Tailoring NSA for a 1:30-1:35 HM

Fairly new to NSA and enjoying it so far. I've read that it works well for distances from 5K to half marathon, and then beyond that requires some tweaking for marathons etc. I have a half marathon in March with a stretch goal of sub 1:30 and a more realistic goal of sub 1:35, and am wondering about how the numbers (weekly minutes and miles) will add up.

I did a 5K race at the weekend in 20:25, which via sweetspot.run gives me subT paces of just over 7:00/mile, and an easy pace of around 9:45/mile. These numbers do seem to line up with my heart rate - the suggested subT pace gets me close to LTHR by the last interval and the easy pace gets me to around 70% of my max HR - so I'm happy that the numbers make sense. I'm just thinking that if I stick to the NSA theory, my longest run of 90 minutes at that pace will mean just over 9 miles. Is that far enough as a maximum training run distance for a half marathon? Or do people around my pace and slower tend to push the long run a bit longer than 90 minutes, or increase the pace, so that more miles are covered?

I may be viewing it all too rigidly, but as I say I'm new to it, so I'm just curious about how people use NSA for half marathon training specifically.

Posted Oct 28, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

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