To run a good half marathon you have to be comfortable settling into a rhythm, but also comfortable pushing into uncomfortable territory in the closing stretches of the race.
This workout helps you lock into a rhythm and practice pushing off of that effort to give yourself a confidence (and fitness) boost for race day!
The main thing to think of during this workout is half of the structure will be "in" that comfortable zone, while half will be "out" of your comfort zone.
Warm Up
This workout will be on the slightly longer side so our warm up won't be extremely extensive today. You'll start with a 10:00 warm up before running a 3:00 pickup about half marathon effort to a little bit quicker to get into a good rhythm. After your pickup you'll run 2:00 easy before we jump into the workout!
Workout
Like we said before, to run a good half marathon you have to be comfortable settling into a rhythm. The first part of this workout focuses on getting used to your half marathon pace for a few repeats. We'll worry about the uncomfortable part in just a bit.
Let's start with 2 x 10:00 at your half marathon pace, with a 4:00 jog between.
After we've got 20:00 total of solid half marathon pace we will switch gears and get used to the "uncomfortable" part of the workout. Your prescription is to run 5 repeats of 2:00 a bit faster than half marathon, with 2:00 recovery between.
Our example runner has a goal half marathon pace of 8.6mph, or 6:59 per mile. You'll run the 10:00 sections at half marathon, with the 2:00 sections at .3-.4mph faster.
Executing this workout should show you how good you can be at initially settling into a good rhythm, before turning up the pace a bit.
We recommend using the LEVER Pace Calculator to dial in specific paces based on the amount of Body Weight Support you're using.
Cool Down
After you finish your last 2:00 repeat you'll run an easy cool down of 10:00 to 15:00 to close out the workout!
