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My Training for 1:00:44


Hi, I'm Ayumu Kobayashi. Today I'm going to write about this year's National Corporate Half Marathon and the training I did for it. I hope other runners will find it even a little bit helpful. At the Corporate Half on Feb. 13 I was 10th in 1:00:44. My goal had been to run 61 minutes, so I hit that target.

My Training Menu

In January I ran a total of 681 km. Key workouts:
  • Jan. 11: 1000 m x 5 at 2:50/km
  • Jan. 12: 22.5 km
  • Jan. 15: 9 km variable pace
  • Jan. 17: 25 km
  • Jan. 24: 1000 m x 8 at 2:52/km
  • Jan. 27: 1 km + 4 km + 2 km
  • Jan. 30: 16 km at 3:18/km avg.
In January I was tired from the New Year Ekiden and had some knee pain after it, so I just jogged for 10 days until I started doing workouts again on the 11th. That's why I only ran 681 km for the month. But even on the jog days I was aware that I had the Corporate Half coming up, so I was doing around 30 km. It's pretty meat and potatoes, but I think it was really important.

February (training for the 10 days before the race)
  • Feb. 2: 11.7 km jog in 52 min, plus 5000 m x 2 in 14:34 / 14:31
  • Feb. 3: 22 km jog in 98 min
  • Feb. 4: 14 km jog in 67 min, plus 13.2 km jog in 66 min
  • Feb. 5: 11 km jog in 51 min, plus 12000 m in 38:49, 3:14/km avg.
  • Feb. 6: 16 km jog in 73 min
  • Feb. 7: 14.1 km jog in 68 min, plus 14 km jog in 67 min
  • Feb. 8: 18 km jog in 82 min
  • Feb. 9: 10 km jog in 47 min, plus 5000 m in 14:26
  • Feb. 10: 14.3 km jog in 67 min
  • Feb. 11: 10.5 km jog in 50 min, plus 10 km jog in 45 min
  • Feb. 12: 10 km jog in 46 min
  • Feb. 13: 4.3 km jog in 20 min, plus National Corporate Half in 1:00:44
Starting in the second half of January, I incorporate long intervals into my training specifically to build speed endurance. The Feb. 2 workout with 5000 m x2 around 14:30 felt easy, so I felt like I could go around 1:01:00. The pace in the jogs was mostly around 4:30~4:40/km. The focus there was doing them comfortably while concentrating on my form. I didn't think about the pace at all.

I think the most important thing in the final lead-up to the race is staying fresh, so the training load in the week before it was fairly light. That's really the only point where I was thinking in terms of tapering. I think not doing enough is better than overdoing it, so please look at my training plan in those terms. Most of this training was planned and done by myself and has nothing to do with what the rest of the team was doing.

About the race

In the Corporate Half I went through 15 km in 43:15 feeling easy, but it suddenly got harder at 16 km. I hung on and held 2:53~54/km from there to finish. The other people up front still seemed to be running easily after 15 km, so I felt like there was a pretty big difference from how much I still had left in me. I'm good at hanging on when it gets hard, but I understood that if I want to be able to be more competitive in the future then I need to be able to increase my ability to maintain comfort at speed.

In short, that's what I have to say about my prep for this half. I hope you find it useful. Thanks for reading.

source article:
translated by Brett Larner

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Comments

MICHAEL RIMICANS said…
Interesting account of your training, all the best for your next race!
October 8, 2022 at 8:17 AM
PSousa said…
I love this articles! This and the other "On making a National Record" are awesome! Thanks so much for your blog!
Regards from Portugal!

Paulo Sousa
October 19, 2023 at 7:09 PM
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