GCM Training Tuesday – Half marathon plan shopping

I started to take a look around for which plan I’d like to use for the Owens Corning half marathon I’ll be running on April 23rd, at the Glass City Marathon.  I have not used a half training plan in *years* due to the fact I have been running full marathons both Spring and Fall for several years now.

I am looking for something advanced, because I do have a good mileage base (around 32 miles a week right now) and I’ve run several half marathons.  Also, I’d like to PR, so some serious training is due!  My first thought was that maybe the Hansons plan would be the one for me.  I know that Hansons full plan didn’t work out for me, but just like the pain of childbirth and running full marathons, I have already blocked out why that plan didn’t work.

So, I borrowed the book from the library.  I excitedly cracked that baby open.  New goals here I come!  First, I almost gagged when I saw it was an 18 week training plan.  Wha??  I had in my mind that a half plan was only going to be 12 weeks long and I’d have weeks of lounging around at the start of 2017 before my training began.  When the heck did half training plans become so long??  Ok, maybe they always have been, but I really don’t remember doing that.  AND, that means my plan would have to start almost immediately!  I was thinking I’d run until I reached my 2016 mileage goal (1,815 miles!!) and then chill for a little bit to make sure my body was fully rested.  I didn’t want to make that mistake of jumping into a plan and spending the whole time fighting an injury.  Not again.

The next point that I had an issue with was that it too only had one rest day.  I struggled with that in the Hansons full plan.  I feel like I really need two days off.  Ok, not a deal breaker – I can cut one of the days.  But which one??  That brought up my next issue – the workouts are very structured.  I mean, pretty much every plan has a long run, a speed day, and maybe another speed day sandwiched by some easy runs, but I know the order of the days really needs to be consistent.  Given that I want to have my long run on Friday, I’d have to do a tempo (pace) run on Sunday.  Every Sunday.  I had flashbacks of dread thinking about how much I disliked taking up my family time to go run a pace run.  Yes “dread”.   I don’t mind getting up early during the week to knock out a workout, but for my weekends I like to have some flexibility.  And, what about those weekends when I’ll be out of town skiing?  It just wasn’t adding up.

Just reading the training plan was making me anxious.  NOT the feeling I wanted to get shopping around for a plan.  After talking to my husband we decided he would write up a plan for me.  I’d like to keep some of those intervals from the Hansons plan, but I don’t want 6 day a week running.  I’m still going to look at some other plans just to see what I like or don’t like, so who knows what we’ll come up with – but at least I have ruled out one plan so far.

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So give me some of your knowledge… what about you…

Q:  What number of weeks would work for you in a half training plan?

I’m thinking closer to 14 or 12 weeks for me, but not 18 weeks if it’s going to hard training the whole time.  I don’t want to get burned out.

Q: What max distance do you like to run as a “long run” in your half training?

Maybe 16 would be my max?  Definitely longer than 13 though.

Q: Where do you typically get your training plan from?

I’ll be checking out Hal Higdon, Runners World, and Another Mother Runner too.