Adjusting the plan for a half marathon in 11 weeks.

by Fernando
(Madrid. Spain.)

Half marathon adjustment :

"Hello Marius.

I have a half marathon in 11 weeks and I am trying to adjust the 100 marathon plan to this. I prefer to adjust to the distance progressively instead of going directly to the Marathon. I believe this year I will only run Half Marathons and 10Ks.

I am planning to use the 5k, 10k and half marathon weeks as well as 1st week of the marathon plan and a two week taper and also would like to adjust the walk run sessions. All from the 3:30 plan.

Could something like this work?

Weeks 1&2 adjusted plan-> Week 1 from the 100 day marathon plan.
Weeks 3&4 adjusted plan-> Week 2 from the 100 day marathon plan.
Now weeks 5 to 8 of the adjusted plan correspond to weeks 3 to 6 from the 100 day marathon plan.
Week 9 adjusted plan -> Week 7 from the 100 day marathon plan.
Week 10 & 11. Tapering -> Week 14 & 15 from the 100 day marathon plan.

A variation would be to do the same but skipping the repetition of the 10k week corresponding to week 4 of the adjusted plan and using as week 9 of the adjusted plan right after week 7 from the marathon plan to sharpen a bit before the Tapering.

Regarding long runs could continuous running ranging from 1h20 to 1h45 work with a structure lets say 50min-1h Effort 1 + 20-30 min Effort 3 + 10-15 min Effort 1? What would be better just for the Half Marathon, this type of continuous running or the run/walk strategy?

Thank you very much for your help.

Fernando. "

Answer:
You got a really good adjustments for a half marathon, in what you describe here. It would work well - as the only real adjustment needed is the marathon specific week, just like you point out.

In terms of the long runs, I strongly recommend you keep the structure of the plan going (meaning not mixing in "extra" intense runs - which a effort 1 + effort 3 mix would be) - having said that, for the half marathon you CAN cut down on some of the walk-runs and instead just run these all-through instead of walking parts BUT do that at effort 1, and shorter of course. Over 2 hours in duration is not needed.

I wish you all the best,

kind regards,
Marius