It sounds like a good plan to me, but I'm not the expert. Good luck with your training and maybe I'll see you in Ogden.

I never do a real taper for a half-m, though maybe I'd run better if I did. I just take a day off before the race and low miles the day before that. But part of my reasoning is that the half-m's are never important goal races for me. Rather more like speed training and race practice.

I bet you'll do very well with the increase in training. You seem to be able to fit in runs at all hours of the day and recover well from them. Good luck with the new goals! Very exciting.

James, generally I think that that is a good overall plan. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "minimal speed work," i.e. whether you plan to get on the track or add tempo runs. I definitely think that you have the base mileage that you can tolerate some increase in intensity. Since you are training for the half marathon , and that is a longer race, my recommendation would be to add a tempo run into your weekly routine. Something like, 2 miles easy warm-up, followed by 3 miles at tempo pace, approximately 30-45 seconds faster than your easy run pace. Then another 2 to 4 miles of easy running. Also, continuing with eight or ten 100 m strides at the end of several of your easy weekly runs will help to boost speed. good luck, I think you will have a great race.

Thanks for the input.

Carolyn, maybe I'll see you at the finish line area.

Snoqualmie - yeah, I'm thinking of this half as speed training also, but I hope to break 1:50 as well. I'm hoping to get a longer run, say, 20 miler, in the near future...any suggestions?

Chad, I hope to get on the track once or twice to do a mile time trial, and to test the garmin etc. I will add a tempo run once a week, I'm looking forward to it as I've tried some shorter tempo work recently and had a really good results.

My 2 centavos:

Add speed work incrementally and pay attention to how you feel, especially because you haven't done much before. Its really easy to over do, so gradually adding it in will help you understand how much you as an individual can tolerate. There is large intra-individual variation, so you just have to pay attention and be honest with yourself. From what I've seen, your training is pretty intuitive so I think you'll do well here.

As general sequence of training phases, I think moving straight from a base phase to hard intervals is WAAAYYYY too abrubt. I like to add short fast intervals and tempo runs (both of which are less taxing than classic interval training) for 4-6 weeks before going to hard, race-specific interval training. As Chad mentioned, 100m strides are great form of short fast speed. The cardinal rule is to keep them relaxed. Hill sprints are also good, but again, ease into them because you'll really stress you calves/achilles.

By my thinking, tempo runs are a nice intermediate between general base runs and say, 5k race pace intervals. So, they act as a bridge. Strides or other forms of short relaxed speed, on the other hand, are much more muscularly demanding (from a contractile perspective) than 5k race pace intervals. The short fast speed work prepares your body structurally for harder interval training, and makes the paces feel easier. Thus together, tempos and short fast speed bracket interval training and provide a comprehensive foundation for it.

One other thing, when it come so hard interval workouts, get in and get out. High volume sessions of light intervals are great, but when you really start pushing yourself to max capicty, keep is short and to the point.

Thanks Phoenix! I appreciate your input. What you recommend makes sense to me. I probably won't get into any hard intervals for a few weeks, and after the half marathon I'll have a little clearer picture of what my marathon goals can be, and can base my workouts a little more realistically.

At what point does a "stride" become an "interval"?

Technically all strides are intervals. How you differentiate the two is probably a combination of tradition and semantics.

In general strides aren't metabolically taxing. They are run relaxed and feel good. You could run 8 x 100 hard with a 15 second recovery and make it an interval workout. Alternavitely you might run 8 x 100 starting easy, hitting top end at ~70 meters, decelerating until the finish, and resting until you feel like going again. These, in my book, would be strides.

So, IMO, strides become intervals when they get hard and make you tire.