Galloway Magic Half Mile

I am three weeks into the Garmin Coach Galloway Half Marathon training plan (completion). Today I performed the "Magic Half Mile" workout which includes a 1/2 mile "best effort" run as a benchmark of my current fitness. As I look at next week's workouts on the calendar, I don't see how the results of the MHM have affected them or how the overall plan has adapted. Garmin Coach has not provided any information from the MHM or any guidelines about interpreting the MHM results. In comparison, when the Galloway "Magic Mile" is completed as part of his marathon training plan, the results are used to predict race pace and finish time for various race distances and set Run/Walk/Run intervals. What is the MHM good for?

Also, Garmin Coach rated my workout today as having "Room for Improvement". Today's workout had no goals (HR, pace, etc), and I performed the MHM at "best effort" (no sprinting) and completed every step of the workout. Where does "Room for Improvement" come from? Not very encouraging :-(.

Thanks for your feedback.

0 Etupes25 8 months ago

sierrahiker said:
In comparison, when the Galloway "Magic Mile" is completed as part of his marathon training plan, the results are used to predict race pace and finish time for various race distances and set Run/Walk/Run intervals.

True. This is the way the method works, for 5k, 10k, HM and M plans in his books.

Garmin doesn't publish how exactly the method is implemented on the watch, and Galloway's Garmin Coach has a "benchmark" run just like McMillan's Garmin coach plans.

These benchmark runs are used to calculate the target pace for certain workouts in the Galloway's method (speed repeats, long easy runs), so we can only assume that it is the case also on the watch. It would not affect the selection of workouts each week (again if it is similar to what the books say)

The benchmark run could also be used to support the confidence level if you have a time goal (which you don't have).