Thanks for all the advice
@DopeyBadger - you're basically acting as my coach! In fact, I was considering getting one, but then I bought the Hanson's book.
Always happy to help. I'm by no means a replacement for a good coach as they have a ton more real life experience than I do. However, part of my goal is to become as knowledgeable about running as I can in order to maximize my performance. I have a few athletes on this message board that I help and a few others I know personally. No charge, as I just do it as a hobby, and in an effort to help others reach their goals.
To address some of your points. On certain days, I can only run while my son naps, and they can be short naps! So that's when I bang out 3 miles and I do them at 7:00 pace. This is on a treadmill, so it's not as tough as outside (actually, I do 6:58 pace). I found it gave me a nice break from running 6-13 mile runs. It's usually not an issue and if I think he'll sleep longer, I'll walk for 1 minute before running. Before I started training for my half (and he was taking longer naps), I used to run 5 miles at a 7:15-7:30 pace 4 days a week.
Wow, again those workouts (3 mi @ 7:00 and 5 mi @ 7:15) are super tough for someone with your PRs. Not withstanding the treadmill obviously helps some. How recent are your 5K and 10K PRs compared to when you ran this last half? Because these workouts are near those race paces. Two possible reasons why:
1) Treadmill isn't calibrated appropriately? Maybe the treadmill thinks it's going that fast but isn't. You can do a chalk test to verify it. It's likely not the issue though.
2) Your PRs aren't reflective of your true capability. My guess is even with a slight adjustment for treadmill running your training suggests your PRs should be faster. In fact your 10K PR says you should be able to run a 1:41 and your 5K a 1:44. My guess is you haven't run a recent 5K/10K or the conditions of the PR race weren't good.
So, my understanding of training and mixing up your workouts is this. It takes time for the muscles a) to recover and b) to adapt to training. Different paces work different sets of muscles. By varying your pacing in a given week (or time period) it allows for different muscle groups to be stimulated. It allows them to recover before the next workout and allows them to become stronger. When you work the same muscle groups too soon to each other (like M & W at 7:00 pace) then you dampen the adaptation. It doesn't allow enough recovery time for the muscle group and it moves into the survive not thrive area of the constant workouts. It means you'll keep being able to do the training workout, but when it comes to race day you won't be able to do more. Each muscle group takes different amounts of time to recover and reap adaptations. The Hansons plan has very good balance.
So I ran slow because I heard it was best to have high MPW, but slow, otherwise they were considered "junk miles".
This was my typical training for my first half (I probably did this for about 5-6 months, slowly increasing my long runs), with no real training plan:
M: 3 miles, 7:00 pace
T: 8 miles, slow (typically 9:15ish) - edited to add, just looked at Strava and it said I was running closer to 8:45
W: 3 miles, 7:00 pace
Th: 6 miles, slow (typically 9:10ish) - ETA: Strava says 8:36ish
F: 1 mile slow at an incline
Sat: long slow run (10-13 miles) - 9:10ish pace
Sunday: rest
(an aside: my pace went up 30 seconds after my half)
The way I look at it is you want balance. After reading this article (
http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm) by Stephen Seiler I settled on the idea of 80% Easy and 20% Hard. For someone attempting to run a 1:40 half, that means 80% of the time you spend training should be at 8:47 or slower. Anything at around 8:47 for an extended period of time is considered a "long run" and is a something of substance (SOS). In a 5-day a week plan you should have maybe 2-3 SOS and the rest easy. In the above structured plan, you've got 4 SOS and 1 easy. However, the paces and time spent training have you more at a 63% easy and 37% hard. So this isn't too bad. Just a few adjustments slower and you'd have it nailed. The overall mileage balance isn't too far off either with 33%-39% of your longest training run accounting of the total mileage (10-13 mile long run). The one thing I definitely change is the two 3 mi @ 7:00 pace to two different workouts both around 21 minutes but with slightly different pacing.
However, here's the big snag with this plan. It works the faster end of the slow spectrum (slow spectrum = 9:07-9:47) and the fastest end of the fast spectrum (fast spectrum = 7:07-7:25), but nothing in between where you actually wanted your paces to end up for your race. Arthur Lydiard (famed coach from New Zealand) introduced the concept of periodization and specialization. It was found that spending about 8-10 weeks on any system would maximize the benefits received from them (periodization) and that the closer you got to race day the more you wanted your paces to converge near your desired race pace (specialization). This means that in the beginning of an 18-week training cycle have a speed session for a few weeks and some slower paces. As you move closer to race day your speed paces get slower and you spend more time near race pace. This trains multiple muscle groups and allows the body to learn the final desired pace. The Hansons plan is very good at this.
My guess is that your body is/was trashed and could be an explanation for why your pace has gone up (as in slower?) recently. Again it goes back to survive and not thrive. Your body isn't responding to the training because it's tired. Although you might not feel tired, your body still can be.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, I only have about 90 min total to run and I like to stretch and take a shower and with drive time, I'm cutting it close. I have done 10 miles on those days, but they're not relaxed! That's why 8 miles is generally my max.
I will never argue with someone whose got time for a 90 min weekday run. That's perfect for an endurance runner. If you can get at least 3-4 90 min workouts per week, you are well on your way to maximizing your potential.
Regarding fueling: I never eat in the mornings (except coffee) and try to wait until after a run. I do drink A LOT of water. Typically I need to use the bathroom multiple times before a run. If I misjudge and drink too much water before my long run, I will have to use it in the middle. But I do always have to use it after I get home. Usually multiple times. Sorry if TMI!
As far as the drinking of liquids, for me I've found I have to wait 2 hours after consuming liquids to not worry about using the restroom. Anything consumed within 2 hours puts me in the danger zone of whether I'll make it.
But the more important part is the fueling (or food consumption). You can get away with not eating before runs (it saves time, I agree, but not ideal) as long as the run doesn't exceed 90 min (that's when you start to get into depletion training). But you need to be extra diligent about consuming food VERY soon after getting home. By consuming something like chocolate milk (4:1 carb/protein ratio, amino acids, high bioavailable protein, etc.) you actually recover faster and teach your body about storing more energy. The chocolate milk consumption should be done within 15 minutes after finishing. It doesn't have to be chocolate milk though, there are other options. Chocolate milk is just cheap and easy. The other timeframe is a full meal within 90 minutes. If you aren't doing these two things you should consider adding it to your routine as they are extremely beneficial.
I also read that you shouldn't need to fuel for a half and that's why I never trained with fuel.
It's a true statement. You don't have to take any gels or do any carb loading procedure before a half when you're attempting to finish it in a 1:40. Any gels or carb loading will be more mental than actually physically helpful.
I was trying to find out what the difference was between "hitting the wall" and a general "fade" and it seems that perhaps hitting the wall is fueling and fade is fitness? Someone said hitting a wall is like there's a disconnect between your head and legs and they feel like cement and cannot move any faster and you hit an emotional nadir. That was pretty much me during my first half, during which I skipped all water stations and didn't fuel. I was pretty down afterwards and actually didn't want to race again even though I did better than expected (1:43:54). Versus a fade where you feel sore and tired.
Your description of the wall and what you experienced sounds spot on, but again it was likely just an endurance thing. Unless you came into the run in a non-tapered state and your energy storage wasn't near 100%, I'd be surprised if you actually hit the wall. Were you paying attention to your splits during the race? Were you getting emotional and re-assessing goals as you saw your splits get slower? If yes, it's likely you lost some of you motivation. The Psychobiological Model (
my attempt at explaining it) of running states that losing one's motivation can be a dampener to results because it increases your perceived effort through nothing physical and purely mental. It's possible this is what you experienced. I know for me beginning to run blind to pace and running by effort has reduced a lot of negative thoughts I had during races. I attribute this mental change to a lot of my current success.
I wonder if I got too used running slow? My mind wanders a lot especially listening to podcasts and during the residential sections at Tink, my mind started wandering too and I noticed my pace would slow. I guess that's what tempo runs are for! I have no idea what tempo runs are! haha! Can't wait to find out! And strides and x400s and fartleks.
Anyways, sorry for peppering you with questions. Thanks to you and
@opusone for the "real" pace calculations and all the advice!
After reading all about you and what you've done in previous training I feel as if you are going to flourish with the Hansons training. I would not be surprised if you did two Hansons cycle (one prior to starting Feb Half training and one for the Feb half itself) that your Half time would be closer to 1:30 than 1:40 in Feb 2017. I think the Speed intervals and Strength intervals are where you are going to make the most gains. Having those brief periods of time where you go easy in between hard bouts will teach you body to be more efficient at clearing the fatigue from your muscles. I feel as if this is the one area you'll see the most improvement in.
But for the Hansons training to work you have to buy into it. When they say go slow, go slow. When they say go fast, go fast. For me I try and keep all of my intervals within +/- 5 seconds (for Speed and Strength) or +/- 10 seconds (for Easy, Tempo, and Long run). This means if I'm scheduled to do a HM Tempo of 1.5 mi warm-up + 5 miles @ Tempo + 1.5 mi cool-down, then I try and hit each of the 5 miles @ Tempo @ 7:37-7:57 (using your pacing as example). If mile 1 of tempo is 8:10, I don't try and compensate by doing mile 2 at 7:24 to try and get the overall average down to 7:47. If mile 1 is 8:10, then mile 2 is 7:47, mile 3 is 7:47, etc. Sacrifice only one mile off goal zone, rather than compensating and sacrificing two miles off goal zone.
If you've got more questions keep asking away. I'm always happy to help. Especially, because in the end my answers are here to help you, but they're also here for anyone else reading this and has the same questions for themselves.