It’s a good point, 5:20/km does sound a stretch. The plan I’m on doesn’t allow for racing, but it does schedule a half distance at 5:26/km week after next. I might put my name down for that and hold the training pace rather than best effort…hopefully these are different things! 
You need to remember you’ve got the cumulative fatigue of training, a taper will improve things on race day.
Sounds like some decent efforts.
Jeff
There surely must be somewhere better to train if this is a key session? I’ll hit up some more interesting terrain if I’m just going long and easy, but if it’s a key session, screw the boredom, I’m doing laps of a suitable place. Battersea Park is ideal and luckily on the doorstep (3k away), but whereever I am, I can generally find something nearby of 1-2k that’s fairly flat and limited to no chance of traffic interruption.
Is it dull? Yes, kind of. But for someone that otherwise does long sessions on the treadmill, I doubt that should be of particular concern!
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I agree with @stenard on this one.
My normal long runs are down a nice river and along pathways that used to be a railway line but these can be muddy this time of year and a little unpredictable so when I have a key session that I need to hit certain paces I do a 2.5 mile lap around where I live on pavements.
Last week I managed 7 and a bit laps which is tough mentally but has to be done.
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Yeah, but I was out of my area today (daughter has a weekend scholarship on the other side of London) I just needed anywhere I could run. It was a nice place I’d recommend but not best suited for my particular needs. I’ve used a couple of the gyms around there before.
Treadmill was okay last week, but I suppose there is a small park about 4-5k away from home I think ParkRun is 2.5 laps, so maybe ten laps would be about 20km. Might give me more experience at pacing outside too. And I could dump my gels, jacket and water.
Was anyone else out in that wind today? A struggle to walk at times.
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That sound similar to what I used. For my malaga build, I think I must have run 100-150 laps of battersea park over the few months. And just take a hydration pack or a hip belt to store the gels. Much easier
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Was going to do my 2.5 mile loops but knew before I started that I wasn’t really up to it today and reckon I would have bailed before I got my miles in.
Went out and ran about 11 miles from my house knowing I wouldn’t have a choice but to run back.
Ended up getting 3 hours of running in and feel knackered now but good training!
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Park was a good shout, 5k run to get there, planned for 12 laps of 1.8km but got dizzy and HR spiked during the 17th km so I backed off the pace and cut the run short (26.7km out of 32km). I was dead on my feet running home though.
I think I got the pacing more or less right until 17. So some positives from the wreckage
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Good stuff mate. In my completely un-expert opinion, I reckon if you aimed for 6.00s from the off and kept it there, you’d see less of a tail off.
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Good running @joex
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What he said…
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Good work. The laps of a park approach is definitely something to persist with
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I’ve got two check points coming up, an unforgiving hilly half marathon next Sunday, looking for a 1:55 and the following week I’ll be lining up a parkrun to match my planned 5k tempo which asks for a 24:00 but I might race it to see if I can hit 23.
I already suspect I need to revise up my goal, but these should confirm by how much.
Im also paring down my cross training as these long runs get faster - I had a catch up, late lifting session last night 5x5 squats, overhead press and deadlift…which didn’t help today 🤦🏻
How are you guys doing?
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I was supposed to being doing my final long run tomorrow but have developed a really sharp pain in my right glute to the point where last night I couldn’t put any weight on my right side.
It was comical me trying to get about!
It has eased slightly today so I will try a turbo session tomorrow and see how I get on with that.
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Ooch! Good luck with it.
Did a steady 2 hour turbo session today instead of a run.
Watched Ford v Ferrari while doing it which is pretty good film.
Always have a rest day on a Monday so will see on Tuesday if my glute is up for a run!
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I have a 10k this weekend to see where i’m at with fitness, was hoping to pull in around the 55 mins, i’m currently 3 weeks into a half marathon training plan and the aim is sub 2 at the Hackney half, I then have the prudential ride 100 to help get some timber off over the summer and then, the only issue is, it is 4 weeks into my NYC training plan, should I do the ride or not, would it be beneficial to my Marathon training or hinder it in any way…? I still think I can sub 4 at NYC and am in the gym 4 days a week currently and running on 3 of them, swimming 2.
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I can’t see the ride doing you any harm with it being 4 weeks into your training plan, depending how long your training plan is though!
Just take it easy for a few days before and after.
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Haven’t learned last weeks lesson and did another catch up weights session last night straight after 9.5k run at tempo…unwise and my legs are trashed today. Getting on a late lunch bike in a minute to clear them up hopefully.
Weather is looking atrocious for TW Half, organisers monitoring and possible cancellation on the cards. Either way I can’t see it being a useful yardstick for my training now so I might can it anyway. Plus I hate Spring Hill.
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Okay, so treadmill half marathon: 01:50:20 PB
I must’ve had bad info, set it to 5:10/km to sneak in a 1:49 something but I saw at halfway it was too slow, dropped to 5:07 then the last 5km at 5:05.
I was pretty dead, don’t think I could go faster without cooling anyway. Breathing was fine, I could’ve been nose breathing most of the way, but exhaling through the mouth expels more heat. Heart rate fine but for the last 5k it averaged 168 and where I saw it hit 170 a couple of times, but overall avg 159.
It’s a treadmill, so not necessarily accurate, and it’s flat. But hot, soaked in sweat and more encouraging than a stressful event and potentially disastrous race result at TW. 
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