Great North Run - Newbie Runner

Two words for you - Hal Higdon. He has some of the best training advice for novice runners I've seen. I wish I had followed his training when I did the Birmingham half marathon last year, but I will be following it for the Stratford upon Avon half in 12 weeks time! I'm aiming for 2.5 hours.

Hello,

I was one of the lucky ones in the ballot. It sounded a good idea at the time. Still I've got six moths to look forward to it. My aim is just to finish the thing. I've got as far as thinking about my 3 hour playlist. Or is that a bit too optimistic? On a more serious note there is a Pier to Pier run in Sunderland in May that I may think about doing. It'll at least tell me how my fitness is doing.

I managed to get through the ballot and I'm doing The Great North Run as well (maybe see you there, I'll be at the back)

I'm currently doing my marathon training (Edinburgh Marathon) but wish that I had done a couple of half marathons first just so I would have an idea of what time I was doing it in and maybe set some of my doubts to rest.

Defo go to a running shop and get proper running shoes that suit your gait (it makes a huge difference), good run bra is also essential!!!

Get running outside, there's a huge difference between running on a treadmill and running on tarmac.

Run a tracking app in the background of your C25K app (or ditch the C25K app and start the C210K app and start on the week you've got to with the 5k app), it will give you an idea of your average pace on the shorter runs (add in fade for upping from 3.1miles to 13.1miles), I use Map My Run, I also have a spreadsheet which tracks my miles, total time, average pace and splits, I've found it really helps me if I think I'ev had a bad run, I compare it to similar distances on similar terrain and find out it's not the disaster I though it was (last Tuesday i done a 10k and was really unhappy with it until I compared to the previous Tuesday and it turned out I was actually 3min faster (and had had an arguement with the dog when he had a sit down protest at 4.2miles, he's a 52kg ridgeback to dragging him not really an option) and approx 30secs a mile faster).

I don't focus on the time it takes, it doesn't matter if it's an 8min mile or an 18min mile, it's still a mile.

Start at the back of the pack (getting caught up with the fast runners and you'll be knackered 1mile in), pick a pace, smile and keep going.

It's a big race and there will be lots of spectators out cheering which will help carry you along.