Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
First Time Half Marathoners
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Hey B&T. It's scary how quickly your shoes rack up the miles! Since doing my HM training I've been noting down the training miles & even for this slow plodder they're stacking up!
Did a 40minute interval run today. Hot but not as hot as recently owing to the breeze. I went straight on into an abs/core class afterwards. I think it's the closest I've ever come to giving up halfway through a class. Thank goodness it was only for 1/2 hour!
Had a rest day yesterday so wasn't expecting it to be quite so vile!!! I have signed up for the Cricklade Half Marathon on 3 October which gives me some extra weeks training. (Even though I've not quite discounted the Cirencester Half....) 
evening all
Can't recall when I last posted, I think I was about to tackle my longest run ever of 5 miles ... well, I did it on Sunday and nearly baked alive, LOL .... I repeated the experience on Tuesday, when it was slightly cooler with a bit more shade ... and more miraculously, I ran my first WHOLE mile ...
B&T .. new shoos for you too, I hope yours have the go faster button installed
Do you have to pay to have your gait analysed? I'd not heard of that before...
Anne .. I totally agree that having a date in the diary for a race is a definite motivator
Rick .. the heat was horrendous on Sunday ... don't let it phase you .. please?
Kristine .. 'fraid I have no advice on speed, I think I'm aiming for the slowest HM is existence
I'm just going for endurance ....
I haven't run since Tuesday .. oh that's only 2 days ago, and yet I'm feeling guilty, as I should have run yesterday, but due to being out from 5am till 8pm, it just wasn't going to happen, and today I had an assignment to get in and a dalmatian costume to source ... but tomorrow I will be lacing those shoes and getting out there for a 4mile trundle. Saturday's won't happen, and Sunday I need (yes "need") to fit in a slow 6 miles, just need to fit it in around family events of going to the town carnival, where said DD will be sporting the dalmatian costume!
I'm sticking with my prog of 5 runs per week, as currently that means I average 3 per week .. I suspect that if I aimed for 3 per week, it'd be more like 1 !!
One more day till the w/e ...
Anne - interval run and THEN core / abs class?? I bow down to you oh exercise wonder woman! Well done! Good idea to have a 'plan B' in the diary!
Zed42 - well done on your 5 miles, and your first WHOLE mile
Damn - I forgot to ask about the Go faster button - suspect they would have been much more expensive if they did have one. My local running shop is a little tiny, independant running shop - but they gave me great advice and a brilliant pair of shoes last time so I thought it would be best to go there again. They used to charge £20 for gait analysis which you then could take off a pair of shoes if you bought from them. Since then she's reduced the prices of the shoes to try and compete with internet prices, but charges £20 for the analysis. Well - its her time & expertise I guess! Did you find a dalmation costume? (sounds SOOOO cute!)
Cool and drizzly today here - looks perfect for a run (and to get my new shoes a bit muddy!) but I must admit to feeling a little nervous after Wednesday's run
Expect I'll potter round here for a bit and then push myself out the door anyway!
Oh - bargain hunters - Lidl are selling Running gear from Thursday 8th July - including HR monitors from £12.9. I'll be going down to stock up on socks - still tehbest ever running socks I've found, and only £1.99 a pair!! (And no - I *don't* work for them!!)
rain last night so it was a 5 this morning and a swim after work.
working tomorrow so no running and then probably a quick swim sun morning and an easy 8 on sunday.
really need to get my head in the right place - trying to do too much too quickly has done more harm than i thought - confidence took a knock. ok i know i can run 9 miles but i need a rest day before to have a semi decent pasce and a restday after to or me knees suffer. i could run 3 easy 6's in those three days and have covered twice the distance at a better pace and then have a rest day with no ill effects.
however i'll try not to freak out and do more 5's and lsr 8's before upping the distance again.
on the bright side my copy of runners world arrived - its ok - i'll read a few more before i pass judgement.
zed - good going - but you may have some competition for the slowest half marathon from me.
good weekend all
Hi Guys, Steady 3 miles on Monday, Speedwork Tuesday and 4 mile steady run last night, the weekend is here and it should be a LSR of around 9 miles tomorrow, I am praying that the weather is cooler than last week (well at least during my run)
Zed thanks for the encouragement and well done on your achievements, keep it up.
Have a great weekend everyone and make sure you enjoy whatever it is you have planned.
Hi, I'm a newbie and I'd really appreciate some advice - am signed up for my first half marathon for charity in October. The only running I've done is a couple of 5K's for race for life last one last week when I plodded around the 5k in around 35 mins with a couple of 2 min walks in middle. Now I want to step up and start a half marathon programme but not sure where to go from here ...
Can anyone help advise me on a training schedule - its 13 weeks to the race - I've checked the schedules for training programmes for half marathons on here and unsure where I fit in - The get you round programme seems like a big step back as it's 3 mins run, 1 min walk etc and the next one up the Sub 2.15 says you should be able to run non stop for 50 mins before commencing and there's no chance I'm gonna get there for next week
Can anyone advise on an "in between" schedule - I can run 15 mins but then need a really slow poodle for recovery for a couple of mins before speeding up again. Also when the programmes says "easy" and "steady" what kind of speeds are they meaning? I've been running on treadmill at around 6.5mph on the faster bit of my runs - should I stick to this or drop down from the start. Sorry so many questions but I really dont know where to go from here and would really appreciate some help. Many thanks for any help you're willing to throw in my direction.
Hope you're all having a great weekend
heya i'm doing my first half marathon in october and could do with some advice. The last 5km i did was in 19.51 mins and was wondering if i should have say 1 long run of 8-10 miles per week & then the rest of the week over 3-5 miles or should i do more longer runs each week
also does anyone want a running partner in birmingham, cheers
Zed & Des - no, no, no - that slowest HM place is MINE!
Hi Jax. I had exactly the same 'being in between' problem so I appreciate the frustration. I started off on the too easy programme because like you the intermediate one was WAAAY to big a stretch, but because the beginner programme was so basic I consequently 'fiddled' with it & ended up injuring myself (what a muppet). I found a programme which suits me better via the Take to the Streets website. It's worth taking time to find something you can follow at an appropriate level.
Re easy v steady, I run 'easy' at my 'beginners' pace ie. a really comfortable pace I can keep up for a while, and 'steady' at a harder but still fairly comfortable pace - though sometimes I have to drop from steady to easy for a few minutes! My steady is now becoming my easy... I dare say other people do it differently, but that's what seems to work for me. As you say you're running at 6.5mph on the faster bits of your runs, I'd probably drop the speed back a bit at the start when doing your 'easy' runs & perhaps keep it for your 'steady' runs! I'd say generally try to do most of your base training 'within yourself', and once you are on a programme, be firm about sticking to it. By that I mean don't add in unscheduled runs, though cross training between runs can be useful. But so is recovery time! Oh, & don't panic if you ocassionally have to miss a run or shunt one or two around. Missing an occasional run won't materially affect your overall training, whereas overtraining will as you'll increase your injury risk. Good luck, & over to everyone else for their views/comments!
Just off to do my LSR now. 1 hr 20 mins. Longest run I've attempted for months!
Edited for spelling!
Anne - Thanks so much for the advice - that link looks fab will definitely help - so watch this space! Will check back in with updates
Hope you enjoyed your LSR in this heat!
Attempted my first tempo run on Thursday (1 mile warm-up, 3 mile tempo, 1 mile slow). However I went off too fast and had to stop for a short rest after the first mile
.
LSR today of 7 mile. I still can't get the my head round running slower than normal. I always end up running one pace (10 mins/mile).
Couple of easy runs planned for this week.
LSR of 10 miles last night, much easier than last week
so feeiling like the HM schedule is back on track, then half a bottle of white wine.
Rest day today, so took the dog for a long walk at Lytham and got soaked.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend.
swim only today - knackered! so second half of yesterday and today were mostly just sleeping.
sleeping GOOOD ! back to it tomorrow though
Des - hope you enjoyed your sleep! You must have needed it. Actually I could have done with a day's sleeping, as I've not been sleeping well at night. The only reason I can think of is that my daughter is just about to finish primary school and starts at her secondary school next Friday (they have a 'turnaround week' before the summer holidays). She's fine about it, but I think I'm doing the worrying for both of us
Anne - wise words as usual
I know I get frustrated by the Runner's World schedules as well. I followed their 'get you round' 
schedule last time, and just ignored the 'walk' bits. I did my long runs as slow as possible, and tried to speed up a little on the shorter runs. I mainly concentrated on gradually increasing the length of the LSR.Hope your 1:20 run went well.
Jax - welcome & good luck with the training! Ann talks sense! Keep those long runs SLOW and you'll find you won't need to stop so often. Honest!
Hi Andrew - welcome to you too! Best bet is to look at some of the training schedules on here to get an idea of the different types of runs you should do in a week. From what I've seen, you do one long run, which you gradually increase in length over the weeks of your training (increase by no more than 10% or 1M each week, and every 3 weeks allow yourself an easy week to recover). Other runs can include some speedwork, or hills - but if this is your first half I wouldn't worry too much about that. You can add some shorter (3M) recovery runs which are done SLOWLY!! A run of about 5M might be good when you're up to that length - 1M warm up then 3M at near race pace then 1M cool down. Anyway - just some ideas - have a look at the schedules / Smartcoach to get a better idea. Great 5K time by the way!!
Hi Rick - good running with your 10 miles! After a rubbish week last week (still blaming giving blood last Monday) I'm hoping to pick up this week and aiming for at least 8M on Friday
Phew - think I've caught up - apologies if I've missed anyone out! Managed to get out for 1 mile to callibrate my footpod on my new shoes (did I mention I've got new shoes??!!) on Friday, and then felt okay so added another 3.5M. Then on Saturday evening managed to sneak in another 2.5M which I tried to run fast, but it was still feeling very hard work so I didn't worry too much about it, just miles in the legs! Hopefully I'll get more back to normal this week. Think I may have callibrated footpod too far the other way now, as I think its under measuring my distance now. But never mind - hopefully it means the 13.1M in September will seem short by comparison!
Anne and B&T - Thanks - I did run SLOW!
Ran for an easy 30 tonight - very slow but at least I didnt need to stop at all which is a first for me - Think I must of run at about 5mph which I'm pretty happy with for a first training week. Will try another two runs about the same Wed and Fri and then try and run for longer come Sunday
B&T my twin daughters start secondary in september too - they have their "moving up day" tomorrow and seem to be okay about it - I, on the otherhand, am not - like you not sleeping and feeling sick to the stomach at the thought of my babies going off to secondary school !!! Scary stuff. Glad your new shoes are breaking in well.
Still need to sort out an HM training plan for myself. Whoops!
How is everyone else doing?
Morning all!
First of all, sorry Goaters - I missed you out in my catch up yesterday - sorry. The best way I've found to go slowly is to run by heart rate. You have to calculate percentages of your working heart rate, and then a slow 'easy' run is run at below 70% of your working heart rate. When i started I had to keep walking in order to keep my HR down, but its not so bad now (do need to avoid hills still though!). Somehow its easier to have a number to focus on to stay below (and for it to be a positive thing!) than to be watching my pace and thinking "I'm never going to run a half in this time its so SLOWWWWW!" Best of luck with your training anyway - how about listening to a slow song as you set off to slow you down??? My book says that in general your 70% pace will be about 2 minutes per mile slower than your half marathon (80%) pace. Since I'm aiming for 11MM in my half, my slow pace is around 13 MM - now how slow is that!!!!
Jax - glad to hear you managed to go slowly - 5mph is 12 mintes miles so that sounds good and slow - well done
As well as enabling you to run for longer, it means you'll avoid injury, preserve glycogen for your next run and will be training the cells inside your muscles to burn fat rather than just glycogen which will come in bery handy on your longer runs. Well done!! Glad its not just me worrying about September - hope the 'moving up' day goes well today - were they excited going off this morning? From next Friday, my DD officially has left primary and has a whole week at secondary. Its a good plan really, because it means (hopefully!) all the worries are out of the way & questions answered before September and hopefully we'll have a stress-free summer holiday! I still slept badly last night - hoping that going and buying some uniform for her tonight will help settle my mind.
404 - welcome back! Wondered where you'd sloped off to
Did you do much running in Florida then??? <asks innocently>
Beautiful morning here again - tempted to nip out for a run again but should really do some work instead....
Jax - well done on your running. Sounds like you're doing great.
B&T - I'm sure I heard you mention somewhere that you'd got some new shoes...! So've I, but they're currently still in the box! Being so close to 1 Aug I'm sticking with the old ones until I've run/not run the Cirencester Half. Re: Your footpod. Are you a 'gadget person'? I'm debating forking out for the Garmin Forerunner 110. But having a few mental probs with the cost!
My LSR went fine on Sunday. REALLY slow - I have to remind myself I'm not training for a 10k but will have to go more than double the distance! Had a rest day yesterday so just went for a walk. Will do an easy half hour later today.
Must get to work now....
Hmm - I'm definitely a gadget person
I've also looked at the 110, but am very tempted by the 405. Found a site with them a little cheaper than elsewhere, but still sadly can't justify the cost until Christmas 
Glad your LSR went well - good point about not training for a 10k!! Keep telling yourself this.
Right - back to work (again!)
B&T - yes, I've now found the 405 for only slightly more than the 110! Like you, I am reminding myself I cannot actually afford this at present! Must wait... but waiting's good as I'll then know how badly I really want/need one of these things.
Just done my 1/2 hour run. Horrible.
I was tired before I started though, which didn't help. At least I can tick it off my plan.
Off to eat potato & mushroom curry now!
oh what a numpty i seem to be.
what was supposed to be an easy 6 1/4 ( thats 10K to you metric heads) this morning turned into a "i have no idea of my pace after taking it easy for a week or so" - went waaaay to fast (by my standards) and had to walk the last almost mile. still got in in way under 70 minutes which is below my normal time.
anyway swim tomorrow morning and another 6 1/4 thursday - good job the cardiff half isnt for another 14 weeks as i need to get back on plan.
visitors so ttfn
Anne - yes - good things come to those who wait - apparently...... Sorry your run was horrid - but the curry sounds nice
We've just had homemade potato dauphinois with veggie sausage and tomato & red wine sauce. mmmmmmmmmm Better have a good run tomorrow to run it off!
Des - at least you know what went wrong, and can not do it again on Thursday! Enjoy your visitors & tomorrows swim.
I'm planning on getting out tomorrow, hopefully for about 5 miles, and hopefully with some speedwork in there .... or maybe hills ... haven't quite decided yet
Anyone else running tomorrow?
big bruv turned up with beer and cheeses cake, we provided dinner and a bed for the night.
good swim this morning - had to hold back and not run tonight. too flippin' motivated, not like me at all, but i have learned from the "sore knees debackle".
easy 6 1/4 in the morning - swim friday morn another easy 6 1/4 friday evening, swim sat morn and lsr 9 sunday. well thats the plan, we shall see.
Hello there everyone
My running has been a bit iffy to say the least ... 2wks ago I fell up some stairs and banged my knee. I thought I'd got away with it, but the end of last week and this week it's been rather horrible.
I went out for a trundle on Tuesday and had to abort as the pain in my knee grew.
I went for a dreaded session on the treadmill yesterday to try again, and only managed 1.5miles ...
Today is a rest day (haha), tomorrow will see me trying again to do 4miles. I missed my LSR last week, which was going go be the first time doing 6 miles .... so I need to do it this Sunday, as next Sunday is my first 10km at Sherwood Pines and I'venever been that far (yes, yes, I am definitely slightly barking!)
However, slow I go, I know I've got to finish it .. but I am keeping my focus firmly on the fact that it's the Wolverhampton HM in Sept and the San Fran in November which are important.
slow 6 1/4 this morning but well paced. so back in the game again.
knees not quite 100% but getting there. so will swim in the morning and may run a slightly shorter distance in the afternoon, will see how i feel.
Des - you're going well! Hope the knees feel okay!
Have to confess to an awful run yesterday. Set off for hopefully 10 miles, at 10am, dur. It got hotter and hotter, and by mile 4 I was starting to feel very tired & hot. I had a little walk and pressed on By 4.5 miles I felt awful- shivering & cold as well as hot & sweating, feeling sick & tearful. Stood in a tiny patch of shade and tried to cool down, but after walking on a bit further decided there was no way I could walk the 4 miles back home, let alone run them. Dithered for a bit, then walked the half a mile into the little town and got a taxi home. Got home, drank lots of water, then some sugery coke, then ate some crisps, had a shower, had a sleep and felt fine again. Nasty experience though - think I just got too hot (I've never been good in the heat).
Hope everyone else is coping with the heat okay?
best laid plans an' all that, no run yesterday as swim postponed until afternoon 'cos of work- thought about a late run but the gin got the better of me
B & T, didnt run today for exactly that reason. still going for the long slow 9 tomorrow and to be honest i dont think the extra rest day will have done any harm, it'll be a late evening run though . i hate running in the heat (even with loads of water)- bring on the winter i say!!! i has a sweaty blob doing house and garden stuff today never mind doing the dayglo lycra plod.
thankfully the cardiff half is in october.
knees getting better, going to have to be careful re distance increases and rest days - also have been advised not to think of a swim only day as a rest day - bugger!!! that said i dont do the relaxing swim thing - way too boring - usually about 40+ mins of crawl with some backstroke and leg work for variety.
Morning all
Sorry not been about for a while, but work has been a little hectic and my running hasn't been that great either.
Did RFL last Sunday in my worst 5k time ever. I'm putting this down to the almost gale force winds! Got Big Fun Run today so another 5k and I'm hoping for more luck.
Should hopefully be back to proper training this week (I hope) and will catch up with you all later.
Corrah x
B&T - how did the uniform shopping go - did it relieve some of the nerves? My twins moving up day went well - they loved it although found they were in the same teaching groups in september despite our telling the school this wouldnt be a good idea. Quick chat with school soon sorted that out although was awful deciding which of them was to be moved. Sorry to hear you had to cut your run short cos you were poorly - hope your feeling better now!
Zed - hope the knee sorts itself out and you managed your run today. Fingers crossed for next weekend.
Des - Glad your knee is improving - very impressed on your swimming; certainly cant call that a rest day!!!
Corrah - Hope the big fun run went better than the RFL.
Well I finally made it off the treadmill and had my first run outside (apart from the RFL) - went to the place where I'd run the RFL; thinking to myself well I know the route and that is 5K distance and I know I did it ten days ago in just over 35 mins - thinking at least I know I can poodle around and not worry about the time. Had run on treadmill for four times in the last ten days at 5 mph for 30 mins plus. Run today went totally pear shaped - 10 mins in and I was knackered just couldnt keep running so stopped. I know I wasnt running too fast as I hadnt even reached the place where the RFL 1K marker was
Walked for a couple of mins then started running again - dont think it was even 5 mins before I had to stop again and it went on from there. I took a short cut and walked back to the car and gave up - felt a right idiot dressed in my running gear and walking. I really dont know what went wrong - maybe I need to get a ipod holder and take my music as other than leaving the comfort of the treadmill the only thing different was the lack of music - think I'll stick to the treadmill for a while before braving the outside.
On a plus side - no blisters from my arch supports for last week which is fab!!!!
Morning everyone
Just had more of a proper chance to read through the posts.
B&T - would have been the heat for sure. I really struggle when it is warm, as I suffer from hot flushes anway, so any extra heat just amplifies the problem.
Des - glad the knees are better and sounds like you will be sorted come your HM.
Zed - talking of knees, is your knee any better?
Jax - don't worry about your little set back. Some days it just doesn't come together. Try again another time and I'm sure you will do fine and no blisters, yippee.
My fun run went much better than RFL although I started out too fast (d'oh). By the first 1km marker I had to slow down and by 2km I was shattered. Stopped to walk for a bit and decided that the PB I was going for was well out of reach. Then noticed that my time wasn't actually that bad, so picked up again. It was a little more warm than I like it, so that didn't help, but by half way I knew I could do it. Had to actually take some walking breaks, but managed to do the running parts a lot faster than normal, and I could have hugged the Marshall who told me it was mostly down hill to the finish!
Decided that it was easier to walk every time I took on water, so did that which helped me recover, so when I went back to run, I managed to pick up my pace. I knew coming towards the finish line I was going to do a PB, but could I crack that 40 minutes. To my surprise I managed (only just), but hey I did it.
Have been a little lax lately, so I now have renewed enthusiasm. Want to get a bit faster, so planning some decent training this week. Got plenty of time to build up, so just need to get back into things.
Corrah x