RTTC #206 How to Run A Faster Half Marathon As a Slow runDisney Runner

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali breaks down how slow, back-of-the-pack runDisney runners can actually get faster in the half marathon without exhausting themselves or overtraining. 

She explains why the build phase, not race training, is where speed is developed, and why most runners stay stuck by running in the “gray zone” without clear pacing strategy. 

Dr. Ali emphasizes that speed workouts should become the priority, while long runs stay short and easy to support recovery and consistency. 

She walks through how to properly test and define your easy, moderate, and hard paces so every run has a purpose, helping you push beyond your current limits in a strategic way. 

Instead of guessing or comparing yourself to faster runners online, she shows how using your own data leads to consistent progress… with many runners improving by up to a minute per mile in just six weeks.

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

Ready to cross the finish line stronger, faster, and prouder at your next runDisney race? 

Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack or injury-prone runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

Free Resources

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about how to run a faster half marathon as a slow Run Disney runner. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for injury-prone Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong without feeling broken or held together with KT tape as they cross the finish line. So I've been getting this question a lot lately and all race distances, but I will say that the most common one lately is somebody asking about half marathon specifically. So I'm talking about that today. I probably talked about it last week too. But it's important. And there are thousands of runners running Run Disney races. I don't know how many of you are 13, 14, 15, 16 plus minute per mile paces. I don't know that information. But what I do know is those are the runners that are asking me these questions. And they're looking to get faster, to have a better finishing time, to have more time for character stops, overall enjoy the process more, not have to look over their shoulder and be worrying about the balloon ladies. Now, of course, the balloon ladies, and actually, I have learned balloon people, there are some men, or at least one man who has done at least one race. And they are incredibly kind people. I haven't met them, but the information I hear is they are incredibly kind. I have nothing against that crew, right? The term is what people know as to be the representation for the sweep line. And that's how I put it. It's the visual representation of the sweep line. If you fall behind this group, then the sweep team, which is actually Run Disney race cyclists, they are the ones that actually sweep you. However, the purpose of the balloon team is that they are the visual representation. So I have, I have nothing against that balloon crew. Nothing against them. They are the visual representation. And that's what Run Disney runners know as I need to stay ahead of these people. So that's why we talk about it that way. You know, I get so many comments on my videos. It's wild. So I have had a new experience in the past probably five months. It's mainly been since October. I have grown my following on Instagram so fast. I was at, I remember I wanted to be at 2,000 followers by the end of Wine and Dine weekend. I'm at 7,600 in change right now in March of 2026. So Wine and Dine 2025, I wanted to be at 2,000 by the end of the weekend. And now I've, you know, essentially forexed that. And with that has come a lot of viral moments. And if you joined this um world, if you joined this world from following me on Instagram, welcome. Thank you so much. You are helping me get the information out there so more slow, back of the pack, or injury-prone Run Disney runners can successfully cross the finish line because that's what I'm here to help you do. And so I have had one reel go absolutely crazy viral. It's at 2.3 million views right now. A lot of those views are from Facebook. And if you aren't in like the social media content creator crowd, each platform is wildly different. The people, the kind of comments I get on Facebook are very different from the kind of comments I get on Instagram. I have no idea why. It is what it is. And I am on Instagram. My posts go to Facebook automatically from Instagram. So if you've ever messaged me on Facebook and did not hear back, I'm so sorry. I did miss it. Um, including comments. And I'm trying to be better about it. Uh, it it is a work in progress. And I will say, if you reply to my story on Dr. AlleyPT, which is my connected Facebook page, if you've replied to my story, I can't see what you're replying to. It is so weird. In Instagram, I can see the a screenshot of which story you've replied to. On Facebook, I can't see that. All I can see is a little reply arrow that you've replied to something. I cannot see what you've replied to. So somebody a couple of weeks ago, um days ago, I don't even know anymore. But they replied, like, so glad that you bring this to your audience's attention. It's so important to know. I have no idea what they were referring to. Not a clue. Not a clue. And I actually saw that. I don't know why I thought of this because I saw it within the 24-hour period. So the story was still up and I could not figure out what thing I said was what prompted that response. Thank you so much for engaging with my content, but I have no idea what you were talking about. And that's okay. That's okay. Um, just know that if you are going to send me a message from Facebook or Instagram and you're on Instagram, just head over to Instagram. I I will see it there. I am getting a little bit slower on DMs. I'm getting probably about 25 DMs a day. Um, just people asking questions. It's it's a it's it's a good problem to have, but it's a new problem for me. And so I'm learning to manage that. This is real life, people. I I keep it real here. I will let you know I am a one-woman show on this end. You email me, it's me responding. You DM me on Instagram, it's me responding. You make a comment on something, it's me responding, with the exception of I have set up ManyChat, which is a robot that auto sends things. I learned that very quickly in uh November. I did a workshop and I got 200 registrants. Before that workshop, I was replying individually to everybody. And Instagram actually, Instagram and Facebook, they don't let you reply so many times in a row with the same type of answer. You actually have to slow it down or they block you from being able to message for like 24 hours. And I made that mistake again last week, two weeks ago, where um I had this paid workshop, how to get out of choralgy, how Run Disney Runners get out of choral G. And I did like a little teaser to see if people wanted it. Friend, they did because a hundred people commented on that Instagram reel, just that one. And when it was ready, I had to respond to people. I couldn't use the robot and it shut down my DMs. I couldn't respond. Um, so it was March 10th that I got shut down and I couldn't respond for 12 to 24 hours later. I don't remember when I got it back, but I couldn't receive DMs and I couldn't send them. So I will be using the robot for sure from now on. And so if you ever get something that looks like a robot sent it, you you may have, well, you've either commented on something on my Instagram, which is great. You know, I will say, like, comment the little runner emoji or something like that, and you get a response. Or if you DM me something and it's my keyword, it automatically sends it out. So if you say something like the phrase choral G, it will automatically send the information about last week's um registration. And so please, please, please know if that happens. I'm not, I'm not trying to spam you that if you use the keyword, I'm trying to use phrases that I don't that are relevant, but I don't think people are using in everyday vernacular and everyday practice. I am clearly wrong. Um, I will try to adjust it, uh, think of some better ones. But yeah, it's thank you so much for coming along on this journey. And I do know that more runners are listening to this podcast because my I get a weekly update and my listening has gone up so like four X'd as well. I used to get like 200 downloads a week. Now I'm getting actually yeah, I'm a little bit more than 4X. Um, about almost 900 a week. So thank you so much for being here. And um, I will get into how to get faster in the half marathon in a a quick second. I also am, I am not the best personally at doing strength training. I am very open about that. I don't like it. I don't like being sore. And I think I have some, for lack of better term, like, well, I guess just bad experiences from strength training when I was younger. I have now since learned I am a hypermobile human and strength training the way coaches used to have me do, like gymnastics, soccer, other sports coaches had me do, it was not right for my body. And I have internalized that just strength training is not good for my body in that way. And that's not the case. I know that they just they they they skipped steps. Now that I know what I know, being a physical therapist, going through personal training certification. I literally did personal training certification after I became a physical therapist because I felt like my strength training teaching and courses in physical therapy school, it was a thousand percent rehab based, right? And it it should be. It should be. However, because I didn't know the intermediate steps, like I knew the beginning, the rehab, and I knew the end of what sports uh strength and conditioning looked like. I didn't know the in-between. I didn't know how to bridge that gap. I became a personal trainer and I learned more about how to bridge that gap. And now, even as the years have gone on, things that I've done, I'm learned to bridge the gap even more. But I also just signed up with a strength training coach because I a couple of weeks ago, my husband had a procedure and he couldn't, he had lifting restrictions. He couldn't lift more than about the uh uh eight pounds, so about a gallon of milk for 10 days. And we traveled for that health care. And traveling back, I was in charge of lifting all of the suitcases. And our checked bag was 50 pounds, and our carry-on bags were also very heavy from just things that we we had brought. And normally he handles that. And that was very eye-opening for me. It was hard. Like I could lift the 50-pound bag onto the scale to do checked baggage. Like, I mean, I was going up what, four inches. I I handled it. But lifting that suit, two suitcases up overhead into the overhead bin in the at in the plane, I was like, ooh, there's no way I could do this on a regular basis. And we we do travel a fair amount, and we do travel for his health care a fair amount. So the chances of him not being able to lift those heavy bags in the future is very likely. So here we are, signed up for a strength coach, gonna do that for the next um, it's 10 weeks. It just started this past Monday, and life has already gotten lifey. I did three workouts in the first two weeks. I got like a pre, I signed up through the week wait list. So I got um two weeks ahead of when it actually started. And so I did three of those six, so 50%, not too bad. Um, and then so far this week, it has not happened. We got stuck in the worst blizzard that Rochester, Minnesota has had in seven years, apparently. We were supposed to travel on Saturday, then we were supposed to travel on Sunday, then we were supposed to travel on Monday, then I got moved to Tuesday, and then we found a flight back on Monday, but it left at like 11, 10 or 11 p.m. Monday night, got home to Vegas just after midnight, got into our house at like 1 a.m. And I'm one of those people that needs at least eight hours of sleep. Like we go to bed at eight o'clock every night. So if you're texting me, sending me a DM, seeing, sending me a Voxer after that, don't worry about it. Please still send it. My phone is definitely on do not disturb, but know that I am asleep. But we also wake up at anywhere between five and six in the morning. So let's call it 5:30 in the morning. Most days, some days even 4:30 to like get going. But getting in at one and then waking up at six, and apparently Royal had zero space to sleep because Levi got in his skin with him. And yeah, so strength training just didn't happen yesterday. But the here's part of the story. Yesterday, I cleared out our garage. We have this massive garage in this new house. We we don't really care about the size of the garage. We wanted the floor plan of the house. It is a new build. We wanted the floor plan of the house because it has like an in-law suite that has a separate entrance. And Royal uses that for his work. And he has his employees come. He owns his own business. He has about 15 employees and they'll come to us because he is not permitted to drive due to his health care, um, his health concerns. So now I don't need to drive him to and from work every day. But we loved the floor plan. And with the floor plan, oh my God, this garage, people, oh my God. It is an RV-sized garage. You can literally fit an oversized RV in it. It has, um, if you didn't have an RV in it, you could fit, I think it's five regular, like mid-size SUVs. It is massive. So we can fit two vehicles. We have one large SUV and what we have one medium SUV. And then we have like a storage rack, and then I have a whole bay, essentially, for my workout area. So I have we have a Pilates reformer for Royal. We have, I've used it a handful of times. Um, it just I thought it was going to be enough for what I need for strength training, and I haven't been able to figure it out. Maybe somebody who does Pilates is listening to this and like, oh, you just need to do this, that, or the other. Buy these elastic bands to swap them out. I don't know. I did all of the research. I tried to figure it out, I couldn't figure it out. Anyway, I have my treadmill, I have a couple of dumbbells, and then I'm buying, I bought, buying, half bought, this new strength um machine. And I will share this information with you. I will take videos of them setting up and me using it and everything, but it has a leg press attachment and then it's a multi-gym system. So it's like one of those um like bow flex machine type things. It has a weight stack and you can do chest press, leg extension, ham curl, um rows, lat pull down, all sorts of stuff. I think they said that you can do 50 plus exercises on it. So I'm very excited about it. I really do like using machines when I go to the gym. I don't like going to the gym. I like running by myself. I like strength training by myself, and I can't, if you followed my Instagram from over the weekend or from earlier this week when I traveled, I also have an intense sense of smell. And I cannot handle the people who show up to the gym wearing perfume. Even if it's like relatively light, I cannot handle it. Makes me super nauseous, gives me a headache, and then I can't I can't work out. And I start getting angry about it. And it's not their fault. Like they, you do you boo-boo, like that's fine, but I know me. Like I am not, I'm going to get up off the machine and I'm just gonna go home. And that doesn't make me stronger. And then it puts me in a bad mood because I I kind of get mad at myself, like, just buy your own equipment. I've thought this for years. And then my last community that we lived at had a gym and I would go there, and it was fine. I just am no longer part of that community, so I can't access that gym anymore. So here we are. It's Inspire by Center, C-E-N-T-R, and it's Inspire. I'm buying the M2 multi-gym and I'm buying it through Costco. And I only learned about it through my research with Costco. I love Costco, and they will do white glove delivery. And so that means they will deliver it, they will put it where I want it, and they will assemble it for me. That is the key because I do not want to assemble it. I am not handy. Um, and Royal can't assemble it. He has too much going on with his work. And then normally I would have my sister assemble it, but we just sent her back home. She was here for a week watching Levi while we were gone. And I needed to be here for when it was delivered. So I couldn't, couldn't have her stay. Um, she definitely would have stayed, and she definitely would have put it together, which would have been so nice of her. And she is super handy. Thank God. Um, but yeah, so I cleaned the gym yesterday. Oh, I'm calling it a gym now. I cleaned out the garage, made space for that gym equipment with the leg press attachment and all of that. Moved the Pilates reformer. So I have the Pilates reformer, then the treadmill, and the weight machine stuff, and have it all set up so it's nice and clear. And then I went above and beyond, and there was other stuff that needed to be cleared out. And so I just kept doing that. I started putting more stuff away, and it's, you know, been five months since we've lived in this house. And we've just been slowly whittling away at what is in the garage and making room. Like we literally couldn't put our two vehicles in this RV-sized garage because it was just the holding space for a bunch of stuff. Stuff that needed to get donated, stuff that needed to just get put away that hadn't been put away yet. And it's finally all coming together. And if you've ever seen me in my house, like videos, pictures, I mean, you can see on my screen right now, like we keep things very clean, orderly, nothing's on the counter. So just having an overfilled, oversized garage made it really anxiety-inducing for me. So now the workout space is very much me and should be much more enjoyable. So I will be able to get stronger and continue working on my treadmill and getting faster, which leads me into today, now 20 minutes later. Thank you so much for listening to me ramble for a hot minute. But actually, I should say I'm getting feedback that you like listening to these updates. So I'm happy to share them. Sometimes I forget. So, how to get faster for your half marathon? So the first thing that we need to look at is is this your first time running? Like, are you starting from zero or are you relatively seasoned? Like, is this gonna be your second, third, fourth half marathon, or even 50th half marathon? Because these are two different answers. So I am going to talk about somebody who has done half marathons in the past. I am not going to talk about starting from zero today. If you would like me to talk about that, if there is a need for it, send me a DM, run Disney DPT, over on Instagram and ask to ask me to make a podcast episode about that. I'm happy to do it. I want to make sure that the information I am sharing is what you want to hear. And the best way to know that is by you asking the question. Like, hey, do you have a podcast episode about this or can you make a podcast episode about this? Send me a DM. So for somebody who has done half marathons in the past, what I want you to do is I want you to make sure first and foremost that you aren't taking too much of a break from training. A solid break from your last half marathon is two, maybe three weeks if you didn't get injured. Now, injured, I mean like roll your ankle, twist your knee, um, have something happen that makes it so that you can't walk. I'm not talking like I'm really sore from my half marathon. That's okay. That is to be expected. You've just done a really hard thing. I know I talk about not feeling broken when you cross the finish line. You may be sore, a little sore, like, oh, my body did a lot yesterday. It did. It did. But that should go away. That soreness should go away within 48 to 72 hours. That's three days, friend. And then you rest and recover with my designated uh, my designated rest and recovery plan with walking and then getting back into easy runs over the course of 10 to 14 days. That's That's the kind of break from running I'm talking about. If you're taking longer than two weeks, maybe three weeks, you need to start from zero and this episode no longer applies to you. Please still listen to it so you know for the future what to do. But this is for somebody who did not take a break and can continue going straight into getting faster. Okay. So I say that because you've heard me talk about training, not training up to race distance. And I did a whole podcast episode about that, not going the whole distance. When is it appropriate to go the whole distance? That was actually just episode 205, the episode before this. Go listen to that one. Um but you typically in the training phase, not typically, always in the training phase, I recommend going to race distance and not higher than that. For somebody who wants to get faster, you may consider going and training to race distance before training. So in the build phase. So if you are new, I have five phases to a successful running journey. You have the training phase where you're actively training for your race. So as an example, wine and dine half marathon training starts June 15th. That is when you are actively training for wine and dine, and it takes you all the way up to and through race day. Because my training plans include that two-week rest and recovery. And so you have that training phase. The training phase goes up until your peak long run. So for a half marathon race distance, that's 10 miles. That 10 miler starts the taper phase. The taper phase is the two to three, depending on what race distance you're doing, two to three weeks before race day. Okay, two to three weeks before race day. Race phase is the whole week leading up to your race. So if your race is on a Sunday, that race week starts that previous Sunday or Monday, depending on what you consider a week. Okay. That's race. After the race, as soon as you cross the finish line, you are now in rest and recovery phase. And that lasts two to three weeks, depending on what race distance you did. And then after that two to three weeks starts the build phase. The build phase can be any length of time, and it lasts for the length of time between your rest and recovery phase and before you start training for your next race. So, as an example, if you did Princess Weekend, that half marathon was March 1st, then you did rest and recovery. And this past Sunday started your build phase because let's say that was your last race of the season and your next one is wine and dime. Your build phase, you are in build phase right now. But you can't be in build phase if you're still training for races. You go straight from rest and recovery to training, or you go from rest and recovery to taper. Like in um dopey in January, going from Dopey to Disneyland Half Marathon weekend, you went pretty much straight from rest and recovery from dopey to taper for Disneyland Half Marathon weekend in that month. So you can skip phases. And then if you're constantly training, always, always, always have a race on the schedule. You don't have a build phase. So this doesn't work very well. I mean, maybe it can work. I don't see it working very well for most runners. It can take some strategy and manipulation. So what you want to do is you've taken that two weeks rest and recovery, and then you start into the build phase. And what you want to do is when you're in the build phase, when you haven't stopped training, in order to get faster, what you want to do is you want to focus on getting faster. So that means, right? Well, I've talked about running with purpose. This is a new way of discussing things. I've talked about it for a while, but uh there has been more clarity in how I'm expressing how this goes. So running with purpose. Every run, like every run workout has a purpose, and every pace has a purpose. So what is your purpose? And that is based on what is your priority. So if you want to get faster and you're in the build phase, that's the priority, getting faster. So when that's the priority between short speed workouts to get faster and long, easy runs to build endurance, which one is the priority? Based on those two descriptions, which one do you think is the priority? You want to get faster. So the priority is speed workouts. I recommend for slow back the pack Run Disney runners, speed workouts are short. And I'm not talking like five minutes, I'm talking 45 to 60 minutes. Building up to that 60 when you really have the priority of getting faster. So if you've been doing the 30, 20, 10, the progression, the hills, and the tempo runs at 45 minutes, now's the time to progressively increase those to get up to 60 minutes. I don't think you need to go beyond 60 minutes because what you're doing in the speed workouts will translate to your long runs and your easy runs, which are synonymous. I'm just saying the two phrases because people think of them differently. But your long run is an easy run and your easy run is a long run. Okay. So building up to getting to 60 minute speed workouts at a time. So that's adding five minutes each time you do one of the four. And actually, the hill workout, you don't need to add more time. Nobody needs to, unless you're a masochist, nobody needs to be sprinting up hills for 60 minutes. That sounds miserable. But the other three, 30, 20, 10, progression tempo, let's go from 45 minutes to 60 minutes. So that means if you're rotating between those four, you're doing each one again every two weeks, every other week. So it's going to take you to get from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, it's going to take you two months because you're going to do a 30, 20, 10 on Tuesday, you're going to do a progression on Thursday, a hill on Tuesday, and a tempo on Thursday. And each of those is going to be 45 minutes, those first time you do them. Then the next time you do them, they can be 50 minutes. So a 50 minute, 30, 20, 10, a 50 minute progression, still a 45 minute hill because we don't need to go longer, and then a 50-minute tempo. And now we're a month in and we're only at 50 minutes. And then the next time you do them, make it 55 minutes. And then the next time you do that after that, it's 60 minutes. And that has taken two months. Okay. That has taken two months. With the long run, keep it simple. What is a distance that you're like, okay, that's a solid distance. I'm going to feel like I got a workout. Like I'm going to feel like I did something. What distance is that for you? Some of my runners, it's a 5K. Some of my runners, it's five miles. For me, it's an hour. An hour of a long run is like, okay, that was solid. That was great. And it wasn't overwhelming. It's not, I'm dreading, oh my God, I can't believe I have to go do 10 miles and I have to do these two other 55 minute speed workouts in the week. Oh, God, how am I ever going to get this done? We don't want that. That breaks consistency and you lose motivation that way. So now you're second guessing yourself. Why am I doing this? Can I even do this? Oh, why did I sign up? No, no, we don't want that. We don't want that. So make it something where you're like, okay, you know, if your long run pace is 15 minutes per mile and you're like, okay, an hour, that's four miles. Great. Perfect. Sounds wonderful. And you just keep your long run roughly four miles. It doesn't have to be exactly, right? Like you could do three one day and then four the next week and then five the next week, and then back down to four, and then maybe up to six and then down to three. And you kind of just cycle through to maintain a long run endurance distance and endurance stamina, so that when it's time to hop into your training plan, you're ready to go. Because the training plan, since you're following my training plans, right? Those start at a 5K distance for anything longer than a 5K. So if you're doing a 10K, a 10 mile or half marathon like what we're talking about, that starts at a 5K. So you just need to maintain that distance to be able to hop right into training. But I don't want you to be training, training, training, training if it's going to cause you dread, which will make you inconsistent and you will lose motivation. And then you're going to have to start from zero on June 15th when you start training for wine and dine. And then you're going to be even slower. So maintain long run, focus on speed workouts. Now, what pace do you run for your speed workouts? You need to test your pace. You need to. If you don't know your upper and your lower limits, you aren't going to get faster. So that's the biggest problem I see. The number one mistake I see Run Disney runners making is they go out willy-nilly and just see what they can do. I'm going to go sprint and I'm just going to see how fast it is. That will keep you stuck where you are, or you will get slower because you're running in the gray zone. You're not running with purpose and you're like your workout doesn't have a purpose, right? You just willy-nilly said, let's just go see what I can do. There's no purpose there. And your pace doesn't have a purpose. Again, you're seeing willy-nilly, what can I do? You aren't specific and strategic with your pace. And that means you're running in the gray zone. And the gray zone does not get you faster because you end up running too fast to recover, and you end up running too slow to actually get faster. So keep your easy runs easy so that you can recover, and you're keeping your long runs short so that you can recover. So that's a double recovery part there. And then on your speed workouts, you need to be hitting and going beyond your upper limits. But what are my upper limits, Allie? Great question. I'm so glad you asked. You have to find your upper limits. And you have to find your lower limits. That one's usually a little bit easier because worst comes to worst, just walk. If you don't know for sure what your lower limit is and you're in the build phase, walk. Walk your long run. Just keep the time on your feet there. Okay. I do, I do recommend you find your lower limits, but worst comes to worst, just walk. Finding your upper limits, you need to pace test. You need to test it out. And so I have come up with a specific way for slow Run Disney runners who do run walk intervals to find what those paces are so that you can actually go above and beyond them, right? Because some days you're going to be running and you're like, oh my God, this is the hardest run I've ever done. I am sweating buckets. My heart rate is through the roof. I am exhausted. I must be flying. And then you look at your paces afterward and you're like, oh my God, I'm slower than I was last week. What the heck? And then some days you're like, oh my God, that was a breeze. I can't believe how easy that was. I must have been going so slow. And you're faster. What gives? The inconsistency. If you have felt that like over time very regularly, you're running in the gray zone because you have no concept of what pace you're doing. And so what happens is some days the slower run feels hard, and some days the faster run feels easy. You can't get faster because you're never going beyond those upper limits. Because when you feel like you're going beyond those upper limits, sometimes you're actually slower, right? Like we we've just established that. So we need baseline numbers. Here's what my absolute pushing it hard pace is. Here's my absolute laxadaisical, the easiest run I could ever do in my life. That's my easy pace. And then we also find the moderate pace because we can't always just start at hard, right? Like that's the hard pace for a reason. And we can't just start there every time and try and go faster and faster and faster because that's already our upper limit. So if we're trying to, let's say, as an example, I've had runners who say, Well, I found my hard pace and it's eight minutes per mile. And I can do that for 30 seconds because I do a 30-30 run walk interval. Now I'm just trying to go that hard pace for one minute. Friend, that's literally doubling the amount of time you're trying to push your absolute hardest pace that you could only maintain for 30 seconds. The math ain't mathing. It's not going to work. You're going to exhaust yourself. So I find the moderate pace. So when you have to go 30 seconds or longer for prolonged time, you start at your moderate pace because now you can progressively do that and hit those upper limits. And then you know your hard pace, and you can do those for the shorter ones, like the 30, 20, 10, 30 seconds of pace one, 20 seconds of pace two, 10 seconds of pace three. Pace three starts 0.1 mile per hour faster than your hard pace. And you should be able to do it because your hard pace is what you can maintain for that 30 second running interval. So 10 seconds, the chances are that you can hold 0.1 mile per hour faster than that for that workout. And that one, the 30, 20, 10, that one's not getting faster, faster, faster throughout that one workout. The three paces stay the same, right? So this is how you get out of the gray zone, but you have to know your numbers first because how are you going to go beyond your upper limits if you don't know what your upper limit is? And that's where the pace testing comes in. And then, you know, one thing I want to point out is many runners will hear me say this and they'll say, Allie, like I am running slow, and they're comparing it to other runners on the internet. They're seeing other runners on Instagram. Now, please remember, Instagram is somebody's highlight reel. They're only showing you the good stuff. Even if they say they're showing you all of the bad stuff, they're not. I'm not showing you all of the bad stuff for me, whatever that may be, right? Like, I don't need to, you don't air your dirty laundry on the internet, right? And you don't necessarily air things that you're incredibly not proud of. So please remember that I that, so please remember that these other runners, they're showing you your their highlight reel. Now, some of them are showing you like they're easy paces, but they don't look easy to you. And they don't look easy to me. I know that they're easy because to be frank, I have taken screenshots over and over and over again of these people of their Instagrams so that I can make this point. So I did a workshop last week, and in it, I shared three screenshots from two separate people. One, it says that they ran 11 miles at a 10, 18 per mile pace. The other were from the same person, 20 miles at seven minutes and 22 minutes per mile pace and seven miles at eight minutes and 23 seconds per mile pace. When you are a slow back of the pack runner, three to 16 plus minutes per mile, those are fast. Those are fast. Like I'm over here running 14 minutes per mile. My 14 minute per mile compared to those is slow. I am going slow. I couldn't hit those numbers, those paces in my wildest dreams for that amount of time. So we start thinking that everybody else is running fast and running fast on these long runs. And that's how you get faster. That's not the case because I've been following those people and slow is relative. So, yes, my 14 minute per mile pace is slow compared to those paces, especially if my hard pace is 12 minutes per mile. And that person's seven minute per mile pace is slow because their hard pace is five minutes per mile. But your 14 minute per mile pace is fast if your hard pace is 13 minutes and 30 seconds. So thinking about those people again, I know the person who did 11 miles at 10 minutes and 18 seconds, her half marathon pace is eight minutes and 46 seconds. That's 90 seconds about. That's 90 seconds slower. That is an easy run for her. And then the person doing 20 miles at 7 minutes and 22 seconds and seven miles at 8 minutes and 23 seconds, her marathon pace is 645. I don't know what her half marathon pace is, but it's faster than six minutes and 45 seconds. So seven minutes and 22 seconds and eight minutes and 23 seconds is slow for her. It's 90 seconds per mile slower. And you may be saying, well, Allie, why don't I just go 90 seconds per mile slower than race pace? You can, but that involves you knowing what your consistent race pace is. These runners, they are professional. Well, I shouldn't say professional. They're aiming to be Olympic runners andor professional elite runners. And they're running coaches. I personally know one of them, the other person I follow on Instagram. And they know, they know what pace they're going to hit on their half marathon race, and they know what pace they're going to hit on their marathon because they've been doing it for 10 to 20 years. We don't have that luxury of time. We haven't been racing like that for so many years. So we can't just work backward and say, okay, well, my marathon pace is 10 minutes per mile. That would be wonderful. But we can't just say our marathon pace is 10 minutes per mile. So our long run pace is 11 minutes and 30 seconds. We can't say that because we don't know that. Right? Do you know? Can you tell me for a fact what your half marathon race day is going to be? You can you you'll probably say, well, it will probably be three and a half hours. Okay. But what if it's two hours and 45 minutes? What do you say to that? Do you say, like, oh, well, I mean, I guess I don't really know. And that's okay. We don't need to know. That's why I came up with this testing. Because we don't know this information yet. And that's okay. But you do need to know these numbers so that you can get faster. Because I can give you all of the speed workouts in the world to get faster. But if you don't know your actual upper limits, you won't get faster because you won't be consistently pushing them. I will say that my runners who do this pace testing within six weeks, they get one minute per mile faster on at least one of those paces. It's usually the easy run. I've had a runner who started with me March of last year and has done this pace testing and has followed these exact speed workouts and keeping the long run easy. She has followed this exact system that I just walked you through right now. She has followed this for the past year and she got three minutes per mile faster on all of her paces and her walk interval pace improved. I don't know if that one was three minutes per mile. Now, of course, that is one person. One person. But I've also had the one-on-one clients, plus, I've done it myself. Plus, I've had, I had 112 runners do my 30 day to faster last May. And I'm getting information from all of these different runners. On average, they're getting one minute per mile faster in those first six weeks. And of course, time will tell what happens a year from now for you. You don't know that without starting, right? And please share that information with me. I would love to cheer you on. And if it worked for you, I would love to share that it worked for you so it can work for somebody else. Cause I'm not sharing things that haven't either worked for me or haven't worked for another slow back of the pack or injury prone or injury averse. Runner. I don't share that information and I'm constantly adjusting. I just changed the order and operations of the pace test from feedback from all of these runners who have gone through it and me seeing what has worked and what hasn't and how I've changed to make it work. Like I used to have the easy test be the first thing to do and the hard test be the last thing to do. I don't do that anymore because people were actually gassed out for the hard test by the end. So now I do moderate, then hard, then end with easy. If you're gonna be gassed out, I'd rather you be gassed out for easy and actually be forced to go even slower. And then if the pace test at the end of it, you're like, oh, I think I still had something left in the tank for moderate or hard, or maybe I didn't go easy enough for easy, great, redo it. Wait a couple of days, wait like two days and do it again. But you need to find these limits. You need to find that upper limit for sure. And I do recommend finding the other limits because it does make it easier to make a speed workout when you know all three of those numbers. But if you don't at least know your hard pace, you don't know your upper limit, how do you know that you're hitting it and going beyond it regularly so that you can get faster? If you don't, if it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. If you don't go beyond what you can currently do, you can't get to that new pace. And so that's where you start getting faster for your half marathon. And then once you are getting faster, then your paces change and your easy long run pace now can be faster, right? So if you're testing every six weeks, you get new paces every six weeks. So if you start off and your easy run pace is 16 minutes per mile pace, and then you test again in six weeks and maybe it's 1430 or 15 minutes per mile. Let's say it's 15 minutes per mile. Well, now all of your new long runs get to be at 15 minutes per mile. So now you are going faster. And you are practicing going faster, but it's still easy. And then in six weeks, maybe it's 1430. Now your long run gets to be 1430. Then in six weeks you test again, and now your easy pace is 14 minutes. Well, now you're going 14 minutes per mile on your on all of your long runs for the next six to eight weeks. See how that works? Your paces on the speed workouts also change when you do that because you'll have new moderate and hard paces, most likely, and you adjust. And they're not always radically different. The person who has more room to gain, which is usually the beginner, makes really fast gains. And that's why you can get 60 to 90 seconds per mile faster in those first six weeks because you had so much room to grow and your body quickly adapts when it has that big gap. It gets harder the more fit and the faster you are. It's harder. Like somebody who's, as those examples, running a six minute, 45 second per mile pace, it's going to take them a lot more effort and a lot more time to drop five seconds than it will for the beginner who is starting at 16 minutes per mile to drop a whole minute. Okay. So that's how you get faster for your half marathon. Work on the speed and the pacing. The speed workouts become the priority during the build phase. Find out what your easy, moderate, and hard paces are and then work them easy on the long run days and cycle through what feels comfortable for you three miles, four miles, five miles. You don't need to be training up to half marathon in the offseason. You just need to maintain a base and then focus on the 30, 20, 10, the progression, the hills, and the tempo. And make sure in the 30, 20, 10, in the progression, in the hills, and in the tempo that you're running with purpose. You know the purpose of each of those speed workouts and you have a purpose for your pace. Pick a pace, don't let it pick you. Don't just willy-nilly go out and see, oh, let's see what I can, what pace I can hold for five minutes on a tempo run. No, it's I'm going to aim to hold 12 minutes per mile pace for five minutes on this tempo run. That's the purpose. That's the difference. There's no purpose in let's see what I can hold because your mind's not in it. It's just what is coming out of my body. And I will tell you what comes out of your body is not going to be consistent.