[alancraig]

Maybe I shouldn’t call this a time trial. Let me explain my question. A friend and I are planning on running a local race this November. With the last race we ran, we didn’t even run together and there was a 2 second difference between our finishing times. So we’re basically at the same level.

Anyway, he’s trying to talk me into doing some kind of half marathon time trial in a few weeks. Well, maybe not a full time trial. But probably around 20 seconds per mile slower than I’m capable of. The distance is not a problem. What concerns me is doing this long of a training run about a minute per mile faster than I’ve been doing my long runs. Aerobically, I’m not worried about it. But I don’t want to do something that will derail my training in any way. If this is a stupid idea, I’ll tell him “no thanks”. But I wanted to pitch the idea here and get some kind of feedback.

[Charles]

I’m also loath to depart from my goal plans. But I also appreciate the need to keep everything real, including building relationships.

It may be a bit mathematical, but one approach is to enter your goal pace and distance into the Training Peaks Workout Builder and look at the TSS for the run. If it’s not too far off from your plan go for it and any adjustments to your plan should be minimal.

At the moment I am building data with the Stryd Power Center. Although I have not yet accumulated 45 days of workouts I am amazed at the realistic projections for racing that are emerging. So, another approach may be to load the course onto Stryd along with climate predictions to get an estimate of just hard you will need work to achieve the paces you want to run with your friend. If it matches you current fitness you should be good to go. This would be my preferred method because it appears to be an accurate estimate of my current fitness at any given distance. (But, I’m still learning).

[Author]

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