Training goals for Ross Half Marathon
It’s mid July and we are knee deep in training for Ross Half Marathon. The Ross Marathons are run in the teeny historic town of Ross, Tasmania on the first Sunday of September, timed perfectly to provide a training focus during the winter months.
The most recent installment our half marathon story was both achieving a PB at Cadbury half marathon in Hobart at the beginning of 2016. Gabby and I raced each step together and it was a tough one. I faded towards the end of the race, but she pulled me along and then pushed me to the end with her seemingly never-ending array of motivational phrases!
The power of words in times like that can be phenomenal. While having someone beside you handing them to you is fantastic, a certain amount of running success relies on you being able to speak those words to yourself at the time it most matters.
So Ross presents a challenge. And we have a goal – to beat our times set at Cadbury 2016:
1:39:09 for Gabby | 1:39:16 for Bec.
Actually, we have a goal to smash the bejesus out of those times.
So just pushing the boat out…we want to sub 1:35. It’s doable – it totally is.
Training
While this will be more detailed in the weeks to come, it will generally involve the following:
- Long runs – easy, relaxed pace – maybe road, maybe trails. Throw in a strong finish or progressively faster pace in each one to practise that push to the end.
- Tempo runs – a weekly run at or near race pace for gradually increasing distances during the training program
- Our usual speed work sessions a couple of times a week – focusing on longer fartleks / intervals; hills, hills and more hills,
- Body weight strength and plyometric workouts 2 times a week
- Club races, park run, anything we decide to participate in at the drop of a hat. (Because we KNOW this is going to happen…Impulsive – who, us? Never!)
- Stretching, eating copious quantities of (good) food, buying and trying out new gear before race day.
And last but not least – we’ll be working on training our mental toughness, stamina and focus.
- Practising positive self-talk during tough training sessions
- Focusing on and embracing pain to increase our threshold in races (good pain, of course – not ignoring injuries)
- Closer to the race, visualisation – running the race in our head and seeing our success in achieving our goal
It sounds a bit strange, but the awesome thing about it is, athletes of any calibre can benefit from this!
So, time to step off the edge into the unknown. Who can tell what we’ll encounter in preparation for this one? We will share our journey and would love to hear about yours!
