Slooooow Progress - bit of a whinge

[motherduckling]

So a while ago I decided to aim for a half marathon. And that is still my goal, but I have only been making really very slow progress. I am following a plan that is automatically scheduled by my Garmin App, and am on week 12 of 15, but still the furthest I have run is 13km. So Im not sure how I am supposed to make an extra 8km in 3 weeks - but I guess it knows what it is doing?

I am still also finding the long runs really hard. Partly because I know I put them off because it is such a big time commitment, and with the weather here at the moment I have to go either really early morning (which I am not a big fan of) or late evening when it is dark.

On a more positive note (that really turned into a huge whinge sorry!) I have done a couple of trail runs, which is a bit out of my comfort zone but really good too! And I am slowly building up my medal collection

[PurpleFish59]

I posted something similar with queries about the Garmin plan yesterday. My situation is slightly different as it isn’t my first half, and my longest run was just over 10 miles (2 hours at easy pace) but as the plan is time based that will vary for everyone depending on what your easy pace is. My concern was that that last long run seems to have been a long time ago! I’ve decided to stop stressing about it and just see how it goes, my race is now postponed so if it doesn’t go well on the day I can just mark it down as experience. If you don’t have an event and are just doing it as a personal goal I’d suggest give it a go, see how far you get. If you don’t make the whole distance, count it as a training run and continue to build up from there. Or perhaps you could try a run/walk strategy to lower the impact a bit?

I’m sure other more experienced people will be along to share advice but I hope some of that helps!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to PurpleFish59]

Are you both doing the adaptive plans with the coaches?

[PurpleFish59 in reply to roseabi]

Yes mine is the adaptive plan with coach Greg. Because it’s adaptive and you can’t see more than a week ahead I’ve sort of been expecting more long runs to appear but they haven’t for almost a month now 🤷🏻‍♀️

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to PurpleFish59]

I'm interested in these so I've signed up for one, although I may cancel it after a few weeks. Do you know what happens if a prescribed run is not done on the designated day?

As to why you both are not getting many long runs, have you been given any feedback about your progress so far? I can see that there is a 'Confidence' meter, but of course I have yet to receive anything else because I haven't done any runs yet 😊

[PurpleFish59 in reply to roseabi]

Initially if you miss a run it just rolls it over to the next day, unless there is already another one there in which case it stays in but is not marked completed. You can reschedule runs if you know you won’t be able to do it, or just delete them.

I skipped a couple around Christmas because I was busy doing other things, and the confidence dropped a bit, but I’ve been on the pink very high confidence zone since about week 3. Perhaps I should have picked a more ambitious target!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to PurpleFish59]

Oh great - thanks! I did do an adaptive plan (MyAsics) a few years ago, and it was possible to move runs around - but it was also possible to see the entire plan. I think it might be interesting to only be able to see one week ahead.

Hmm maybe you have peaked because your target was not ambitious enough! Is your HM Feb 28th?

[PurpleFish59 in reply to roseabi]

It’s was 28th Feb, it’s now 18th April. But I think I will run it anyway just to see if Greg’s confidence was misplaced 😂

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to PurpleFish59]

I was wondering if the plan had you tapering, but really that would be a bit early even for Feb 28th!

[motherduckling in reply to roseabi]

Yeah you can reschedule them beforehand (or on the day), but I skipped one and it sort of just disappeared into the abyss.... there dont seem to have been any consequences? But I think if you want to do it later you can find it through the menu on the watch itself.

[motherduckling in reply to PurpleFish59]

Yep this is exactly the same for me - even the same coach 😂 i worry he is not pushing me hard enough...

[linda9389 Administrator Marathon]

You're doing really well because you're sticking with it! I haven't tried an adaptive plan because I like to know exactly what's coming so I can juggle it round my other life!!! Having said that, many plans only take you to 16k for Half Marathon training on the basis that event day is full of magic and adrenaline to carry you the extra 5k. Some people will train that way every time. My personal preference is to get closer in training so that come event day I have confidence I can do it. Of course, that's in the good old days when events were still a thing!!! Now? as PurpleFish59 says you can treat every run as a training run and if you don't make the full 21.1 you will still be a step closer.

But when you do set out for that 21.1 run, do remember, lots and lots of people only train to 16k before running their first Half, the rest is magic 😊

[motherduckling in reply to linda9389]

Thanks! Yeah I think even getting to 16k in the next couple of weeks might be a bit of an ask.... but I have no event planned so it should be ok. I am pretty lucky to be in Australia at the moment so most of our events are still able to go ahead. So might look at booking one in at some point....

[Juliet202 Half Marathon]

Oh I’ll join you in whinging !!! I’m also on an HM Garmin plan with Jeff (jeffing it) on week 12 of 21 and tomorrow I’m supposed to do 19.31 km ie 12 miles. Eek. I’ve actually decided to pause it for a week, possibly longer, because my previous longest was 16k and I’ve done that twice now but it was hard !! Too hard !! And then on Monday I gave myself my first injury 🙁 - not too serious (I hope) something pulled in my calf and it’s much better already but I went out for a walk yesterday and tried a couple of short slow bursts (if that isn’t an oxymoron) and can tell it’s definitely not going to be 19k fit by tomorrow !! But if this plan is adaptive I don’t believe it’s adapted very well because the last 4 weeks I’ve been struggling - my first 16k left me with very sore ankles and I didn’t run for a week. I’’ve been postponing runs and even ‘walking’ them to avoid getting too behind but today I decided to pause it. Ho hum. So I reckon I made too quick progress and now slowing it down.