Category: fitness

i’m planning on doing my first half marathon this year, the syracuse half marathon! i’m also going to be posting my training updates here, mostly for myself to refer to

the race is on march 23, so that’s 10-11 weeks from now. that’s plenty of time for a good training block. my A goal is to finish in 1:45 (about 8:03 mile pace, 25min 5k pace), my B goal is to finish in 1:50, and C goal is to finish just somewhere close to two hours (this is all based on my current threshold pace for 5k which i think is around 7:45 – 8:15 mpm) and keep it conservative.

training wise i’m adapting the novice marathon program in hal higdons Marathon Guide book for a half marathon. a couple of interesting parts of his training program is the long run mile step back every 3rd week and gradual increase of the mid week mileage. the purpose of the step back is to support recovery after a couple of consecutive mile increases before building back higher

unlike his program for the novice training instead of doing saturday long run i’m doing a sunday one followed by a recovery run. he also packs all three non-long runs together consecutively but i like having space between those runs for cross training / strength training or just rest – so i adjusted that too.

overall i’m optimistic about this program because it’s not too far off from my current weekly mileage and i’m coming off of a short break from running due to the weather lately, so i should adapt well to this but who knows. since i am going to be targeting a specific pace i know i need to throw some speed work and threshold runs in there so the breaks between runs mid week should help

here’s my full schedule (thanks claude ai for formatting my original csv into a table)

note: run 1 is following a long run, so that will be an easy run. run 2 and 3 will either both be easy if i’m not feeling great, but ideally one or both of them are threshold runs. will play it mostly by ear

Week	Run 1	Run 2	Run 3	Long Run	Total Miles
1	3	3	3	6	15
2	3	3	3	7	16
3	3	4	3	7	17
4	3	4	3	5	15
5	3	4	3	9	19
6	3	5	3	10	21
7	3	5	3	7	18
8	3	6	3	12	24
9	3	6	3	10	22
10	3	6	3	8	20

for race pace and finish times i like to use this chart.

training log

i’m going to keep short updates here as i progress

1/15

• training going well, been hitting the workouts and also did a tuesday short 45min group running training sesh (polymetrics mostly) at gym
• today did a 3miler on treadmill, 10min warmp up and 10 cooldown with threshold pace in middle
• TIL that 1% incline is good for imitating wind resistance friction for treadmill + lower knee impact. makes sense
• form / mechanics notes: working on landing softer, more knee drive and less lower leg extension
• pace feels a bit quick – will work on increasing incline but reducing pace
• also may look into interleaving outdoor runs with treadmills at some point, weather permitting…

1/16

• OK, so today i think i’m officially starting to overtrain…. i did a 1hr yoga at 5:30, 45min circuit training and sprinting at 8 followed by a 3 mile threshold. um my right foot ankle felt wonky and weird to put pressure on. i think i also laced my shoes too tight on the right
• i ALSO tried a slightly different gait (shortening leg extension to land closer to my center of mass) at the same time, which honestly felt better
• i made an effort to run more lightly on the treadmill today (focusing on reducing impact sound mostly) and my stride felt much smoother
• anyway, im pretty much set with my mid week mileage (9 total so far) so im just gonna rest up for my long run over the weekend (6mi)

1/19

• completed my first long run of the halfy training!! ran outdoors for 6.2 miles. most of the route i picked was pretty snow packed and my legs were sinking with each stride. left calf muscles and achilles feel pretty sore – not sure if snow or new shoes (lone peak altras) or both
• i had to avoid sidewalks in a couple of .5 – 1 mile stretches and ran pretty close to threshold pace because i wanted to get off the road quickly
• feeling good though, the snow def. forced me to slow down for most of it. got to get in a bit of hill work at beginning at end too. overall great workout

1/20

• did a 3 miler today, started at easy pace and then did threshold for about a mile before dropping back to easy. good workout, but in future im going to try to hold the pace for the entire session, and reserve threshold workouts for specific days. it does seem like the treadmill picks up my HR reader so that’s good!

1/22

• currently in week 2 of my training block. did a 5km with 3 1k repeats at 90-95% max HR . felt really tough, esp. towards the end. i actually cut short the last repeat by about 200m for sake of time and also i was at my limit
• good workout, but i think maybe a shorter interval like 400m would be good followed by 30s to 1m rests in future
• wore olympus via 2 for first time today, bought a used pair for 80 bucks off ebay. really loving this new model. the via 1 has a very stiff / firm sole, and they seemed to have incorporated that feedback. on their site: “It’s that same high stack but with a softer midsole foam”. really like it now! might retire my via 1’s

1/24

• did my final midweek 3mi workout of week 2! really didn’t really feel like it because I didn’t sleep too well and its cold af. snow day and streets were a bit unplowed so I decided to scrap my original plan of going to the gym and instead go outside. wasn’t too bad, although starting earlier might be better because a lot of people around 7-8 were pulling out of their garages to go to work
• did a fartlek workout with about 100m hill repeats 3 times . the entire run was pretty hilly , about 300ft elevation gain so 100ft / mile . pretty tough workout
• felt slight ache on left knee (weirdly my right knee has not bothered me at all) that went away with a quad stretch. will keep an eye on

1/27

• long run on sunday ended up being 8 mi instead of 7 b.c of wrong turn. felt good. went out a bit too fast. should stick to 10-9min miles. ended up in a snowy patch which wasn’t great and had to walk for safety reasons
• need better gloves if im to do more outdoor running…
• feeling good, did a 3mi on treaadmill this morning easy run with a short 3-4min tempo.

1/31

• did a final three mile run today at the gym for the week. was not feeling very motivated and pretty fatigued, probably from not great sleep this week. watch tells me that my HRV is low. was supposed to do a workout but I just took it easy
• for the four mile run earlier this week, I did 4 800 hundred meter repeats. that was a pretty good workout, ran pretty close to my max heart rate

ever wondered what it means for a runner to be a “middle distance” or “long distance” runner? in the running / racing world there’s three main categories of distance events that differ by distance ranges

short or sprint distance

these are traditional 100 meter (100m), 200m, 400m, and the 4x100m and 4x400m relays. these are pretty much purely anaerobic events. anything beyond 400m is in the middle distance category where the running starts to demand both high aerobic and anaerobic work

medium distance

common track distances are the 800m, 1500m, milers (1609m) , 3000m and the steeple chase variations involving obstacles and water jumps. anything beyond 3000m is going to be long distance

long distance

this is where my current comfort level is with running, although i do most of my higher intensity work in the short distances. common races in this range are the 5000m or 5k (though some people also consider the 5k a medium distance event), 10k, half marathon (21k), marathon (42k), and beyond (ultra marathons) like a 50k (31 miles). pretty much most road racing and cross country running fall into long distance category.

the longest official race i’ve run so far is a super popular local 15k (https://www.boilermaker.com/). i’ve been running this race in the last 3 years. my impression is that the 15k is not a common race distance (compared to the 10k) because when i share this with people they always express surprise that such a distance is even a thing. my goal next year is to run a half marathon, so hopefully that will be my new long race record!

boilermaker fun fact: the boilermaker actually draws a good number of elite international runners – this past year the winner was john korir of kenya who’s one of the current top 10 marathon record holders!

boilermaker fun fact 2: not sure if this is verified, by i learned this through my wife. the event takes place in july, which seems odd because it’s a distance event that’s smack in the height of summer heat. but this is a couple of months before the marathon majors in the U.S (nyc, boston, chicago…) that run between september – november, so this off season schedule suits international runners that are training for the majors. i think this sort of makes sense because if they stuck the race in november, there’s probably going to be a non-existent elite pool…

anyway, here’s an easy / quick way to remember these ranges

short distance – up to a single lap on a standard outdoor track (400m)

medium distance – up to a 3k / two miles / 8 laps on a standard outdoor track

long distance – everything else

i’m currently working on running a consistent weekly mileage of 16 miles this year and hopefully making my way up to 20-25 by the beginning of next year.

so far … it’s been going mostly good. a couple of weeks ago following a 5k race (i hit a pr of 23:57 at a 7:43 mile pace!) i started experiencing some very mild symptoms of runners knee / patella-femoral syndrome (more so on my right knee, towards the medial underside of the patella) but it seems to be subsiding / not getting worse over time. i’ve been trying to loosen up my quads a bit with rollers to see if that helps but i’ll keep an eye on it

my current training schedule is:

sunday	long run (8 miles)
monday	recovery / easy run (2 miles)
tuesday	recovery / strength training (lower body) (3 miles)
wednesday	easy run combined with a workout like strides or tempo
thursday	recovery / strength training (upper body) (3 miles)
friday	easy run combined with a workout like stride or tempo
saturday	rest / recovery. no strength training to prepare legs for long run the following day

this schedule is basically identical to the boilermaker 15k training program that i’ve been following for the last 3 years (very inconsistently). in my first two boilermakers i ran with my wife and we did about an avg 12min pace and finished in just under two hours. this year in july i ran by myself and finished in 1:28 at a 9:31 mile pace.

the key thing about this training schedule is that it follows a mostly low intensity, 80/20 philosophy where at least 80% of the runs are easy runs and at most 20% is high intensity. with 16 miles per week, 20% is about 3 miles and that’s how much time i try to spend in higher intensity running distributed between tuesday and thursday. outside of that, i try (but not always successfully…) to stick to an easy pace of 10-11min mile.

there’s a couple of tweaks i’d like to start making to my running moving forward to hopefully reduce any risk of injury and improve my overall enjoyment of running

• adopt RPE (rate of perceived exertion) as primary measure during my runs instead of glancing at my watch first to gauge effort based on pace or heart rate. i run on hills often and sometimes focusing on pace causes me to go much faster than i should for easy days
• pick a couple of specific and recurring workouts for my run workout days on tuesday and thursday. right now it’s a bit make up as i go and i’d like to just remove that decision making on the day of