Anyone training for their first half marathon?

I am, although I haven't registered for a race until June. I started a 12-week plan 7 weeks ago just to see if I could do it (it's got 3-4 running days and 2-3 cross-training days) and just last weekend I ran 14 miles for the first time on my long run. I do a mix of outdoor and treadmill (2% incline) and my program includes sprint interval training, hills, and tempo runs. I never in my life thought I would be able to actually run (I'd been doing 5K a couple times a week on-and-off for a couple years but that was it) and now I feel like I'm actually pretty capable.

Now that I know I can run the distance I'm going to keep following the plan but upping my mileage by 10% each week (probably to 40 miles per week) and then start upping the intensity of my speedwork.

I'd like to get myself comfortably under 2 hours as a first goal, as my attempt last weekend was at about 9:30 min/mile. It would be great to get down below a 9:00 min/mile but that does seem like a pretty big challenge to me right now.

As far as nutrition goes, I'm in maintenance so most of the trouble has honestly been eating enough. I've unintentionally lost a couple pounds in the past three weeks from the increased activity, so I'm trying to go back to accurate logging to make sure I'm eating the right amount to maintain my weight without gaining or losing further.

I've only done 3-4 runs long enough to need nutrition during the run, and so far I've just had a gel or serving of bloks or gummies around the hour mark. It seems to work fine for me and I don't feel like I'm going to bonk or anything, but I might try adding another 100 calories around the 10-mile mark to see if it'll help get my speed increased on the last couple miles.

Hi Jessica, I'm not training for my first half but my 8th but I can give a little advice. Try to run 3 times a week or 4 if you are up for it. Two of your runs (during the working week) should be on the shorter side. If you are very new to running start with just 20-30 minutes and increase this week by week. Ideally you should end up doing 30-40 minute runs for the short runs.

On the weekend you do your long run. This is the most important so do not miss this even if you have a busy week and can't do both of your short runs. With this run you should run it very slowly but aim for endurance. This basically means the weekend before your race you should aim to run 80-90 percent of the race so about 10 to 11 miles. You need to build up to this slowly so start off not worrying about the distance but try to run for an hour. If this feels hard - run slower!! If you are really struggling with running for the full hour walk part of it - maybe for 5 minutes at a time. Eventually you want to be increasing your long run to 1h30 or even 2hrs depending on how fast you run.

Feel free to add me if you want. Take what I say with a pinch of salt however and look up progams online. I am far from an expert.