Forums >Racing>How long to train for a half-marathon?
I just returned to running after taking 4 years off for college. My training as you can assume is no where near where it use to be. With that being said I wanted to know how long it takes to train just to finish a half-marathon in under 3 hrs? There is one coming up in March and I would like to run it since it would be my first half and it fairly cheap compared to the races around my area. Thanks a lot for your help.
Walk-Jogger
When I was around 50 years old and had not run for years, and was 40 lbs over-weight, I trained for 2-3 weeks with a couple of runs per week and then walk-jogged through 13.1 miles on a flat course in about 2:18. That's the only time in my life I've ever taken more than 2 hours to complete 13.1 miles. So based on my experience and the fact that you are apparently much younger than I, I think two weeks of two runs per week ought to be enough for you considering your goal time of sub-3 hours.
Retired & Loving It
Latent Runner
Yup, pretty much what Cecil said; you can almost fast-walk a half in under 3 hours, so very little training would be necessary. Now if you want to run it in under 2 hours, I'd say at least 3 months of good solid LSD training would be necessary to safely complete the half at that pace.
Fat old man PRs:
Thanks a lot for your replies. I'm going to start training and see how I feel a in about a month and go from there.