Training plan for first 1/2 (Read 496 times)

To give you advice it would be useful to have more information, to see your log, to know the 5k times you ran, to know your goal time etc.

Having said that your plan seems reasonable- the more running you do the better prepared you will be- mileage trumps speedwork at this level.

I have about 24 weeks to get ready so I thought I would continue somehow with the plan or alter it after the first 12 weeks if needed. I'm slow. 5k times are 30 minutes. The last 2 weeks I have been running 8-9 m/miles. My training log is brand new because I just found this site. My long run at this time is 3 miles but like I said earlier I just started back 2 months ago. I realize my long run is not that long at this time. I'm not really new to running just long distance. I thought maybe a day of speed work would benefit me down the road. My goal is to finish in 2 hours at this time. I'm really hoping with proper training I can do better. Right now no run is shorter than 2 miles And they usually end up sat 2.5.  This last week i had  10 miles total  Im not sure how many miles a week to stop at. Thanks for your input!!

I wouldn't do a plan twice in a row.  If you are only running 10 miles per week I would take the first 12 weeks to build up your weekly mileage.  Then I would start a HM plan.  I'm getting ready to start my training plan for my second half marathon where my goal time is also 2 hours.  I'm building my weekly miles up to 40 but it doesn't need to be that high.  I ran my first HM with an average of 25 miles a week and a peak of 30.  

I agree with Flippy, you might want to slow down your runs so you can run further.  I wouldn't worry about speed work right now.  If it was me, my first priority would be to make sure I could run the miles no matter how slow it had to be.  How far is your longest run?  You didn't mention but I'm guessing it can't be much longer than say 5 miles.  If that's true work on your long run and weekly miles before you work on speed. 

I think I decided on a Hal Higdon plan. It has me running 4 days a week but no speedwork. So I kind of made my own from it. I thought speedwork Tues, off Wed, Easy runs Thur and Fri. Off Sat. LR Sun. Off Mon. Off days will be CT/ST days. I have enough time before my race to repeat the 12 week plan. Does this sound reasonable? I have only done 5k's as far as races and I restarted running about 2 months ago after being off for almost 2 years due to a complicated pregnancy and then adjusting to life with 3 littles ones

How long have you been running and what is your longest LR so far?  

Personally, I am not a fan of the thought of Monday AND Wednesday off...but that's just me.  

ETA:  And to echo what has been said, I would not start a training plan so far in advance that I had to cycle through it twice.  But the time you finish a training plan, you should be ahead of what is expected of you during week 1 of training.  Start building your base mileage now, throw in some speed work and some tempos and enjoy the non-structured running for now.

Cycling through a training plan twice is somewhat like spinning your wheels and going nowhere the second time through, but doubling up a training plan by running each week twice maintains the structure and progress, albeit at a slower pace, and might actually be better as many beginner plans, Higdon's included, tend to bump up the long run aggressively.

That is a great point, George!  When I followed Ryan Hall (the first and only time I followed someone's plan), I recall thinking that if I hadn't already been running quite a bit, I didn't know how I would have survived the first several weeks of that training.  I'm sure I would have burned out or injured myself.