The Plan to be the Man at the Edmontan Half Marathan (Spelling intentional for rhyming effect)

For the Edmonton half marathon I am going to follow Hal Higdon's intermediate program, with some alterations by KK as shown above.  This is a good decent plan and I'm going to try my hardest to hit every single workout on it and see what the results are.  KK's hill additions seem like they could be overkill, but what can you do, I guess?  I'm also going to try to swim and bike as much as possible, hopefully the cross training will help?

Update on the Quest to Beat Fast Alex

The goal to beat Fast Alex wasn't met in Vancouver this year, and in fact I regressed a little, slipping back 3 minutes or so.  On the plus side, thanks to a wonky knee for Fast Alex, the gap between us was at an all time low, a mere 34 seconds per mile.  On the other side, Rich continued getting faster and closed the gap between us to 31 seconds, and Mike was at a similar amount behind him.  As can be clearly seen in the graph below, all of our times appear to be converging, which makes Edmonton 2013 ground zero for a mega race challenge, I guess?  Realistically, I'm not sure I can drop my pace to below 8:30 for Edmonton, and Alex's times are routinely in the 7's, so I think beating Fast Alex will likely have to wait until the Fall Classic or next year.  But I guess a miraculous finish is always possible?

Historical Pace Times

Historical Race Results