Half Marathon Racing
A key to improving your marathon time is in your half marathon race
Aghh, the half marathon. It really is the perfect race distance. Just long enough to be a challenge, yet not long enough to face “hitting a wall” or post race soreness so much you can’t walk normal.
I love racing this distance. In fact, I use the half marathon distance to help increase my speed and improve my marathon time. I encourage my clients to do the same. Yesterday, I raced the Kirkland half marathon and finished with a new PR! 1:33. And, three of my clients also ran a new PR! The speedwork really paid off for us! Woo hoo…
I’m running the Chicago Marathon in October and am spending the Spring months getting faster at the half marathon distance before I dive into my 16 week marathon training schedule. I’ve been diligent with my speedwork and will keep it up so I can hit a new marathon PR in October.
Spring and summer is a popular time to train for an autumn marathon, but its offspring – the half-marathon – is also a fairly common event. The shorter race is sometimes looked down on by marathoners because the distance just doesn’t seem to be enough when preparing for 26.2
However, half-marathon racing can lead to much-improved marathon performances. In addition, half-marathons are much easier to recover from than the marathon. Agh…gotta love that!
The half- marathon is also a tremendous race to run as a workout; it can have a very useful effect on your lactate threshold capacity (remember I talked about this just last week). Lastly, the half-marathon is a great race for someone who wants to run something long but isn’t quite ready for the full 26.2-mile competition.
If you are interested in improving your marathon time, then I suggest you race at least two half marathons during your training. The races will give you an opportunity to push your pace for 13 miles. I’m not very good at pushing my pace on longer runs unless I’m in a race, so this is exactly why I race a bunch of half’s.
Furthermore, it will give you additional race experience and help you figure out such things as how to pace yourself, pre race nutrition, hydration intervals, running in crowds, shoes/attire, etc. Practice makes perfect……
The really important point about the half-marathon is that its intensity – if you prepare yourself properly – will be faster than your marathon goal. Again, the half marathon race is for you to improve lactate threshold and this is accomplished by faster running.
A simple way to figure out what your half marathon race pace should be is to use your marathon goal pace and take off 20-25sec/mile. If your goal is a 3:30 marathon (8 min miles) then your goal half is 1:40-42 (7:40 pace/mile).
And, be sure to warm-up and cool-down for at least a mile for the half race. With that, you just put in a 15 mile run with 13 miles at a hard pace.
One final thought…. remember that you run your best when you’re fittest, not necessarily when you have managed to build up to a15- or 20-miler. If you have a specific time goal then use the shorter races to push yourself and get faster. Gooooood Luck!
Posted by admin | in Marathon, Run Training, Training | 6 Comments
Congrats on the PR Jill! I’m looking forward to running some 1/2s, but am probably a year or two away, in terms of fitness.
Nice job…do you think that HM is better than 10k in terms of improving speed for the marathon?
Dan,
I like the half better because of the longer distance needed to maintain a faster pace. You can use the 10k to build speed for the half, then use the half to build speed for the Full. I like the 10k, it’s just not long enough mileage for marathon prep.
Congrats on the PR! That’s a fast finishing time – exciting!
Hey Jill,
Congrats again on the half marathon PR. Just wante to say I really enjoyed your interview with Ben Greenfield tonight and I will definitely be using some of the tips you gave out!
Hi Jill: I love all of your E-mil you be sending me and I want to do the marathon in the worst way, but I never done it, I done a whole lot of 5k races and about 3 10-k races I’m not a fast runner I like to be, I just want to beat the clock and take off some of my times like you done, I ran many years had to stop for awhile because of illness be back for 10 years my 5k time is so bad and I know it don’t mater to some, but to me it does, all my life I wanted to run the marathon, but I never even did a half-marathon, do you thing that what I should do first I’m kind of lost, but I do thing I should, if you can email me love to hear from you. I want to buy your marathon, but I need someone like your self tell me what you think, and even to do a half, I need to put a program together what can you tell me so I can do the half before I do the full-marathon. Thank you Jill, I be so very greatful if you can email me back, Thank you.
Sincerley
Joanne
my email is:
mybigsis@optonline.net
mybigsis14@aol.com