Weekly mileage

gremlinreb

Hi, I'm just wondering what kind of weekly mileage people were at when they decided to do a half.

I'm considering either a 10k or half in September. I'm currently doing about 8-10 miles per week. I'm not following any plans or doing any intervals or hills. Very unfocused runs!

I know the half would be doable from looking at training plans but I'd like a somewhat decent time! I'm still a pretty slow runner lol

Thanks!

pondee629

I was informally training for 5Ks when I decided to try a Half Marathon. In March/April is was doing 15 +/- miles a week. Did my first 5K (29:04) in May. By June I was up to 20 per week. July 25 and August topped off at 30/32. I did two long runs of 13 miles before the Half. (Never doing the 13.1 as I wanted a PB in my first race ;-) )The Half Marathon, my first and at age 61, was run in 2:17:10. A weekly summary is chronicled here "Training for a Half Marathon and basic fitness".

Enjoy the run.

TavistockToad

i'm half marathon training at the mo, last week i ran 21.5 miles.

you don't need to do hills or intervals or anything, just run a load of slow easy miles to get your distance up.

gremlinreb

Thanks for the replies
@pondee629 yes I had read your post. I like the idea of keeping 13.1 for your first half! I might use that too
@TavistockToad I noticed some plans have hills and intervals, the hal higdon novice one doesn't. I might use that but ease into it over the next few weeks so I'm more comfortable with the lower mileage before starting week 1 of it. Best of luck with your upcoming half!

I opened up excel today and played around with numbers. I think I might give this half marathon lark a go! It'll give me some focus and motivation

MNLittleFinn

For a HM, I'd say you might want to try to top out around 30mpw, that gives you a 10 mile Long Run that's ~33% of weekly mileage.... general rule is you don't want your LR to be more than that.....but I'm not the best person to give advice on this....my LRs regularly end up in the 35-40% range.

You have time to build up mileage to complete a HM in September. If you stay dedicated, it is possible, but your mileage is on the low end right now, so you'd want to start working on building up mileage now.

Find a plan you like and, if it's shorter than the amount of time you have, just rotate through the first few weeks until it's time for the plan to "start" then you'll be in a good position to get training, because you'll know that the first few weeks wil be "easy"

If it's your first HM, don't worry about hill repeats, unless it's a hilly course, then the repeats might help with leg strength. Intervals (speedwork) aren't necessary for a first HM, but I did them for mine. Working both the slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers will help you become a more well rounded runner.

The Higdon plans are pretty good, so if you're comfortable with it, go ahead and use it.

gremlinreb

@MNLittleFinn thanks for your reply! The route is local so I could get a few training runs done on it. There are 2 hills, one has a steeper incline but its mostly a flat course.

djscavone

I do minimum 3 miles per day 5 days a week at about "5K" pace which is like just over 8 min mile. I may take a day off and then at least once a week I do a 6 mile run at a 9 or 9:30 pace. That way when I see a HM coming up that interests me I am really in shape to complete it. Setting a PR is a different story. If you don't matter about a completion time I personally feel if you can run 8 miles straight with no pain or discomfort you can do a HM on race day as the adrenaline kicks in and you get some extra energy. Just remember its 13 miles so don't over do it at any point. Keep aware of your pace. I do include hills in my runs as I feel it does add to leg strength. You will notice a difference when you run flat courses and then someday a course with hills. You can add 10 minutes to your end time on a hill course when you run it the same as you would a flat course.

ABabilonia

I do between 4-5 miles every other day and a long run the weekend(Up to 8 miles now). My goal is to increase 1 mile every week till I reach 13. The good thing is that my HM is in April 2018, so I still have plenty of time to train. I'm not too concerned about pace my ultimate goal is to run the HM from beginning to end.