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Advance my 5K TT by 2 weeks?

patachinpatachin
in General Training Discussions

I have a 1/2 mary coming up on March 26, and I really have no idea what pace to shoot for.  Right now I'm in OS week 5.  I was thinking of doing at 5K TT in week 6 to estimate my 1/2 mary goal pace.  Should I be concerned about bumping up the TT from week 8 to 6?  Do it again in week 8? Or just run the 1/2 mary on "feel"?

Or, how do you(s) come up with a target race pace w/o a TT of some sort.

Kind of new to this stuff, so thanks for any advice, John

Comments

  • tuckermtuckerm
    Wait so what week is the race? It looks like week 8? If I were you I would do the test in Week 8, but maybe flip/flop the bike/run tests. That's what I would do. It shouldn't affect your race.
    As for pacing, general guidance is start 30 seconds slower than goal pace for the first 3 miles, goal pace for next 7 and then whatever you have left for the last 3.1. Goal pace should be HMP + 1 Vdot point. I believe that is what I have heard. But as always you need to listen to your body. But definitely start out slow.
  • Al TruscottAl Truscott
    A 5K 2-3 weeks before a half marathon is a good element for training with the added bonus to give you a good assessment (via VDOT) of maximum pace you should let yourself run at during the race. Tucker's pacing guidance is a good starting point but maybe he could explain "HMP +1 VDOT point".
  • patachinpatachin

    Thanks guys, that's helpful, as always. I don't know enought to understand the +1 vdot point though.  John

    @Tucker, yes, my 1/2 is on a Saturday at the end of week 8. 

  • tuckermtuckerm
    Oops, should have said Vdot -1 point. I thought I had read Patrick write that a few times talking about pacing a HM. So if you have a Vdot of 45, pace as if you have a 44 using your HMP as your baseline. Always better to pace slower since you can always speed up whereas going too fast leads to the dreaded blowup. Sorry about that. Sometimes the mind moves faster than the fingers. Should have clarified and well, actually communicate it properly.
  • patachinpatachin

    No prob Tucker.  I think I'll just do something simple and try to beat last year's time.  Still getting up to speed on the meaning of all these metrics.

  • tuckermtuckerm
    Ask away dude. People are always happy to help out.
  • MattAaronsonMattAaronson
    I really wonder if a 5k vdot test (with whatever -1 etc adjustments folks recommend) gives you a better indication of pacing than some of your longer OS training runs with HMP intervals.

    For me, a 5k vdot test would really be pretty limited value. Some of the 60 or more minute runs with lots of HMP time should give you a good feel.

  • patachinpatachin

    That's kind of what I'm thinking Matt.  I'm going out for 9-10mi in the morning and will probably gauge something off of that. -John

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