This is week 8 of half marathon training for the Honor Run Half Marathon in Florence, KY on November 11, 2018. I’m using Hal Higdon’s Advanced program for this one. If you want to register for this race, use this link, and try using code “BIBRAVE15” for $15 off, courtesy of the fine people of and affiliated with BibRave (note that the link IS an affiliate link, the BibRave code is just one I’ve seen on Twitter and I get nothing if you use it… so you might as well use it!).
Monday: Speed Work – 3 x 1 mile Intervals at HM Pace. I started a little early because of a morning meeting that required me to print something over the weekend. The printer jammed, so I unjammed the thing (or so I thought) and went on to go running. Went to do my form drills and there was tables, chairs, and a storage container (one of those big truck containers) in the way, so skipped and started. Then, my watch starts beeping at me ONE MINUTE after I start to signal warm-up to first interval. I wasn’t really warmed up, so I stopped it and checked it out – workout was incorrectly setup (to a 1:00 warm up instead of a 1.0 mile warm up). Ran a mile and then restarted the workout. All of this on a very humid and dark morning. Splits were 7:29, 7:34, 7:28. Total workout was 5.63 miles in 45:31 (8:05 min/mile pace). Oh, and the printer didn’t work even after I cleaned up and tried multiple times.
Tuesday: Recovery Run – 3 mi + 7 strides. Ran across the Suspension Bridge and back across the Purple People Bridge. Nothing much to report except humidity and that it’s the last day of normal. 4 miles in 34:04 (8:30 min/mile pace).
Wednesday: Tempo Run – 50 minutes. It was a bit humid, although not overly hot. Ran from the Sawyer Point entrance through Friendship Park, back through the parks and around the Bengal’s Practice Field and the rest of the West Pete Rose Way loop back through the parks and through Friendship Park again. Tempo portion was 6.28 miles in 50 minutes for a 7:58 minute per mile pace, within the goal of 7:41 to 7:59 min/mile. Altogether, 7.78 miles in 1:03:14 (8:08 min/mile pace). After my run on Wednesday, I was called home for a family emergency and the rest of the week went kinda sideways a little. My mother-in-law was found to have a brain tumor last Wednesday, and today the tumor hemorrhaged. This is seriously bad news and later that day my MIL was sent home and under hospice care. The day ended with some much needed good news, although I’m not at liberty to discuss it… yet.
Thursday: 5 Mile Half Marathon Pace. It was a little less humid, which was nice. Ran the miles in the local park EARLY. Like 5:45 AM early. My goal pace for this is 7:28 to 7:48, but since I was after a long tempo run on Wednesday, it was all I could do to keep the HM portion under 8 minutes a mile. Ran the HM portion in 39:21, which is 7:52 min/mile pace. The entire run was 6.5 miles in 52:36 (8:06 min/mile pace).
Friday: 1:45 Long Run. Ran a few laps around the local park, then into the neighboring subdivision and across a dirt construction path into the soon-to-be adjoining subdivision. Fueled with Gatorade Apple-Pear gel and hydrated with Gatorade Endurance. The temperature fell, and it was quite cold – I had been used to the upper-50s at the lowest, this was low-40s, so gloves (and my RunLites on them, whose battery died during the run) and a long sleeve shirt were in order. 11.85 miles in 1:45:00 (8:52 min/mile pace).
Saturday: Recovery Run – 3 miles. The day started with me going into downtown to assist with communications for the Queen Bee Half Marathon. After being released from duty a half hour early, I went for a run in the park. First off, I saw a barge heading upstream… and I’m a sucker for racing barges (and trains, too). Then, after crushing the barge, I received a call from my wife – which was freaky because I thought it was news of her mom passing. Instead, she was calling to tell me that my niece ran in the Queen Bee Half – her first half. Somehow, even with slowing during the call, I ran a progressive 3 “recovery” (*cough*) miles at 7:55, 7:41, and 7:37. Total of 3.03 miles in a way-too-fast 23:26 (7:44 min/mile pace).
That’s it for the week. About 39 mostly-fast miles. Heading for a fast half marathon next month.