1/2 marathon?

aarnette

The Sydney morning herald is having a half marathon in 92 days (3 months) Is that enough time for someone who enjoys going for walks to get in enough shape to run in it?

kgarman

Depends on a lot of things. Are you already in shape and able to run about 5 miles at a time? If so, then you should be able to start training hard. But if you're a beginner and have never ran, then I'd suggest starting with a 5k. That way you don't get discouraged.

bahacca

I agree. There are quite a few training programs free online that you can follow. If you can already run about 5 miles, you are probably good. (And by run, I mean anything from running 5 miles straight to doing intervals of running:walking for a total of 5 miles UNDER the pace that is usually set for a race like that).

Chagama

I agree, too. If you are starting from scratch, it's unlikely you can go from nothing to 13 miles in 13 weeks, and you may injure yourself trying. Start with a 5K, and work up to a half marathon, and from there maybe a full marathon.

SueInAz

If you really want to do it, do it! You can walk a half marathon, if you want, no one says you have to run the whole thing or run it at all. I've met a few people in the past couple of months who do just that. Just be sure that they give you enough time to finish, some races have a time limit due to road closures. That said, don't plan to run it if you aren't already running at least a few miles by now.

I run and walk in intervals (Google Jeff Galloway if you want the specifics.) I went from run/walking a 10K race at the end of October to a half marathon on January 15th (2.5 months). My training plan wasn't aggressive. I kept increasing my weekend long run by about a mile every two weeks until I was at 11 miles and increasing my twice-per-week short runs by a half mile until I was at 6 miles for those days. I finished the race in 2:42:42 and wasn't hurting a bit the next day; I was just a little stiff which stretching fixed.

The thing is, you shouldn't increase your running distance by more than 10% each week to avoid injury. If you're starting from nothing, you can see where it's going to take awhile to get to the 11 miles or so you should be able to run by two weeks before the race day. However, you can increase your walking distance much more quickly because it's low impact.

All of that said, I highly encourage you to sign up if you want to do it. Get yourself to the point where you can easily walk 11 miles at a stretch and run shorter distances during the week, increasing the mileage slowly. Look into Jeff Galloway's method. I don't think that there's any reason you couldn't complete a half marathon running for 1 minute then walking for 3 or 4 minutes (and repeat for 13.1 miles) with only a couple of months preparation.