Best Advice for Training for a Half Marathon so You Cross the Finish Line without Feeling Broken
My clients come to me because they ran a Disney race in the past that felt terrible. Instead of feeling exhilarated at the finish line they felt like they were crawling across and being held together with KT tape. And then they didn’t get to enjoy their vacation in the Disney Parks with their family.
One of the first questions I ask is “how far was your longest run during this training cycle?”
Most of the time the response is anywhere between 12-14 miles for their longest run in the training cycle. And they do it because some training plans dictate a 14 mile run, and otherwise my clients wanted to prove to themselves that they could do that distance because they don’t want to bonk on race day.
And I get that, for sure. Nobody wants to get into a race and then not be able to finish it.
But, running that distance during your training cycle is not the way to make sure you don’t bonk. It actually is a sure fire way to make it happen. My clients who over train feel worse than my clients who think they are under trained for their race.
There are a few solutions to this problem:
Start training way sooner so you can add in the 12-14 mile distance before race day, though it wouldn’t technically be in that training cycle.
Run for time, not distance on your long runs.
My personal favorite, and it’s what I do and what I write in my clients plans is to run the long runs real slow. If you’re thinking of it in percentages it’s about 30% slower than race pace, and if you think about it in numbers it’s 2-3 minutes per mile slower than race pace.
When training for a half marathon I run max 10 miles in my training cycle, and that’s also what I advice my half marathon clients do as well.
This works because of how slow they run their long runs.
When you run your long run 30% slower than race pace, you only need to run 70% of the race distance in your longest run… which means a long run of 10 miles when training for a half marathon.
This way you are still on your feet and moving for the same length of time as you will on race day. Because when you get down to it: it’s not that you’re worried you can’t go for 13 miles… it’s that you can’t last for the full time on your feet. So take the pounding of the extra 3 miles off your joints and go for time.
I’m currently training for the Disney World Marathon Weekend Half Marathon and my longest run will be 10 miles and I’m going to make it take me at least 2.5 hours because that’s what I anticipate it will take me on race day. So if that means I have to slow way down so I’m jogging at a snail's pace, or even walk some of the run I will do that.
Then when race day comes I”ll let my shorter speed work and race day adrenaline carry me a faster pace.
This way I’m not over trained, and I’m not under trained either. It will be Goldilocks of training: just right.
What’s the longest distance you need to train to feel comfortable on race day?
