Back to back half marathons
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apreimer2
Posts: 15 Member
I am toying around with doing a back to back half marathon challenge next spring (one on Saturday, one on Sunday). Has anyone had experience doing this? Any special considerations when training?
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Haven't done 2 halfs back to back, but my advice would be to run them both as long, easy runs, just because that's quite a bit of mileage to put on two days in a row....unless you're like some of our marathoners on here.....0
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Have you run a Half Marathon before? If so, you've got a pretty good idea what it entails and you probably don't need us. If you haven't, I'd suggest a full Marathon training schedule, running the race over two days. That's my best guess. And it is just a guess.0
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Closest I came was this past weekend (10K and HM on consecutive days), but I'm on a marathon training schedule so I ran both very precisely and with a purpose. I'm with @pondee629 on this; use a marathon training schedule AND know that the second race will suffer if you go all out on the first one.
I have run two marathons on back-to-back weekends. Hit the wall on the first one but finished okay, PR'd the second one...go figure.0 -
I am in the same situation as you. Two halfs in two days. I have just completed my third marathon and ran 7 halfs this year. I will take the first one as my "serious" one and the second as a slow recovery run. The reason why I signed up for both: the first one is great for a new personal best time while the second one is a lot of fun. I agree with the above: being on a marathon training plan is certainly helpful.0
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A little more context: I have run 4 halfs and have one coming up in a few weeks. I finished my first marathon this spring, so I've covered the distance in one day, so I can picture what doing it split over two days might be like. It sounds like pushing the mileage up to marathon training levels sounds like a good idea.
The Saturday half is the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon, which is a ton of fun and I'm hoping to run it with my brother (his first), so I won't be trying to set any PRs. The second is Kalamazoo, which is a bit hilly, so probably won't be pushing it too hard on that one either. It seems like a fun challenge though, especially since I'm not ready to push for another full marathon at this point.1 -
with that context, I say just go for it!0
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A little more context: I have run 4 halfs and have one coming up in a few weeks. I finished my first marathon this spring, so I've covered the distance in one day, so I can picture what doing it split over two days might be like. It sounds like pushing the mileage up to marathon training levels sounds like a good idea.
The Saturday half is the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon, which is a ton of fun and I'm hoping to run it with my brother (his first), so I won't be trying to set any PRs. The second is Kalamazoo, which is a bit hilly, so probably won't be pushing it too hard on that one either. It seems like a fun challenge though, especially since I'm not ready to push for another full marathon at this point.MNLittleFinn wrote: »with that context, I say just go for it!
Sure, you know what you would be in store for, go for it, what could possibly go wrong? ;-) Sounds like you've got a good frame of mind for the adventure.0 -
A little more context: I have run 4 halfs and have one coming up in a few weeks. I finished my first marathon this spring, so I've covered the distance in one day, so I can picture what doing it split over two days might be like. It sounds like pushing the mileage up to marathon training levels sounds like a good idea.
The Saturday half is the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon, which is a ton of fun and I'm hoping to run it with my brother (his first), so I won't be trying to set any PRs. The second is Kalamazoo, which is a bit hilly, so probably won't be pushing it too hard on that one either. It seems like a fun challenge though, especially since I'm not ready to push for another full marathon at this point.
I have not done this, but I was impressed when my sister did. She found an event billed as a "Double Half Mary," a half on Saturday and a half on Sunday. She ran them both easy, but she tells me that some runners used the event as training for a marathon. No, I don't know the pace strategy used for treating it as a training event.
FWIW, my sister has yet to run her first marathon; but she survived the Double Half Mary just fine.0 -
Earlier in the year I did a Saturday afternoon trail 10K, a Saturday night trail 10K and a trail half on the Sunday morning.
As you highlight, it's a bit like a full. What did find was that my fueling and hydration strategy went all to pot, probably not helped by a big fish and chips and pint of cider at midnight after the second 10K.
At about 11 miles in the half I hit the wall, and struggle for about a mile. Probably a combination of things, as I'd run both 10Ks at faster than planned pace. Not quite my 10K pace, but closer to that than my HM pace.
Biggest lesson for me was to manage my pacing better.
fwiw I've got two next season, with a 12 hour, followed by a 10K and a half in quick succession, then later in the year a 12 hour followed by a marathon the following morning.
Pacing seemed to be the key0
