Training for that First Half Marathon
3 planning tips for a successful half marathon
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
Many moons ago, in the gleam of high school idealism, my friend and I emphatically declared we would run a marathon by the time we turned 30. As one might guess, that milestone passed by with obligatory fanfare and no mention of a marathon on either of our bucket lists. When I asked about it again a few years ago, she simply said that people grow older, they change, their goals change—it’s okay to have different goals as an adult than as a teenager. True. Fine. Whatever.
I’ve come to realize that I’m a completer. It makes me happy to close the loop on things, check items off a list, or at least try, fail, and call it done. So, this long-standing declaration kept surfacing from time to time—I wondered till it drove me mad. I decided to make my choice and committed to a half marathon, a more realistic yet no less ambitious goal. And I decided I’d aim to run it in under two hours.
For those of you considering a Half, I can say with confidence the entire journey will be an experience you will remember, and one you might want to repeat simply because you will have learned so much the first time. In addition to tips on getting started with running and sustaining the habit (all of which apply to training for a Half), here are a few planning tips that set me up for success.
Tip #1: Create a race calendar
After much reading about running and talking with other enthusiasts, I created a race calendar, starting with my ultimate goal, the Austin Half Marathon. Experienced runners had sold me on the race—a fun course with live music, river and Capitol views, and a moderate elevation profile. It also took place in my home state and not far from my parents’ farm, so I reasoned that any anxieties associated with the race would be offset by the comforts associated with familiarity, a kind of “home field advantage.”
Your training should support the race you choose, so take a look at the elevation profile when selecting a course. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to select a race with a significant elevation change if all your training will be on flat terrain.
Once I selected my half marathon, I worked backwards and found local races of increasing distances that would get me closer to the goal. The general guidance recommends to increase total weekly mileage by no more than 10%. For example, if my longest run is only 6 miles one week then the following week I should increase my mileage by no more than 0.6 miles or 6.6 miles total. I generally kept to a 10–15% rule and given my end-of-year travel constraints this race calendar seemed reasonable:
- 10km (6.2mi) — late October
- 15km (9.3mi) — mid January
- 21km (13.1mi) — mid February
Having a race calendar provided me with the structure of a running season, that finite period of time in which I would tailor my workouts to prepare me for a sub 2 hour half marathon. The calendar allowed me break down 13.1 miles into smaller, more manageable, and much less intimidating distances. It showed clear milestones that kept me on track with increasing mileage and building endurance. Additionally, I used the 15km race as a practice run for the Half, trying out race techniques for the first time like analyzing the course, using nutritional supplements, and carrying a water bottle.
Tip #2: Create a weekly routine
With an ambitious goal for my first Half, I committed to working with an endurance trainer and together, we created a general plan of how my workouts would look like on a weekly basis. This enabled me to build regular exercise habits and provided a means of self-accountability, lowering my chances of skipping workouts. My weekly routine looked something like this:
To be fair, this was the ideal week. Working out 5 days a week took effort to maintain and required me to adjust priorities. Scheduling social activities took a little more work and sometimes I just had to say no. Impromptu happy hours were a thing of the past.
Training for a half marathon requires true grit—a commitment of time, patience, and determination. With a weekly workout plan, you’ll find yourself prioritizing daily decisions around this pre-existing schedule, thus “finding the time” to commit to your new training program.
Well, life happened and I didn’t maintain 5 workouts/week throughout my entire program (but truthfully, I didn’t expect to). However, I knew that having any kind of plan at all would only increase my chances to succeed. With a plan, I would progress. With no plan, I would digress.
As a data geek, I tracked my progress and in actuality, I kept to this schedule 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, I still worked out but only maintained 3-4 workouts/week. To view this another way, my training program planned for 80 workouts (5 workouts per week x 16 weeks = 80). In the end, I completed 68 workouts or 85% of my training program. Amazing—I know I would not have exercised that much on my own without a plan.
Tip #3: Create a plan of attack
This was something new I learned from my trainer which in hindsight seemed glaringly obvious. During the 15km race-week, she asked me how I would run the race. I blinked at her silently, cluelessly. In my mind I thought I would run fast but not too fast — amateur runner here. She guided me through the technique of pacing and recommended timing for nutrition. Together, we talked through the following race plan of attack (POA):
15km / 9.3mi POA:
- Mile 1.0: Warm-up, conversational pace (10:00 min/mi)
- Mile 2.0–6.5: Race pace (8:50–9:00 min/mi); nutrition about 4.5mi in, take with water to help with digestion
- Mile 6.5–9.3: Build to finish strong!
This was a great practice run for my half marathon. I raced with a handheld water bottle and nutrition chews for the first time and felt comfortable doing the same for the big event. But my mile splits varied widely and my legs felt like lead the entire last mile. I realized I still didn’t have a clue about how to execute pacing. After the race, the light bulb finally clicked on, I understood what it meant to create a plan of attack, a race strategy. First and foremost, I wanted to understand the elevation profile so I could better adjust my pacing.
When creating my plan of attack for the half marathon race, I reviewed the route and studied the elevation profile to mentally prepare myself for the big hills. Knowing which mile markers were around the elevation peaks guided my pace before and after the climbs.
Hindsight is 20/20
My running season stretched about 3.5 months, a little long. Seasoned runners told me they generally trained for 2–3 months because it’s taxing on the body to train hard for so long. Considering the end-of-year commitments in the middle of my running season, I thought I had a realistic timeline but midway my enthusiasm started to wane, and I felt as if I had plateaued with the race date still eons away. Thankfully, I had a trainer who adjusted my workouts and kept things interesting based on my weekly feedback.
If I were to do it again, I would include at least one additional race during the holiday travel to offset my slump. The additional milestone would have given me tangible feedback on continued progress as well as psychological encouragement of another win. Alternatively, if the season hadn’t been across the holidays, I would have shortened it by 4 weeks.
The metric you track is the one you improve. I tracked mileage, number of workouts, and mile splits, and made progress because of it. But my biggest takeaway from this journey was that I no longer wondered about that long-standing declaration from high school. You see, during the time I felt my running had plateaued, it dawned on me that if I had to train for a full marathon, I’d probably stop running. And I didn’t want to stop running. This journey made me realize how much I enjoy it. I realized that my race is the half marathon race — a challenging and rewarding distance in its own right.
Read on for lessons learned from the pros.
