1/2 marathon on may3...don't know if I'll make it (Read 1087 times)

Don't know what advice you are looking at this point, but if you can run a 8 miler and a 10 miler over the next 3 weeks, You can sure complete the half. Take some walk breaks during the long run if that gets you through the run. You'll get similar walk breaks at the water stops during the race. If your knee is hurting, no shame in skipping the half, live to run another day. I think it takes more courage to not run than to run through the pain. Check if that half has an option to switch to a shorter distance.

While the long run is important, your total weekly mileage and your total mileage over the previous 4-5 months is more important to finish a long distance race like a Half marathon. Like I said you can definitely finish the half if your knee is not hurting too bad, and if you can get atleast a couple of 8 mile runs and maybe a 9-10 mile run before April 25 ( atleast a week from your race), you'll be fine race day. Longer term once 3-4 miles a day almost every day becomes a habit, 6-8 mile weekend runs become easy, and a build up to 10-12 mile long run in prep for a race would be a piece of cake. While I am still slow by the standards on this forum, I finally improved my times from 10+ min/miles, to about 9:00/mile by running more days, i.e. went from running 3-4 days/week to 5-6 days/week. This took my weekly mileage from 15-20 MPW to about 30 MPW. In my case I'd need my weekly miles to be atleast twice the race distance ( 3 times would be preferable) to comfortably finish a race, I think this would apply to most race distances from a 10 K to a marathon. Obviously more would be preferable.

Just take it slow on race day and the crowds will pull you through! Training-wize, try to get in a 10-miler 2 weeks before the event, then taper off on your training to let your body recover...go for it!

Knee pain is most often made worse by overtraining. Make sure to get plenty of rest between your runs and not over-do things. You have about a month left at this point, which means two or so good weeks left to build mileage. I recommend doing your longest training run about 14 days before the race. If you can do almost a half marathon on that long run, then you should be good two weeks later to run the actual race. Or what amspiedel said!

Thanks for your opinions on this issue:

You can complete a 1/2 but your definitely not trained enough to run the whole thing.....If I were you I would plan on going the distance but use a derivative of Jeff Galloway's Run/Walk/Run technique http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html This will go a long way to helping you extend your distance by programming walks (lots of them)....so you can do something like run 4 mins and then walk 1 -- over and over and when you run -- run slowly......You won't have a killer time, but you will finish.... Also - you may want to consider buying a gymboss timer ($20) (www.gymboss.com). This is a dual time that will beep and vibrate at you so that you dont have to try to keep it straight while looking at a watch while running. I bought one and used it for my long runs -- running 5 mins and walking 1 or running 10 and walking one...or whatever makes sense.... This system really works if you follow it and you will save enough energy to accomplish the distance.......

Well, I'm not feeling as confident now. I just finished my last 10 mile long run before the half and it was horrible. I had to walk quite a few times and my time was awfull. I'm not really worried about time but it seems like over the last few weeks my long runs have gotten harder and harder. My easy runs during the week still seem very easy, but my long runs keep getting harder. Today during my run the temps were in the 80's and I'm not used to that yet, so that may be why today's run was so bad. Could some of you guys look over my log and let know what you think my chances are of finishing the half? My whole log isn't there because I just moved it over to this site in the middle of March, but you can get an idea of what I have been doing. With one week to go I'm starting to panic.

Well, I'm not feeling as confident now. I just finished my last 10 mile long run before the half and it was horrible. I had to walk quite a few times and my time was awfull. I'm not really worried about time but it seems like over the last few weeks my long runs have gotten harder and harder. My easy runs during the week still seem very easy, but my long runs keep getting harder. Today during my run the temps were in the 80's and I'm not used to that yet, so that may be why today's run was so bad. Could some of you guys look over my log and let know what you think my chances are of finishing the half? My whole log isn't there because I just moved it over to this site in the middle of March, but you can get an idea of what I have been doing. With one week to go I'm starting to panic.

Your long runs have been counting for almost half of your weekly mileage. That's a lot to be putting into your long run, so that can also contribute to feeling beat up on the long runs. You can still finish the half. During the race, run much slower than you think you need to, and walk early and often - before you think you need to.