In 2015, I ran my personal best at the Comox Half Marathon, which was 1:28:15. Back then, I was able to train differently compared to what I do now, due to my current circumstances as well as coming off an illness (late 2022) and injury (2016–2017).
Running. Photo by Jay Wallace.
It will be a long time before I break 1:30 again in the half marathon (if ever). The closest I got to 1:30 since my 2016 injury was when I ran 1:33:33 in 2021. I was sure that I was on the way back to breaking 1:30 in the half marathon and then I got sick in late 2022. With that in mind, I had to start running from scratch again in early 2023 after I recovered. Since my recovery, I broke 2 hours in the half marathon at the Banff Half Marathon.
I know what it takes for me to be able to get back to breaking 1:30 in the half marathon, but, unfortunately, I’m just not able to train that way at this time.
Here’s what I did leading up to the 2015 race where I broke 1:30 in the half marathon:
1.Long runs every other week.
Every other week, I did a long run where I ran more than 21km. Typically, my long runs were 25–27km. This gave me the confidence that I can do a half marathon and run a little bit faster. I did the long runs every other week to allow me to recover so I could push harder on the shorter and faster runs during the week.
2.Total of 5 “under distance” time trials within 2.5 months of race day.
Since the Comox Half Marathon was part of a series, it was easy for me to schedule the time trials. I basically signed up for the whole series that included a couple of 8ks, a 12k, a 10k and a 15k leading up to the half marathon. After completing my time trials, I did a 5–8k cooldown. The results from the time trials pointed to a 1:30 finish in the half marathon which gave me the confidence that it was possible.
3.Ran a total of 80–100km per week.
Most of that mileage was fairly slow, except for when I did a time trial or a tougher workout. I kept the tough workouts to a minimum to reduce the risk of injury and to facilitate recovery. I organized my running schedule in a way that allowed me to recover and get the most out of my harder workouts. The 100km weeks were typically the weeks where I opted for a long run. The 80km weeks were where I did a shorter run instead of the long run.
4.Recovery runs.
My recovery runs were about a minute to 90 seconds per km slower than my desired race pace. I kept my heart rate fairly low. To determine how to pace your easy run and why it’s important, you can check out my other article called “Are Your Easy Runs too Fast?”.
5.Strength training twice per week (minimum).
I primarily focused on the muscles around my knee and hip joints as well as my core. Having a strong core, glutes and hamstrings is very important for runners. I designed a strength training routine for myself that focused on injury prevention.
I wrote an article for Oxygen Magazine about some exercises to help prevent knee injuries. Sometimes, I would do an easy 5k-10k run followed by a half hour strength training session.
6.Hills (more like running up a 1500m mountain road repetitively).
Once a week, I would do a tough hill session. We have this mountain called Mount Doug, which has 1500m of steep, paved road going up it. Initially, I started with doing this ascent twice in one session. As time went on and my training progressed, I was able to complete 5 ascents. I would go as fast as I could on the way up and slowly jog down before doing another ascent. Some people may say this is a bit overkill but it worked for me. The more I did this type of hill training, the faster I was able to do my tempo runs on flat roads. All other hills seemed pretty easy to me after doing Mount Doug.
7.One faster run session per week.
I would skip the tempo or speedwork the weeks leading up to my time trials. However, I would do a faster tempo or an interval session during the weeks that I didn’t race (or do time trials). I would also make sure that the faster run session would be buffered between easy sessions to get the most out of it. I practiced my desired race pace. Sometimes, I went a little bit faster than my goal race pace if the workout was shorter.
As we can see, in any given week, I only had two hard workout days (either hills, tempo, or time trials). The rest of the time, I ran slow and took it easy. I also made sure to fit my strength training sessions in at least twice per week (ideally, three times per week).
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