10. From Ten Miles to the Half Marathon

It’s a challenge. You can say that of any distance, but it applies particularly to the half marathon. The full marathon is more than a challenge – it is a mountain to be climbed – but the fascination of the half is that while it is long enough to be impressive it is something which one can train for within the constraints of normal life. At twenty-one kilometres it demands considerable endurance. The normal thirty miles a week just isn’t enough to cope properly with this distance.

To produce the best you are capable of you have got to be running at least fifty miles a week. At the highest level, of course, they are running one hundred miles a week or more,but this is for men who are running under 65 minutes and women under seventy-one minutes. At the same time, it is closer in speed to that of a 10k than to a marathon. In the middle stages of a 10k you are running only slightly faster than ‘threshold’ pace. This is the speed at which you start to accumulate lactic acid and as you get fitter you will be able to push back the threshold. In a ten-mile race you are running almost the whole distance at threshold, and if you are fit enough you can run the whole of your half marathon at ‘threshold’, too.

BRUCE: ‘You often find that in a good half marathon race you go through ten miles in close to your PB. I remember that when I was going for the over-sixty records in the spring of ’96, I ran 58 minutes in the Woking Ten and a few weeks later ran 76:12 for the Bath half marathon, going through ten miles in a faster time than I had run at Woking. It follows from this that you should do the same training for a ten-mile race as for a half marathon.’

For the schedules below we have set out three levels of training. The speed you run depends partly on your age and natural ability and partly on the amount of training you are doing.

Distribution of effort

The pattern of ‘hard-easy-hard-easy’ is obvious in these schedules.Very often runners fall into ‘one-pace’ training, where that pace is not fast enough to give much of a training effect.

Running for 35–40 minutes a day will certainly make you fit enough to run a half marathon but your speed won’t improve unless you are working at some-thing approaching ‘threshold’ pace or faster. Endurance is built up both by the accumulation of the total distance run and by the distance of the longer runs. Until you are very experienced you should not be trying to run fast in the endurance runs.

Making progress

Whichever level you are on, you should be feeling much fitter after your first month. The person who manages to follow the schedule to the letter is very rare, but as long as you have done most of the training you will be ready for the next upward step. You will not be running greater distances. The key is running faster in the hard sessions. The more you train, the more you learn about your body and the better you are able to push yourself. Sometimes it is mentally easier to run round a five or six mile circuit fast than it is to run slowly, because when you run fast you are concentrating hard on the running and not worrying about how far you have to go.

Making the effort

On paper, 40 minutes of easy running might look like more than 30 minutes of hard running, so it is important to give an idea of how hard you have run. I suggest that you record your effort level in your training diary, on a scale of 1 to 10.

Recording the total time run and the number of ‘effort points’ in the week will give you a good idea of how hard you are training.

Level One

Now that we have reached a ‘plateau’ of fitness, you will be able to cope with one ‘quality’ day when you are pushing yourself harder. The term ‘fast’ means the fastest speed that you can keep up for that length of time. As the recovery time is quite short, you will soon discover how fast you can afford to run and as time goes on you will find that this increased pace translates itself into improved times.

Level Two

Because the Level Two people are more experienced and faster runners, 35 minutes running may well be over five miles for them, whereas it will be only four miles for those on Level One. It is a good idea to time yourself over an exactly measured distance every two or three weeks. These schedules have timed sections in them, such as the repetition miles, which will give you something by which to measure your improvement, and each time you come back to them you can push yourself a little harder.

Level Three

The work load is much heavier here, as there are fewer days which are purely recuperative. Although the total distance covered is not huge – five hours represents only about 45 miles – it is still a pretty strenuous programme if done properly.

Note that Week 7 has much less in it. The occasional easy week can be put in either to let you recover, if you find that you are getting more and more tired, or simply in order for you to be fresh for the race.

Level One programme (four days a week)

Level Two programme (5–6 days a week)

Level Three programme (6–7 days a week)

The final stage

In the last stages of a training programme there is not much you can do to make yourself run faster. Putting in hard training at this stage is counterproductive because there is not time for the body to respond to the stresses you are imposing on it, and if you are not fully recovered you will be tired when you start. On the other hand, if you did no training at all in the last two weeks, you would start to lose fitness. You need to do enough to maintain aerobic fitness, maintain your endurance and keep your weight down. Maintaining aerobic fitness is best done by doing short brisk sessions at threshold pace or faster. This is why we recommend sessions like 10×30 secs fast, or 2 miles at race speed. General endurance is maintained by a weekly run of at least an hour, plus the regular outings during the week.

The reason why training is reduced in the last few days – the tapering period – is so that the muscle glycogen stores have a chance to build up again and damaged muscle cells are either repaired or replaced. Because your body is used to running regularly, it is better to go out and do a twenty-minute session rather than rest. This also gives you a chance to try out the running kit, particularly the shoes and socks, which you will be wearing in the race. If you have got new shoes for the race, or if your old ones have just packed up on you, make sure that the new ones are broken in. Wear them several times before you race in them, and do at least one good session at race pace.

Warning signs

If you have a muscle strain, or an infection, such as a bad cold or a touch of ‘flu’, in the week of the race – don’t run. It is not worth taking the risk. Enter another race three or four weeks later, giving yourself a chance to rest up, then put in one or two weeks of normal training before tapering off again.

Targets

Getting the pace right at the start makes a huge difference in a long race. If in doubt, err on the side of caution. In relation to your 10k pace, your half marathon pace is going to be three to ten seconds a kilometre slower. There is also the extra 1.1 kilometres to be taken into account. As a rough guide, the person who runs a 10k in 37 minutes should add on 60 seconds and double it to get an estimate of the time at 20k, then add on the time taken for the extra 1.1 km, e.g.

Having established a target time, we would suggest running the first three miles as close to that speed as possible. If you are really fit, and finding this pace comfortable, it is possible to pick up the pace by a few second per mile and get well inside your target time, but if you are lacking in endurance, starting at this speed, rather than going off fast, will give you a better chance of finishing in a respectable time. The speed will feel comfortable in the early stages, but give yourself three miles at that pace before you make any decisions.

Tactics

For most of us, the best tactics are just running at a level pace, in the appropriate section of the field, and trying to use our fellow-competitors as pace-makers. If you go off at level pace it is very encouraging when you find that you are pulling back those who started faster, whereas if you go off too fast and slow down, it is very discouraging to be caught and passed in the second half of the race. If you are up at the sharp end it is a different matter.

As there are so many half marathons run nowadays, it is quite common for races to be won in over 70 minutes, and of course age-group times may be correspondingly slow as well. A good veteran runner may find him or herself in with a chance of a win. Nigel Gates was still winning open races at the age of 47.

In this case it is worth deviating from level pace in order to get an advantage. If you are a lady hoping to run 78 mins something – 6 minute mile pace – and you have a rival whose best time is, say, 79 minutes, it is better to go off with men who are running 76–77-minute pace. They can set the pace for you and maybe protect you from the wind, whereas if you were running at 78:30 pace from the start, your rival could run with you and take advantage of your pacemaking.

Last thoughts

On the morning of the race, eat your last meal, something simple and digestible, three hours beforehand. In the twenty-four hours before that, lay off high-fibre foods, because they may serious consequences during the race! Keep on taking drinks, if it is hot, up to thirty minutes beforehand, and if necessary, drink more just before the start, so that the fluid does not have time to be taken up by your kidneys. For an autumn race, go prepared for all weathers, from singlet and light-weight shorts, to tights, gloves and woolly hat – and plenty of rain gear to keep you dry before and after the race.

MARGARET AUERBACK

Age: 53

Occupation: artist

Margaret Auerback started running at the age of 33, to lose weight. Twenty years later, she has lost weight but she is still running. Like so many, she started by wanting to run a marathon but got injured and had to stop. She ran her first marathon in 1982 and it was a bit of a disaster – ‘OK for twenty miles and pretty grim for the last six’. Unlike most others, though, she perse-vered and knocked thirty-five minutes off her time in the next one, running 3 hr 13 minutes. She joined her local running club, Ranelagh Harriers, quite early in her running career and says that this has done a lot to keep her in the sport. They have fixtures all the year round, in track, cross-country and road running, which gives her something to train for.

Margaret’s biggest successes, though, have come from veteran running, and all her best times have been set since she passed her 40th birthday. At the age of 40 she ran 2 hr 48 for a marathon (a time which would please most 40-year-old men) and also gained her first international recognition, after finishing 2nd in the National Vets cross-country.

Since turning 50 she has been consistently successful, winning the national over fifty cross-country title and running for England for three successive years in the cross-country international. In 2004 she won both the 1500m and the 5000m in her age group at the World Veterans Championship in Puerto Rico.

‘The reason I am still running is above all because I enjoy it. I run with friends maybe twice a week and at the weekend I do a long run with my husband. Over the years running has enabled us to explore a lot of different places, in Crete, in Kenya, in Portugal and in France.

‘I think what motivates me most is training for a particular event, such as selection for a vets international. I have that date in my mind and every session is part of my plan. I know that I can’t improve on the PBs I set years ago, so now I have different aims, either PBs in a new age group, or trying different events. For example, I want to try more long distance events and more mountain events – not easy in Richmond! I will continue running for my club in league races.

‘Over the years my training has changed little, but I seldom train twice a day now, and I sometimes replace an easy run with cycling to lessen the jarring on the legs. I run 40–50 miles a week, I try to do two gym sessions a week and I am planning to improve my swimming. No, I don’t plan to do a triathlon – a duathlon perhaps?’