Preparing For A Half Marathon

I’ve had several friends ask me about preparing for a half marathon.  Sometimes, they’re talking about how to prepare mentally for the event, and at others, they’re interested in a training schedule for a half marathon, so I thought it would be worth covering in a post.  I may have a different perspective on this subject, since I am an advocate of cross training, and don’t really consider myself a “pure runner,” and my goal wasn’t to run a specific time, but to simply finish the race.  Naturally, before you make the decision to run at all, much less tackle a half marathon, you should get the approval of your doctor.  The plan below is what I used, and will took me from a 5K distance to the 21K in 12 weeks.  It assumes you are running 12-15 miles per week prior to Week 1.  Although similar to many other half marathon plans on the internet, you will find some differences, owing to the fact that I’m not strictly a runner, and wanted to take as little time away from family as possible during my training.

Training Schedule For My Half Marathon

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
Week 1	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	3 miles	rest	5 miles	14
Week 2	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	3 miles	rest	6 miles	15
Week 3	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	3 miles	rest	7 miles	16
Week 4	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	6 miles	16
Week 5	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	8 miles	18
Week 6	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	9 miles	19
Week 7	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	10 miles	20
Week 8	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	5 miles	15
Week 9	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	10 miles	20
Week 10	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	11 miles	21
Week 11	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	6 miles	16
Week 12	rest	4 miles	2 miles	rest	4 miles	rest	Race Day	20

I’m of the opinion that the goal of completing a half marathon is within anyone’s reach, assuming there is no physical ailment or limitation.  Why do I say that?  Because all of the training plans you will find are really about the long run day.  Training to complete your first half marathon, (or marathon for that matter) is really about building endurance, which more about mental fortitude than physical ability.  If you’re looking for greater guidance in this area, I would suggest reading Runner’s World Run Less, Run Faster.

The thing to keep in mind on your long run days is that you just have to complete the distance.  It doesn’t have to be completed fast, and I don’t recommend setting a pace for that day.  The other three training days should be a mix between fartleks, tempo runs, and tempo runs.  With a training plan like this, you can expect to complete the race in about 2 hours.

You’ll notice that during the training schedule for a half marathon, you will never actually run the full race distance.  This is typical of beginner training plans for distance runs.  The plans assume that each week, you add 10% of the prior week’s distance to each long run.  You will notice that figured into the “Total” column, as the long run generally consists of adding 1 mile each week, with the exception of rest weeks.  This means that if your longest run is 10 to 11 miles, you can probably finish the race.  Just don’t expect to run a 8-minute per mile pace.  This raises another topic, with is how to run a half marathon.  This is another matter unto itself.

The sense of accomplishment of running a half marathon is definitely worth the effort.  I personally haven’t ran another race of that distance, primarily because of the time involved, and at the end of my half marathon, I was pretty well exhausted.  Several of my friends (who are “runners”) ran that race and finished quite a bit faster than I did, and I’m O.K. with that.  Not many people can say they’ve completed a half marathon.  I’m glad I did.

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