Aspire, Perspire, Nourish Yourself

Want to achieve a personal best in your next half marathon? Time to shake up your training?

If you are an experienced runner looking to fine tune the last 6 weeks of your training, give our training plan a try. If you are new to running, then add 6 to 8 weeks of base training before using the plan. These extra weeks should focus on gradually developing a solid running base so that your body can handle the speed workouts and endurance runs in our 6-week plan. New runners, read our Running 101 blog post on ethicalDeal.com.

Plan Overview

©Kmitu

Before you sign up for this plan, please consider we’ve assumed that you are running regularly between 25 and 40 miles per week, with at least one run per week being 10 miles or longer. More importantly, we’ve assumed that you are healthy and injury free.

Key Components of Training

With a short 6 weeks to fine tune performance, the focus of this plan is on increasing speed, with two workouts per week for this goal. Additionally, one run per week is focused on endurance, and its length varies week to week.

In total, the plan outlines 4 days of running, 2 days of cross-training, 4 days of strength training, 1 day of rest. Of course, you can move the days around, as long as you give yourself enough rest time between hard workout days.

Okay, almost ready to show you the plan! Before we do, think about your time goal for the half marathon. What is that magical time you’d like to meet? This time will be important to calculate the speeds at which you will do your speed work. Hold that thought as we go through the plan.

The Plan

The chart below is an image of the 6 week training plan by day. To read the full plan, refer to the PDF, 6 Week Half Marathon Training.

Although we’ve designated Sundays as days of rest, you can switch days around to meet your needs. Remember to give your body enough rest between tough workouts, either by adding a day of rest or doing a lighter workout the day after a tough workout. If you’re feeling extra sluggish, ditch the cross-training for a day of rest.

Guide to the Workouts

©Charles Shapiro

Although experienced runners would know the difference between interval training, tempo runs, hills, and fartleks, we are including for less experienced runners a link to a Competitor article that explains 8 basic types of runs. We encourage all runners to also visit the McMillan Running website since it is an excellent resource for all levels of runners to learn about the science and practice of running.

The PDF copy of the 6 Week Half Marathon Training we have prepared explains as thoroughly as possible the instructions for each running workout. The cross training, weight training, and ab workouts are ones you’ll have to put together yourself. Squats and lunges do wonders for the leg and gluteal muscles, which are crucial for running. If you normally don’t do strength training, start slow. Having overall muscle strength is important because it will get you through the tough parts of your run.

Visit some of the workouts we’ve already featured on our blog posts for ideas. (Suggestion: go to our “search” box and type in ‘muscle’ or ‘fitness tips’ or ‘abdominals‘ or ‘workout jammer‘.) We’ll offer more weight training and cross training workouts in the future. We’ll also reorganize our blog site to make it easier to search on workouts!

What About Training Speeds?

As we mentioned earlier, you need to have a target finish time for the race to help establish the proper training paces. Ideally, you have completed a race in the last few months and have a good sense of a recent accomplishment so you can set a realistic race finish time for your upcoming race. Once you have a target finish time, you can use that to calculate your race pace. The speed workouts are performed at paces faster than your targeted time so that you get your body used to running faster. On race day, your pace time will feel easier – at least that’s what most runners hope!

The easiest way to calculate training paces is to use an online calculator that reputable running sites have kindly prepared. Our favorite is Greg McMillan’s at https://www.mcmillanrunning.com.

Sample Print of Training Paces from McMillan Running

Runner’s World also has a good calculator that provides key paces for training at http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/training-paces-calculator.

Sample screen shot of Runner’s World training paces calculations

If numbers scare you, just chill! These will start to make sense when you focus on the few paces you need for this plan, like your 5K, 10K, Half-Marathon, and 1 Mile paces. Runner’s World does not specify the above paces but refers to them based on the type of run, e.g. tempo, easy, speed, long run, etc. McMillan’s site has both for you.

So with those numbers in hand, give the plan a try. We suggest you print the PDF we’ve provided and make yourself familiar with what you need to do over the 6 weeks. If you have a hectic schedule, plan ahead each week so you don’t miss any workouts.

Tell us about your Success!

We want to know how you liked the plan and how you do on your race. Please email us a picture of you during your training or at the race. We’d love to post it for inspiration!

Lia is following this plan for her upcoming Hapalua Half Marathon on April 12th. Stay tuned for more info on her outcome. If you’d like to support her Race for SEEQS 2015 fundraiser, please visit:

https://www.crowdrise.com/raceforseeqs2015/fundraiser/liabosch.

Recipe of the Week: Homemade Granola

What Kind of Day are you Having?

©Ladykassie

Are you feeling happy or sad? Is it the kind of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” song day or simply a content day?

When I’m asked, “How’s your day?” I tend to think about how I’m feeling at the moment and answer based on that emotion. If I had a few extra moments to think about my day, I’m sure my answer would reflect a cornucopia of emotions. That’s not really what others want to hear. They’re not looking for your moment-by-moment playback of the ups and downs in your day! Instead, the polite answer is what our mind creates as it swiftly weighs the positives and negatives of the day, and gives an overall thumbs up or thumbs down.

Test Yourself

Do you think that your mind is accurate about the general emotional state of your day?

I was quite surprised when I took a Positivity Self Test several evenings in a row, as part of a course that I was taking on positive emotions. When I was honest with myself, it revealed that my day was not what I thought it had been.

©Dawn Hudson

The self test was developed by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a researcher, author, and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The test provides a “snapshot of how your emotions of the past day combine to create your positivity ratio.” Take the test for yourself and see how you do.

Dr. Fredrickson has written several books based on her 20+ years of research into positive psychology. Her books are what I call people-friendly (for the lay person) and talk about the importance of experiencing positive emotions as often as possible, and how to create more positive emotions in one’s life so that one can flourish. Positivity is one of her books, while the other is called Love 2.o.

Health and Emotions

©Ed Isaacs

Why pay attention to your emotions? One important reason is that your emotions affect your psychological and physical health. Yes, there is plenty of research that shows the link between well-being (positive emotional feelings) and physical health. The latest research goes further to say that our social connectedness with others is the important factor in creating better health. In particular, studies have been conducted measuring our ‘vagal tone’ and how that changes when exposed to emotions. The vagus nerve connects our heart muscle to our brain and regulates our heart rate. Positive social interactions influence our vagal tone, and thereby our heart rate, to create better health.

Other authorities on health have also researched and written about the healing power of the mind. Influenced by positive emotions, through the body-mind connection, we have powerful tools for enhancing our health. Read more about this in the book by Lissa Rankin, MD, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself.

Strategies for Increasing Reaping Benefits

There are several strategies that Dr. Fredrickson and her colleagues propose for increasing positive emotions and social connection to others. All of them aim to build awareness of positive emotions, which broadens your thinking about possibilities and actions. In other words, when you’re feeling good, the glass is half full rather than half empty. You think of more possibilities to work with.

©Pamela Hodson

Emotions have a spiraling effect, so you can choose to spiral upwards with positive ones or downwards with negative ones. As one becomes more adept at experiencing positive emotions, one becomes more resilient to negative experiences, and can turn them around into positive ones.

As far as enhancing social connection, even a smile can make a difference because it invites a smile back, and generates feelings of warmth among both people. A heartfelt thank you that focuses on the person you are thanking, not just on how their actions helped you, can also strengthen the social connection.

One concrete strategy Dr. Fredrickson discusses for enhancing social connectedness includes practicing Lovingkindness meditation. Here is one version of the meditation you can try out:

So Much More…

There is so much more to this theory about positive emotions and health. So, if you’re interested, dig in. Consider taking Dr. Fredrickson’s positive psychology course at Coursera.org.

As I think about what I’ve learned, there are two things that stand out in particular:

Emotions are micro-moments of experiences. They come and go faster than you can think about them.
Choose to be purposeful in your experiences of emotions. Just because you’re having a bad ‘micro-moment’ does not mean the next moment needs to be the same. Take charge of the feeling and switch it to a positive micro-moment.