Fitness
Philadelphia Half Marathon Training Plan
Want to know how to make yourself feel better about the fact that you spent 6 hours on a beautiful
Is it odd that I had a smile plastered on my face the whole time I was making this? I’m assuming that’s because making the plan is the easy part. We’ll see where that smile is 5 weeks from now when tackling a 9 mile long run…
Isn’t she purrty?
I have a few goals in mind for my 2nd half marathon.
1. Cut my running back to 3 days a week.
2. Incorporate legitimate speed work to make each run count.
3. Incorporate more cross training.
4. Continue with NROLFW (stage 2 update coming this week!)
5. Try and improve my current PR (1:57:16)
6. Have fun!
I used Hal Hidgon’s intermediate half marathon plan as a guide but made my own personal tweaks from there to come up with the final version. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think I’ll be able to avoid running burn out by limiting it to 3 days a week and still be satisfied with 2 bike rides a week as cross training.
The two highlighted areas signify a wedding and an extended work trip that I know I’ll have to be flexible for. I tried to move around workouts for the wedding (the first highlighted area) and think I came up with something that works, but the work trip is tough to make any decisions on right now. That will be more of a play by ear kind of thing. I purposely put my mileage step back on that week so I don’t have to worry about running 10 miles on a hotel treadmill. I honestly don’t think there could be a worse kind of torture.
I’m excited to see how the speed work will (or won’t) pay off in the end. Thursday’s are obvious speed work days and Sunday’s “pace” means I’ll be running those at my half marathon goal pace. Honestly, my goal is anything faster than my current PR (8:56 pace) but, I’m going to aim to run those between an 8:20-8:25 pace. That would be around a 1:50 half marathon. I’m not sure I could maintain that pace for 13.1 but I know I can for 3-5 miles, so that’s my goal.
Regardless of the outcome on race day, I’m just excited to train and race again for the half distance. It’s really the perfect balance of a serious accomplishment without being completely overwhelming.
Bring it on!
How many days a week can you run before getting burned out?
How do you set goals for yourself in races?
Do you find it hard just to run for fun without a goal in mind?
