I believe I am ready to run my first half marathon. I have not signed up for one yet, but I have two selected: one in early June and the other in early September. I'll sign up after the holidays roll around.
I enjoy running, and know this will be a difficult goal to accomplish. I suffered from a back injury over the summer due to rowing, and was finally able to start running again this October. Since then, I've been trying to keep a consistent schedule, and stay between 15 and 20 mpw (however school, work, and illness get in the way from time to time).
I am an injury-prone runner (stress fractures, etc), so I like to focus on lower mpw and cross-training. I live in an area with LOTS of snow, so cross-training in the gym, or some winter sport, is desirable. I have YakTrax and suitable winter clothing; I run outside as long as it's not too dangerous.
I'm hoping to get some advice in how to properly train for this event through out the winter, and how to ramp up my mileage in the spring/summer without pushing myself too quickly, risking injury. Thanks!
an amazing likeness
Hi Erica,
First, welcome to RunningAhead and to our Half Marathon Trainers (HMT) group. Thanks for joining us.
Let me reflect back to you what I think was in your message for information:
1. you restated running in October after some time off due to back injury;
2. you try to run between 15 - 20 miles/week with some inconsistency in that;
3. you're interested in running a half marathon in June or October
So here's some pretty simple suggestions without a lot of details -- think of these as 10,000 ft level broad statements:
a) you have time on your side -- 6 months to June is plenty of time;
b) 15-20 miles/week is fairly light for running a solid, comfortable half marathon, but a good starting point. Especially if more weeks are 20 than 15 miles;
c) the best thing now, rather than a training plan would be more miles;
d) with the winter and your tendency to injury -- the treadmill is your friend. Not only will let you run on bad weather days, it will also help you avoid some common injuries from winter running (hamstring pulls), and it will help you run a steady, SLOW, EASY, pace to let you log more miles.
e) get your base of miles built, then in April look to one of the 10-12 week training plans.
I'd summarize all this as -- run more miles, run easy miles to build your base and avoid injury, use a treadmill in bad weather to help with those first two, and finally train formerly in April and May for the June half, then run the Oct half as well using the experience you have from your first in June.
Let us know your follow-on questions -- there's a lot of very experienced half marathoners here who are great at sharing advise.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
#RunEveryDay
Welcome to the group! I can relate to the challenges of winter running and snow. (Canadian prairie girl here!)
MT gave you some good information so I don't have much to add. Consistency is a big thing. You can't make up for runs you miss and there are no shortcuts so consistency in doing your runs is important. For training plans, I used a Hal Higdon plan for my first half and found it really a good way to start.
Half Fanatic #9292.
Game Admin for RA Running Game 2023.