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Coaching plan either broken or wildly inaccurate.

I'm halfway through week 7 of 13 in Coach Greg's Half Marathon training plan. Every run has been programmed as an "easy run" with a "long easy run" once per week. And other than easy runs switching according to a pattern every other week between 30 and 40 minutes and the long run increasing most weeks, there's been no variation in the workouts. 

Supposedly, at least according to coach Greg's opening video, this training plan is "a combination of different workouts, designed to help you build speed, and increase distance. This includes steady state runs where you maintain your pace for the entire workout, as well as pace and tempo runs where you'll push yourself harder for a set period of time. As the weeks go by the long run in your workout plan will grow steadily longer and longer, that way, you'll have the confidence that you'll be able to run a half marathon in your desired time.... Since the plan is adaptive it will progress when you're ready to move on to the next step. So if you're achieving at a high level, you'll progress through the plan more quickly...."

Anyway, I'm either doing something wrong or coach Greg is a liar. There hasn't been one "pace" or "tempo" run. And I'm worried that I'm not progressing as quickly as I could if there were some of the promised variation in the training experience. 

Top Replies

  • So I lowered the time goal down to 1:32 which is the lowest it allows on this training plan.

    I think this could be the problem.

    You shouldn't change time goal in the middle of the program…

All Replies

  • Yeah, I'd say something is wrong there.  I've done Greg's 5k doing his 10k now.  The second week of the 10k had me doing stride repeats and I've had a mix of easy/long/stride/progression runs since then.

  • I had a good experience when I completed Jeff 10km program.

    I did not go through Greg but I think you may have not understood something.

  • My comment about Greg potentially being a liar was hyperbole to get involvement from the community. I like all of the thoughful articles and videos that come up through the training and have no doubt that coach Greg wouldn't say something in the opening video that was blatently inaccurate, I just don't understand why the program isn't giving me the promised variation in the workouts.  Glad to know there are people who it's working for as designed.  I assume I'm doing something worng.  I just wish I knew what it was.

  • Thank you. I'm glad to know I'm in the minority and that it's got to be something wrong on my end.  Just hoping someone can help me figure out what that is.

  • Which goal did you choose? Complete only or with time?

    Look at the variation of training here.

    www.myrunnerslife.com/.../

  • I put my original time goal as 2:06 because that's what my watch race predictor said.  But after four weeks my race predictor was down to 1:53.  I realize now after seeing a few posts in these forums that it was probably just the new watch getting to know me, but I thought that if I was improving at that rate, I would be able to get down to a 90 minute half marathon.  So I lowered the time goal down to 1:32 which is the lowest it allows on this training plan.  When I did so, the confidence meter barely dipped , so that gave me the confidence to start running harder.  But the training plan only changed the reccomended pace for my "easy runs". But it has not varied the type of workout at all.  Every run is an "easy run", except for Saturday which is a long easy run.

  • I'm starting to wear down as I'm doing all of my "easy run"s at too high a pace, and not doing any anerobic or low arobic.  Remembering that the first video had talked about different typs of runs, I started to realize something is wrong.  My race predictor has leveld off and is starting to go back up instead of down in time.  So I'm pretty convinced I'm not training properly, and that because I've been following the coaching plan that isn't scheduling varied types of workouts.

  • So I lowered the time goal down to 1:32 which is the lowest it allows on this training plan.

    I think this could be the problem.

    You shouldn't change time goal in the middle of the program.

    The algorithm may not be smart enough to adjust ? Just my guess.

  • I think it might be an idea to raise a support ticket for this so that Garnin can take a look at your coach plan and try and work out why it's not giving you the right workouts (pun intended).

    The plans have helped me, even though I invariably over-train and exceed the stated metric for each run.  I use the plans more to give myself a varied structure to my running rather than actually attaining the goals I set at the start of each plan.

  • How does one raise a support ticket?