Thoughts on a half-marathon 5 weeks out from a marathon

MattAaronson

I'm training for my first marathon - the Chicago Marathon - scheduled for Sunday October 13. I'm following a modified Pfitzinger plan that I will detail in another thread after the race. I'm up to around 60 miles per week at this point (65 this week just ended but averaging 55-60), uninjured and feeling pretty good.

This weekend upcoming I have a key workout. It is an 18-mile long run with 14 miles at marathon pace. This weekend is also the annual Chicago Half Marathon, so I signed up with a gameplan to run 5 miles warmup ending 5 minutes before the start, then quickly get into my corral and run the race with the pace group corresponding to my MP.

Although I've been hitting my target paces in workouts thus far, I view this workout as an acid test of my goal MP. If I need to really kill myself and endure recovery time after this workout, I'll need to lower my pace expectations.

Of course, the thought of going to a race and not "racing" to my full capability is a totally odd concept for me. I've never done it. I've gone into races out of shape and expecting a sub-par result (e.g. a Turkey Trot), but never showed up expecting to go slower than I'm able. I'm sure I can do that - that is my plan and I can execute that - but I wonder if I should just show up, forgo the 5-miler at the beginning and race it.

If I raced it I would get a great workout and a VDOT indication of running fitness. I would also get some required recovery time and assume the next week's workouts would be writeoffs and replaced with some short easy stuff in order that I'd be in good condition for my final 20-miler planned for the following weekend. And there is injury risk.

Re-reading what I've written I'm leaning heavily to executing the "race" as an MP workout as originally planned. But there is something in my mind that says RACE IT.

Any thoughts from the team are much appreciated.

Robert Sabo

You have to get into your head that you're doing the race because it will be more fun then doing the workout alone and you get the on course support. If you aren' t going to be running for an A race and PR the couple minutes difference should not matter too much. In addition, when you get the urge to pick it up the last one or two miles, be very careful. A mile or two at 10k pace will cause all the damage you are trying to avoid. Have fun. Remember execution.

new2703

Do the 1/2 but Run as per your marathon plan. Remember the purpose of the training run. At this stage you are trying to teach your body to run at MP not HMP. The risk of injury is probably less and you'll still be able to derive info about fitness

tim cronk

Matt... you know me... race race race... but I'm gonna surprise you... I know how hard you push your intervals in training , I know how hard you race , I know you have high expectations of yourself on your first Marathon and you should because you have the experience and data to back it up. DO NOT RACE the HM. If you truly race it to your potential I think you will pay the price. Run it as training , its possible , I did it once, lined up in back , but I still found myself wanting to go hard and had to hold back. Stay focused on your training and save your race for the Marathon. Your gonna need it!

William Jenks

Matt-

This spring, I ran a hard/race half marathon at the beginning of my race build (April something)...and I think my experience was the same as your from the year before...it took the better part of a week to be back to work.

In May this year, I ran a half marathon "easy" when my son was running his marathon. There were also friends going, and I had essentially no choice but to participate. I was planning on running it just as my long run for the day. In the end, I did run it pretty easy for around 10 miles (near the marathon pace I was planning on), and then ran about the last 5 K hard. I ended up finishing almost exactly 5 minutes slower than the other race...so that's about 20 sec/mile slower overall. This took me a couple days less than the first one to recover from, but it was still around Thursday. (It was hotter, too, to be fair.)

I know roughly what your HMP and MP paces are, and they aren't 20 sec apart. Probably more like 12-14.

I see nothing wrong with doing this IF you show the discipline of running with the pace group and don't do anything silly at the end. Can you hang with the pace group guy? If you can, and you want to do this because it would be more fun, go for it. If you are going to RACE it, you do face the possibility that the next weekend's long run will be compromised. You are younger than me and Tim and probably recover faster, but I'd suggest that RACING isn't the wisest thing for you, given that this is your first marathon....you can use the good quality long runs.

The trick is that with 5 weeks left, you really only have two weeks of top training, particularly for distance...and now is the longest, hardest stuff. Almost all marathon plans, including Pfitzingers have 3 week tapers. With 7 weeks left, you'd be in better shape to race, I think.

MattAaronson

Thanks for all the advice guys. I did it as a "workout". Very successful, I'll post the details later.

I will admit to having to rip the timing chip off the back of the bib the night before the race because I didn't trust myself not to make a last-minute call to race harder than I should. Probably a sad statement about some aspect of my psychology but it is what it is.