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Podcast: Episode 100: The long and winding road of progress or how to take over an hour off your half marathon time in 6 years

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When someone in our Run Club community asked me about progress, they probably didn’t expect me to go on about it for 80 minutes, but here we are.

So often on the socials, you see where people are now and might not realise all the ups and downs it took to get there. And in fact, you probably couldn’t get there without the ups and downs.

In this podcast I talk about getting started running in 2011 and then a bit of my timeline in going from a 3 hour half marathoner to a 1:36 half marathon at Canberra, just recently. I think I confuse myself a bit with the timeline somewhere in the middle, but you get the idea.

2013: First two half marathons, being dragged along by someone faster than me.

2014: Decide to actually follow a specific training approach to get better, rather than just running without any plan. Manage to break 2 hours in April and break 1:50 in July. Go on to run my first marathon at the end of the year.

2015: Tear my adductor at the beginning of the year, but go on to run a 4:08 marathon at the end of the year, which didn’t go according to plan but I was so proud of anyway.

2016: Work up to a 25 minute 5k in January to get some speed back, but then business pressures take over and I take time off anything but easy running. Run all the marathons between 5 and 6 hours and fall out of love with the distance pretty quickly.

2017: Challenge the story I’m telling myself about never being able to better that Gold Coast half and start proper training again. Run 1:46 in Gold Coast and 1:40 in Melbourne

2018: Come to terms with a long-term structural injury from scoliosis and don’t run for around 6 months. And then start the process of rebuilding.

I talk a bit about the obstacles (some physical, some mental), how to assess where you should be working and how to create sustainable change for the long term.

Grab a 7 day free trial in Run Club, by heading over to the store here.

Listen here or on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher:

Watch on YouTube here:

{Friday Freebie} Beginner Half Marathon Training Plan

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If the response of the last (more advanced) half marathon training plan was anything to go by, what everyone would really like is a beginner plan. Don’t worry I’ve got you covered! And I’ve got options for anywhere from 3-6 days depending on what your preference is for training. Don’t worry, even the more days per week plans are very achievable because the extra days focus on recovery and easy sessions, rather than anything taxing – but you can pick a plan that’s going to work best with your schedule.

Enjoy!

3 Day Plan
4 Day Plan
5 Day Plan
6 Day Plan

The Half Marathon Predictor

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This is a bit of a riff on the Yasso Marathon Predictor, and although it might or might not work as a predictor for you – it did for me. Keep in mind that with predictor workouts they are only an indicator and all of the other areas of your training have to be on board. In theory, someone without specifically half training could run fast 800m repeats and it doesn’t mean they can replicate that for a half marathon. But if you’ve been half marathon training and everything has been going well, this one can help you pin-point where your pacing might be for the day.

Darrel Chapman Masters Half Marathon. 10th September, 2017

So this is 6 x 800m Intervals with 400m Recoveries between each.

The key to any good quality session is warm up. And I mean really warm up. So that is usually 2-3km of easy running and about 4 strides of 100m accelerations with about 1-2 minutes of walking between each to wake up your legs and get them ready for what they are about to do.

I ran my 800m in an average time of 3:32. So for my predictor I look at that in hours and minutes instead of minutes and seconds. so 3 hours and 32 minutes. I then take off 10 minutes (3 hours, 22 minutes) and I then divide by 2. Which gives me 1 Hour and 41 minutes for my half prediction. (I actually ran 1:40:40). Those calculations are just because it’s converting it from marathon time to half marathon time – but here’s a handy table so you don’t have to do the math

2:40 800m Intervals (3:20 min/km pace): 1 Hour 15 Minute Half
2:50 800m Intervals (3:32 min/km pace): 1 Hour 20 Minute Half
3:00 800m Intervals (3:45 min/km pace): 1 Hour 25 Minute Half
3:10 800m Intervals (3:57 min/km pace): 1 Hour 30 Minute Half
3:20 800m Intervals (4:09 min/km pace): 1 Hour 35 Minute Half
3:30 800m Intervals (4:22 min/km pace): 1 Hour 40 Minute Half
3:40 800m Intervals (4:35 min/km pace): 1 Hour 45 Minute Half
3:50 800m Intervals (4:47 min/km pace): 1 hour 50 Minute Half
4:00 800m Intervals (5:00 min/km pace): 1 Hour 55 Minute Half
4:10 800m Intervals (5:12 min/km pace): 2 Hour Half
4:20 800m Intervals (5:24 min/km pace): 2 Hour 5 Minute Half
4:30 800m Intervals (5:37 min/km pace): 2 Hour 10 Minute Half
4:40 800m Intervals (5:50 min/km pace): 2 Hour 15 Minute Half
4:50 800m Intervals (6:02 min/km pace): 2 Hour 20 Minute Half
5:00 800m Intervals (6:15 min/km pace): 2 Hour 25 Minute Half
5:10 800m Intervals (6:27 min/km pace): 2 Hour 30 Minute Half
5:20 800m Intervals (6:39 min/km pace): 2 Hour 35 Minute Half
5:30 800m Intervals (6:52 min/km pace): 2 Hour 40 Minute Half
5:40 800m Intervals (7:04 min/km pace): 2 Hour 45 Minute Half
5:50 800m Intervals (7:17 min/km pace): 2 Hour 50 Minute Half
6:00 800m Intervals (7:30 min/km pace): 2 Hour 55 Minute Half

Ready to Fail, Ready to Fly

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My favourite thing about this photo is that the pain of those last hard kilometres are over even though I haven’t crossed the line yet, because I know that I’ve already finished. It’s done.

The hardest thing about any race is the pacing. You’d think it would be the training. You’d think it would be the 954.8km I ran in the thirteen weeks that led up to that moment. You’d think it would be all those hard sessions which seemed just beyond my ability at the time, which I (mostly) managed to complete. You’d think it would be the body maintenance I had to do in the first month while I was coping with the adjustment to the distance. Or you might think it was the time when I set my alarm for 3:30am three times a week to get my distance in. But it wasn’t. It was the pacing.

Because pacing isn’t about discipline, it’s about how fast you think you can go.

The risk you take is that if you are overly-aggressive with pacing and rate your ability too highly, you can fall apart at the end. And if you don’t back yourself enough you can end up finishing strong but with a race that doesn’t truly represent what you are capable of. And I was willing to fail, really fail. I just wanted to know what I was capable of. Even if that meant blowing up in the middle. Even if it meant dragging myself through the last 8km. That would be a reasonable sacrifice for me to know what I could do, without hedging my bets on something safe.

As great as the tune up race had been a few weeks earlier, it had given me very little information to go on. I had more or less made my pacing for the day. But due to a less than ideal lead up, it gave me no indication that I was capable of anything more than the 1:46:30 I ran at the Gold Coast.

The safe bet would have been to pace for a 1:44 half marathon. A decent improvement on what I’d already done. Especially taking into account that Melbourne is not pancake flat like the Gold Coast and it can tend to be a bit warmer. But I just felt like I had more. And deep down 1:40 was my number. And I decided to go for it. If I thought about averaging 4:44 pace for 21km it was terrifying. Because frankly, it felt hard enough doing that for 6km. But you just have to trust that the training is one thing and a race is something else. When you need to dig deep, you will find another level. I took comfort in the predictor workouts I’d done in the last few weeks which did indicate I was capable of it, even if I didn’t really think I could do it.

So following my trusty negative split strategy for half marathons this was my goal for the race:

3km Warm Up @ 4:54 pace

5km @ 4:46 pace

5km @ 4:44 pace

5km @ 4:41 pace

3km @ 4:34.

I tried not to look at it too hard, because it looked over-ambitious.

What I did on the day was 3km @ 4:53 pace, 5km @ 4:47, 5km @ 4:43, 5km @ 4:38, 3km @ 4:38.

I was excited when I got to the last 3km and I couldn’t speed up, because I knew I had reached the entirety of what I could do that day, and that filled me with a kind of joy, that no time ever could. I knew how fast I could go. And I learnt that you usually have a whole lot more than you ever think you do.

Friday Freebie – Base Training and Half Marathon Plan

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The cool thing about the end of the year is that I see everyone planning their events for 2018. And there’s nothing I love more than event planning. It’s always exciting seeing people set their goals and put plans in motion for what they want to accomplish. So here is a 9 week base training and 12 week half marathon training plan to get you started, if you have a half marathon on the cards for next year. You can work it as a 3 day plan, a 4 day plan a 5 day plan or even a 6 day plan if you are especially keen.

And if you want to work out your paces, this handy calculator will get you on the right track.

And remember, a half marathon isn’t half of anything.

Happy Friday!