2 Sprints in the midst of HM training - Long runs advice

If the long runs are endurance runs (mostly slow) and you treat the Sprints as training days, you should be fine running on Friday.  If it takes you more than a day to recover from a long run, you might want to move them to Thursday.

It really depends on your base. If you're going to dink around and only run about 20 miles/week, then a 10 miler likely is going to wear you down enough to negatively impact the sprints. If you build to about 40 miles/week and hold at that level for a couple months, a 10 miler likely won't be such a big deal.

FWIW, the week of my last HM I ran 60 miles. The race was 13.1 of that, so I ran about 47 miles the other days. PRed by more than 2 minutes. The 4 weeks preceding the race were 80, 81, 71, & 75 miles. That kind of base made the race much easier.

I'm all ears.  But, I don't think I have the TIME (not free time....time, in general) to build that kind of base.  I'm currently at 16-16mi/wk and I don't want to exceed the 10% too much.  Throw in the fact I need to have the long runs.....and I am where I am.

Am I looking at this all wrong?  If there's a better way, starting from where I am right now, I'm all ears.  And, I'd appreciate the input! 

Thanks, so much.

jeff

I hovered around 20 miles a week in the weeks leading up to my half marathon, which included a sprint tri the week before the half on a Saturday and I did my long run of 8 miles the next day on Sunday.  I guess your race is on a Sunday, but even so, if I were you I'd probably run the 10 miles following the sprint, maybe in the afternoon/evening or something... or I'd run it earlier in the week... Any way you can shift your runs to do your long run earlier in the week?  Personally, especially with my base not being all there, I wouldn't be running 10 miles 2 days before any race... but that's just me.

I'll be training for another half marathon and have some sprints scheduled and intend on doing my long runs 4-5 days before the race... although I guess it does help that the races will be on Wednesdays.

OK. my first HM was in September 2002. It was my second year of running and tris. That summer I had done 6 sprints and 1 oly. The final sprint was a week before the HM and I won my AG to give an idea of how hard I raced. I didn't really follow a plan for the HM, just gradually increased my long runs over the course of the summer. I was only running around 25 miles/week back then. The HM was on a very hilly course at the Air Force Academy at around 7000 feet. I think I did a couple 10 milers and one 13 miler in training. The HM was not a goal race and I ended up running around 1:56.

Since your HM isn't until October, you still have time to build to at least 30 miles/week and hold for a few weeks. Using Scout's standard advice - run lots, most easy, sometimes hard - you should do the bulk of your running at an easy pace and maybe only a total of 3-5 miles/week out of 30 at a hard effort. For HM training I like mile repeats at 5K pace. So do your 10 milers easy, that should make it possible to have a decent sprint race. Mid week, do the repeats. Take about 3 minutes between each one. On your other running days do 4-6 miles at an easy pace. If you run 3-4 days/week that will give you in the area of 20-25 miles/week.

As you continue progressing over the next few years you may be able to build to 35-40 miles/week and hold it.