Question:
The general advice I've seen on
websites is that one is ready for
a distance race when his training
long run is somewhat shorter than
the race distance, say ten miles
for a half-marathon. Based on this
advice I'm ready to attempt the
half-marathon. But, this seems to
be counter-intuitive. Baseball hitters
practice swinging with weighted
bats so that when they step up to
the plate the regulation bat seems
lighter. Is it really sound to attempt
a race that is some 30% longer than
one's longest training run? Logically,
I would think it makes sense to
train at longer distances than the
race. Then, when it comes to the
real thing you've routinely and
regularly done that distance and
feel comfortable with it. should
I go for 13 miles a couple of weeks.
Should I incorporate walking the
last few miles as part of my training?
Answer:
You don't have a whole lot of time
to train for this event. So I'd
suggest just getting in a time on
your feet run, no closer than 2
weeks before the event. That means
that you wouldn't run at your half
marathon pace, just run for the
length of time that you think it
will take you to complete a half-marathon.
Your 22:51 5K suggests that you
could run a half-marathon in about
1:46, which is about an 8:06/mi
pace. Of course, this implies that
you've been doing training that
is appropriate for the half-marathon,
such as long runs, tempo runs, weekly
mileage. But since you haven't been
doing that and your goal is simply
to run the distance without stopping
or walking, then you should probably
plan on a 2 hour finish time and
just have fun.
I think the
advice to cap your long run at shorter
than the goal distance is given
out for marathon training, but not
for shorter distances. The logic
is that a training run of 26 miles
or more does more harm than good
(probably because it takes so long
to recover from such a long training
run). The same logic does not hold
for shorter distances, though. A
beginner *can* run a half-marathon
off a long run shorter than the
race distance, to be sure. But the
advanced 1/2 M training plans I've
seen generally call for long runs
in the 12-15 mile range. Another
way to look at it is time: semi-serious
runners at most sub-marathon distances
probably do a bread-and-butter 90-120
minute long run most weeks. If you
stay under 2 hours, and don't run
hard, you can pretty much run that
every week ad nauseum.
