UKC

Does anyone have any interesting suggestions for group training sessions for half-marathon endurance? We've done a selection of reps and intervals and hills, and we've had the following suggestion:
10 mins easy, 10 mins medium, 10 mins hard, 8 mins easy, 8 mins medium, 8 mins hard, 6 mins warm-down.
The problem I have with that is that we have a group of runners of such widely varying speeds that even by the end of the first 10 easy minutes, there's a good chance there will be a very big gap from front to back. The usual strengths of our group sessions are the ability to work off other runners in close proximity, and the fact that we regroup after each rep, so no-one gets lost and totally left behind. If we do the suggested 10, 10, 10, 8, 8, 8, there's no chance to regroup and the head of the run will be a couple of miles ahead of the tail.
This is all part of a programme leading towards a half-marathon in mid-March.

In reply to tony:

I go to a training session where you run out and back for a set time so it doesn't matter if you are running faster than everyone else as if you are running at a fixed pace you should all get back to where you started from. We normally do a 3 or 5 min out 3 or 5 min back (6 or 10 min total) then gradually work down to one min sprints.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Thanks. We do something similar, but it's been a while since we did it. I like the idea of working down to shorter times.

In reply to tony:

Yeah thats basically it.. 2 miles east 4 miles tempo (HM pace) 2 miles easy

Or HM 30 seconds off HM pace.. quality hard sessions.

In reply to tony:

The times get shorter but your pace should increase.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


Finishing off with as much of a sprint as can be mustered.

In reply to tony:

Aye, it's a killer some days (they tend to mix it up a bit). It's certainly increased my fitness but at the detriment to my calves.

In reply to tony:

We did a couple of interesting group sessions last year. They were closer to interval pace than tempo, but could be adapted.

The first was a variation on Parlauf sessions. It involved marking two routes (one of about 500m, the other of about 800m - in our case two blocks on a quiet housing estate). People would be paired up in roughly equal pace, and one would go out at interval pace around the larger route, whilst the partner ran the shorter one. The idea was to get to the end of the loops at the same time, and then switch, so as to create a continuous relay, for 40mins or so of total running.

The other involved about a 400m circuit, and groups of three similarly paced people. One of the group would start off, and at the end of the lap a second person would join them. At the end of the next lap the first person would drop out, and the third person would start. This would carry on, again as a continuous relay of everyone running two laps before one lap off, until the time was up.

In reply to Liam M:

Thanks Liam, they sound interesting. Mind you, managing our lot on the second one might be a bit of a challenge. You could that as a variation on shuttles.

In reply to tony:
That sort of relay is called a parlauf, or at least it's similar ro one. How far can a team run in so many minutes. Bizarrely it's been in the olympics, about the same time as tug of war and cross country.

Given the disparate skills of the group circuits or loops are the only way you can make this work, especially as the weaker runners are going to struggle to do 40+ minutes of efforts. What else are you planning on doing per week as if this is there only interval session I can think of a lot better things to do. Are they very marathon focussed or really 10k-1/2 mar runners?

In reply to wbo:

This is the only structured session per week. Not ideal, but it's the best we can do given the wide range of other commitments that people have. Aside from this, most of them are running 3-4 times a week, over distances anywhere between 5 and 15 miles. It's leading towards a half-marathon, not a marathon.

In reply to tony:

I remember doing a good interval session with the uni orienteering club in a local park. It was intervals of laps of the park (I guess ~400-800m) with a set rest period (~1 min or so) but as the fast people were running the perimeter, any slower people just cut the corners accordingly (doing a smaller loop in the middle) so everybody arrived back at the start point at the same time.