In my 39th year, after a steady stream of successful races, it was time to level up my training. Fresh off the hardest marathon training block I’ve ever pulled off and a hard-fought, mixed-emotion PR in Boston, I wanted to use that momentum and strong foundation to go hard for a fall half marathon. To do that, my training partner suggested we add a speed workout to my 12-week half marathon training cycle, bumping us up from one to two speed workouts, plus a long run with race-pace miles.
She was convinced the extra workout, which would focus on 10K and half marathon paces—essentially tempo efforts—would elevate me to the next tier of fitness. I was quietly eyeing my first sub-1:30 half marathon, hoping this would offer the tipping point. At its core, a training plan should introduce different stimuli—frequency, volume, and intensity—to keep your body adapting and getting stronger (but not all at once).
For this half marathon training block, we swapped out an easy run on Monday for another day of speedwork, which meant adding the intensity variable because I was already running a speed workout on Wednesday. This was designed to offer a few benefits: “Simply said, this [additional workout] helps to elevate your athletic ceiling,” says Hiruni Wijayaratne, a coach with My Olympic Coach, and a Sri Lankan record holder in the half marathon. These paces can be tricky to nail down because they’re not easy to hold but they don’t have you redlining the effort, either.
These efforts “are the bread and butter of someone who’s distance training,” Wijayaratne tells me. It’s really important to have that in-between because it builds your aerobic engine so you can sustain the effort for a long amount of time.” The extra speed day also forced my body to run another quality workout two days later, on tired legs. In the first few weeks of the cycle, I was really feeling it.
My right hamstring acted up; I became diligent at hamstring and glute-specific strength and stretch exercises (and lots of foam rolling). Eventually, though, my body adjusted to the increased intensity, and with adequate sleep and nutrition, I was able to hit the workout, recover, and hit the next one. There was no question about the physical benefits of adding another speed day to my training block.
I was regularly running 6:50 pace, my goal race pace, and low 6:30s for a 10K pace, something I’d never done before. From a psychological standpoint, my second speed workout boosted my confidence as race day approached. You need that exact skill set to help navigate races when you’re not feeling perfect.” For me, it wasn’t necessarily how I was feeling in a particular workout on a particular day, but the sum of its parts that not only gave me confidence, mentally, but made it possible to hold pace on race day.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
