Cutting back for Half training

sjohnny

In about a month I'm going to start training for a half marathon and am planning to cut my Stronglifts workouts down to twice a week at that point. I'm planning to do "A" on Mondays and "B" on Fridays. My main question is should I keep adding weight in the 5lb per workout increments (10lb for deads) or should I do something different? Any other thoughts on this would be appreciated as well.

Thanks!

lauleipop

I'm currently in the middle of training for a full (my first; I've run a half dozen half-marys and innumerable other distances). My long run will be 17 miles tomorrow. I'm going to continue to lift 3 days a week, increasing weights, until 6 weeks before my race, then maintain my level until after the race. I don't know what my zero week will look like. Possibly a lot like not lifting.

Part of your ability to do both will depend on where your conditioning is both lifting and running and how intense your training program is for the half. If you're working something similar to the Novice I or II from Hal Higdon, you will probably be fine with weight training in cohesion with running. Some of Higdon's plans include weight training, although I can't remember which.

I've found there's a balance to be struck with distance running and weight lifting. You may spend the first 2 or 3 weeks in half marathon training playing with that balance.

Best of luck to you in your half. It is by far my preferred distance. I'm not convinced I'm passionate about the full marathon distance.

sjohnny

Thanks. This will be my first half and I'm going to use Galloway's Time Goal plan(but without the walk breaks). I looked at Higdon's and several others but Galloway's worked best with my current schedule. I've already cut my squats down to 3x5 as with my current runnIng schedule my legs were getting too fatigued. I'm still new to running (started a couch to 5k type program in November) and have only been lifting for about 8 weeks so I was thinking it would be wise to shift my focus to the running until after the races I'm planning to run. I'm going to keep lifting at a lower volume and then hit it hard again in the spring.

Good luck in your full. I still don't have a desire to run that distance but I would like to have run one. If that makes sense.

jfan175

If the running is important to you, focus on the running and do your best to maintain your strength gains. I'd keep adding weight until the marathon training starts, though.

sjohnny

I'm definitely still adding weight each workout right now. And at this point I'm thinking I'll keep doing that until I get about 2 or 3 weeks out from the race.