Distance sorted, now for time

Dave said:

As part of my training for the Gold Coast half, I today completed 22 km
for the first time (2h24m). This has confirmed that I can go the
distance I'll now be able to concentrate on fartlek/interval/hill
sessions etc to improve my pace and hopefully get a good time (for me
anyway). I've set a goal of 2h10m for the GC, my first HM.

Just wanted to skite (again)!

Your best bet would be to do long runs (each week) and do some speed work (maybe
one workout a week). If anything, the long runs are more important. Running
good distance times is all about endurance, not speed.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Donovan - you're probably right at this point in Dave's development,
and that he's only 5 weeks away from his event (I know, because I'm
targetting the marathon at Gold Coast on the same day).

In the medium term, speed work has huge benefits for distance runners.
Work on speed specific stuff (400 and 800 reps, intervals of 1k into
pyramid sessions) has enormous benefit for distance runners in terms of
cardio fitness and technique efficiency gains.

I've been able to shift from a mid 38 10k runner to 35-36, and seen my
half marathon time drop from mid 80s to sub 80. I'm aiming at 2:47 at
Gold Coast. The big gains have come from two interval sessions per
week (one short intervals, the other longer) plus a good hard tempo run
or XC race, as well as the traditional long steady Sunday run.

Dave - at this stage, the more you run, the better you'll get. Once
you get through this, you can start to look at programs involving more
speedwork.

Personally, I think the half marathon is a great distance, particularly
since you can actually do the distance in training without wrecking
yourself for a month. Good on you, and good luck on the first Sunday
on July!

People with goals crack me up.

Quoted message said:

Donovan - you're probably right at this point in Dave's development,
and that he's only 5 weeks away from his event (I know, because I'm
targetting the marathon at Gold Coast on the same day).

In the medium term, speed work has huge benefits for distance runners.
Work on speed specific stuff (400 and 800 reps, intervals of 1k into
pyramid sessions) has enormous benefit for distance runners in terms of
cardio fitness and technique efficiency gains.

Well yes, and you did get the part where I recommended some speed work as well
as long runs, right ?

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

<[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I've been able to shift from a mid 38 10k runner to 35-36, and seen my
half marathon time drop from mid 80s to sub 80. I'm aiming at 2:47 at
Gold Coast. The big gains have come from two interval sessions per
week (one short intervals, the other longer) plus a good hard tempo run
or XC race, as well as the traditional long steady Sunday run.

That is the same formula I used back in the day, when I went to 1 short
interval session + 1 long interval session + a 10k or 5k raced without taper
+ long run.

I went from 2:40's to 2:30's...

My other runs were easy recovery days at 7:45-8:00 pace -- this schedule is
for the young. It wouldn't have worked for me without those jogs (nowadays,
7:45 is not a jog :-).

intersting comment

Miss Anne Thrope said:

People with goals crack me up.

Dan Stumpus kirjoitti:

Quoted message said:

That is the same formula I used back in the day, when I went to 1 short
interval session + 1 long interval session + a 10k or 5k raced without taper
+ long run.
My other runs were easy recovery days at 7:45-8:00 pace -- this schedule is
for the young. It wouldn't have worked for me without those jogs (nowadays,
7:45 is not a jog :-).

One way to make that formula more suitable for the not-so-young would
be to spread those four key workouts over 9-11 days. However, since the
rest of the world would still follow a 7-day week, it could be
difficult to find the time for a long run on a working day and it
certainly wouldn't be easy to find suitable weekday races...

So, what about eating humble pie and spreading them even thinner and
adopting a two-week system where you'd do only two of the above one
week and the other two the next? Or the short intervals, a short medium
tempo run and the long run one week, and the long intervals, the 5-10K
race, and a medium long run the next?

Anders