- Completing a half-marathon in any time is obviously a huge
achievement but being able to say that you did it under
the illusive one hour 30 or the 90 minute mark
is pretty special.
Now let's be clear, that is a very quick time
but whilst we're out here in Fuerteventura enjoying ourselves
at the Playitas Resort, I thought I'd take this
opportunity to help you be able to run it too.
(fast-paced synth medley)
(mid-tempo encouraging music)
But first of all, let's take a look at what we are tackling
here because a 90 minute half-marathon works out
at 4:16 per kilometer,
or 6:52 per mile.
That's 14.1 kilometers an hour,
but it would be fairly foolish of me to suggest
you just target 90 minutes.
We need some sort of buffer or margin for error,
so let's shave a minute of that and go after 89 minutes
or one hour 29.
That works out at 4:13 per kilometer
or 6:47 per mile.
That's 14.2 kilometers an hour, now to put that into some
context, for five 5K that works out at 21:06
or for a 10K that's 42:11.
For a 10 mile, that works out one hour hour minute
and six seconds.
Now obviously feel free to give yourself more of a buffer
or even target a faster time and if you want to do that
and work our and find out the pace for that,
just use one of the online calculators.
Now ideally, you're going to start this in fairly good shape
fairly good fitness so that you can follow a good program
and that will ideally be eight to 12 weeks.
If maybe you're not in quite as good shape at the moment,
you might want to extend that period of time
out just a fraction.
(mid-tempo encouraging music)
Now also, a half-marathon is a distance event,
it still requires a good mix and variety of training.
We need speed-training, we need tempo-threshold training
and we even need those long endurance runs.
Now let's actually start off with those long endurance runs
because these should be a staple
in any distance runner's training plan.
Ideally performed once a week, no more than that for sure
and building up to probably around half-marathon distance
or slightly above that.
And the idea of these is to build our
base aerobic endurance so it's really important that we keep
these to a steady pace, somewhere around zone two intensity,
a real conversational pace.
Anything above that and it actually starts to negate
the benefit of it, in fact, it can start to be detrimental
to some of the key sessions in the week.
It could even cause over-training,
illness, maybe even injury.
Now when you're starting out with this, probably just start
with a distance or a time that you're comfortable with.
Maybe 45 to 60 minutes in duration and then just add five
to 10% per week, topping out around two hours.
(mid-tempo encouraging music)
Now my next big session for you for your half-marathon
training program is the tempo or the threshold run.
Now the idea of these sessions is that you're working out
your anaerobic threshold, by working at this point,
you are just below the point in which your body would start
to get flooded with lactic acid and by doing that it means
you're able to rack up a good duration of time at this
intensity and therefore, bumps our threshold up
which in turn can make us faster.
Now this is actually often described as being
a comfortably hard pace, something that you can sustain
for at least 20 minutes.
It's normally calculated somewhere around 25 to 30 seconds
per mile slower than your current 5K pace,
but if you're using a heart-rate monitor, now it should be
around 90% of your maximum heart-rate.
Now if you're starting out with these kind of sessions
then I'd suggest breaking it down.
You're looking for a total duration at this tempo pace
around 20 to 30 minutes, so let's go with five lots
of four minutes with two minutes recovery.
Then you could potentially build this up to
four lots of five minutes, three lots of 10,
two lots of 50 and maybe even eventually getting to
20 to 30 minutes straight at this intensity.
Now another session that you should be aiming to complete
most weeks is a speed session.
This should be performed in short reps
above your target half-marathon pace.
The idea here is that we're hoping to tap into, unlock
and develop some new top-end speed.
Ideally, you want to perform this kind of session on
something like a track, failing that,
at least a flat smooth surface.
Basically so that you don't have to worry about what's
under-foot whilst you're running at this high-speed.
Now starting out with these, you can go for something like
10 lots of 400 with 90 seconds recovery.
Then build that up to eight by 800,
maybe to six by 1K,
five by one mile,
maybe even to four by two K.
But don't feel like you need to progress each week,
you can off course, just flip back
to one of the shorter original reps.
Well those are your three key sessions per week
but in addition to those we've got some other runs that are
equally as important that we need to fit in around those
and they are your easy runs.
Now similarly to the long run, these should be at a steady
pace within zone two and these are an opportunity for you
to switch off, for your legs to essentially get an active
recovery and for you to not worry about pace at all.
In fact, by going to fast in these they can have a knock-on
effect and start, well effecting the quality of some
of those key sessions we've just been discovering.
The easy runs are also an opportunity to improve your
base aerobic endurance, so we do actually want to increase
the length and the duration of these with time
but it's important that you follow that 10% rule.
So you never increasing any run or your weekly volume
by more than 10%.
(mid-tempo soothing music)
Now there is one more session that I've yet to mention
and that is hill reps.
The reason I haven't mentioned it is
because, well it's optional.
It's a session that I quite like to use in the off-season
as an opportunity to increase my strength
and make myself more resilient.
But some people actually quite like to use it
during their race season in the lead up to an event
and they might just alternate it with their tempo
or threshold run, using the hill reps one week,
tempo threshold run the following week.
Now if you're going to do that, I suggest starting out
with short reps, something like eight by 20 seconds
then building up to 30 seconds,
45 seconds, 60 seconds,
90 seconds and then finally, two minutes.
While all this training is very good but there's no point
in doing it all and then arriving on race day
feeling tired or fatigued.
It's really important that we allow our bodies time to
adapt and recover, so I normally suggest every three to four
weeks you factor in a recovery week.
This should include a day off and then a really reduced
volume week with no intensity in there.
Then going into the race it's a similar story, one or two
weeks out from the race we want to start knocking it back
a little bit in terms of overall volume but this time
we actually want to still keep a little bit of intensity
in there so that we don't arrive on race day
feeling really flat.
So for some of those key sessions you might want to knock
a couple of reps out, do some shorter reps
and increase the recoveries.
We're now moving into race day and your biggest job here
is to track and to follow that target pace.
Now hopefully by this point, you've got pretty dialed in
to that target pace but it can still be a little to easy
to get a little bit carried away or perhaps even allow
that pace to drift off as you get fatigued.
And if possible, I'd say, try and run with a GPS watch
so you can continually monitor and track that pace
or at least just some sort of watch so that you can keep
an eye on your pace every time you go through a kilometer
or mile marker.
Now, a lot of people do go off too hard
at the start of events,
I'd say that's good to a degree because you're utilizing
the adrenaline that's there but do keep a cap on it
and certainly after a kilometer, you want to be dialing in
to that target pace.
And my last thing to consider for race day is your fueling.
Now given that we are targeting sub-90 minutes
for the half-marathon, you could be forgiven for thinking
that you don't really need to take any fuel with you.
But technically your body can only store enough fuel
for 60 minutes.
Now it doesn't mean that you're going to come to an almighty
stop after 60 minutes, you'll just see
a real reduction in performance.
So you want to be taking some fuel with you that's easy
to take on whilst you're running.
Now personally, I'll take a couple of gels with me,
I'll have one after 30 to 40 minutes, then another after
60 minutes, that should keep me well topped up
and away from hitting that wall.
Now best of luck if you after that sub-90 half-marathon.
Let us know in the comments section below if you are
targeting that or if you have indeed succeeded
in accomplishing your sub-90 half-marathon.
If you have any more questions about how to do it,
then drop them in the comments section below and make sure
if you have enjoyed today's video give us a like
and don't forget to follow GTN.