovery). Felt good after that, I feel fine this morning.

I did a Runscore on that workout and it's a bit easier than the workout above, but not huge.

Do you consider them hugely different. One is 6km at 5k pace, the other is 8. I guess I could have done one more to make things more even.

Is it by experience you know what is too much ?

Good idea or not, I'm going to go with not, but I've done 4-5 mile repeats slightly faster than 5k pace plenty of times and still hammer my other workouts later that week. Not to mention we only do 400m recovery. Wednesday will hurt a bit, but I can still make the Thursday bridge tempo run at 5am and run well.

Part of it is simply the recovery cost vs what you would get out of the workout. I dont know many people running enough for something like 5x1mi at sub 5k pace to be a smart idea. If that is indeed an accurate pace based on a good solid 5k that would be a tough workout on the legs. If however its based on a not recent/less than 100% 5k then that could also skew things.

That sort of rest is normally used with mile repeats at or around 10k pace, not sub 5k. That is also 9 miles of running right there excluding any warm up/cool down mileage, which is also a lot to throw around with that much faster running. Again some people can probably do that, but at the speeds/volumes we are talking about here i'm not sure its a smart idea).

Just from personal experience 3-4x 1 mile @ 10k pace is often more than enough to feel the next day during full training load, and 3x1mi at 5k pace will leave me sore.
5x1mile would (for me at least) to be at that pace something like 4-5 min rest, and that would still be hard. Again, some of this is simply based off personal experience, but there is no way i think i could even run 5x1mi on that recovery sub 5k.

i think what you said here is what describes me in races....

for example i was on pace to hit 46 min 10k in last triathlon, my open 10k is 44 min.  on mile 5 i slowed down by 1.5 min and 2 min on mile 6....i felt uncomfortable since the entire 3 months i only ran in z1 and z2 max....if i went to z3 it was minimal....

this happens EVERY TIME....every race....once i hit near the end and want to go i feel so not used to the pace i just slow down thinking something might happend if i go too hard....

agreed you probably could (although i'm not sure i personally could, but you run on the track a lot more than me).

But yeah, i think the bigger thing for me is it just doesn't sound like a smart idea at the paces he is running. at/around 6 min miles thats a long time to be running at that pace.

just my thoughts though.



Edited by newbz 2010-10-13 3:12 PM

not saying this is the case, but any possibiliy this is simply due to either overdoing the bike/swim or poor pacing in the first half of the run? Those could both cause that to happen.

Also you may want to bump the running up a bit from zn1 outside of warm ups/cool downs.

Just some thoughts/ideas.

it is possible...but that is why i have been really learning how to pace bike / run especially ..... taking it much much easier

from last race:
now that i have a power meter last race i raced olympic at 90% and increased to 93%...hr was in check felt great....when i hit the run i was in high z2....

i cought the folks from my AG and 4 of us raced.  first 4 miles were great pace....mile 1 has a monster uphill.....below is my pacing....there was no taper i had a heavy week but you can see a HUGE drop off mile 5 & 6....heat was bad and i was starting to overheat....but still i think 30 second drop off would be managable....:

Lap Data
Lap	Time	Distance	Pace/Speed	AHR	MHR
1	07m 38s	1.00 miles	07m 38s /mile	163	168
2	07m 23s	1.00 miles	07m 23s /mile	162	167
3	07m 21s	1.00 miles	07m 21s /mile	168	171
4	07m 38s	1.00 miles	07m 38s /mile	171	175
5	08m 45s	1.00 miles	08m 45s /mile	171	174
6	09m 19s	1.00 miles	09m 19s /mile	169	175
7	01m 35s	0.21 miles	07m 23s /mile	175	177

i just think in the end running a little faster once in a while would help....i lost about 3.5 min int his race...and i wasn't even over LT based on my test its 178 bmp....

EDIT:  i know this doesn't have anything to do with the half marry but i actually think it does as my fast running really sucks.....

Edited by trix 2010-10-13 3:39 PM

got it, and yeah from what ih ave seen recently/know of your training i'd agree the bike is probably not the issue.

Could be a few things:

Just over pacing the run a bit for conditions (ie with the heat/hill, maybe all the first miles should have been a bit slower)

(without knowning it) your run volume may simply have been a bit low to handle that

Or as you mentioned, if volume was there, you may have just needed to run a bit faster in some training.

If the last one of the case, it might not even need to be tempo or faster, but rather just more of the running in z2, with less of the very easy work in there.

Or it could be jsut mental, (i know it took me a while to get used to pushing hard through the whole run).

If you are not already, adding a tempo run per week if your running supports it would be where i would start.

yeah i did my run today entire 7 miler with 1 mile warmup in z3....i can definitely tell you taht mile 5-7 were little harsh...

and i think i need more of that for sure.....i was just thinking of stopping i should stop and rest a little.... 

You mentionned your LTHR is 178. Yet you are logging almost all your running in Z1 and Z2, and some in Z3 which is as high as 164. It seems you are doing very little above that 164.

Without being an expert, by any means, I would think you need more time between 164 and 178. I know I do when I want to run faster.

Take a look at your graphs "HR zone time by date"

As well, if your LTHR is 178, your HR zones seem low. I thought Z4 went up to LTHR. Yours goes to 171. Maybe I am wrong, but this is how the BT calculator puts it and this is how mine were established by a lab. Z4 was up to LTHR.

sorry i made a mistake....172 is my LT....so zones are correct...sorry about that....

regardless i should be able to run there for 1 hr...if you look at my run i barely hit 171 and stoped because it was uncomfortable.


Edited by trix 2010-10-13 5:53 PM

When do you start your taper ? Maybe ask your coach if a little more tempo is appropriate at this stage of the game.

I know that my tolerance to higher HR improves pretty quickly (within weeks) when I put a little focus on it.

I know what you mean. My LTHR is 173. While HIM training, I would hit 162 and it felt hard. These days I spent time closer to 170 and I feel better than I did at 160 back then. We are only talking weeks ago, so it isn't just fitness.

By your logs, you spent very little time between 163 and 170. I suspect that is why you find it so hard.

yeah i had an injury beg of the year....i fell busted up the knee...my own fault on a stair case....so i had to stop running...but it was hard to get to the distance building this year....so i wanted to show solid 3-4 months of running prior to the event to build up a strong base...

i think it will help with the race this year...i will just have to keep it easy....but come january i would like to throw down a solid 1:35-1:38 13.1....

Looking at the way you religiously train and given your perseverance, I have no doubt you will get there.

For me, a little speedwork goes a long way.  I mention this point because it specifically helps me with the issue you've said is hard for you -- holding pace when you are tired and it hurts.   When I go to the track and do some 800s or mile repeats or whatever (or even just a hard tempo run), for many sessions thereafter I find that running, especially when I'm tired, just feels easier.  The interval introduce your body to the kind of pain it will feel at the end of a long race, but without the same huge recovery cost.

As before, I'm just mentioning my own experience, which may or may not apply to you.  Best of luck in your race.

I agree with this thought (i'm not 100% sure it was the training or just mentally being ready), but for me it was harder efforts in long runs. either tempo or progression style runs.