Choosing a Half Marathon Plan

vitani

I'm looking for advice for the best HM plan. I'm running the Rock'n'Roll Half in August, so it gives me time for a 12 week plan with a one week buffer, starting from next week.

My background: took up running four months ago and have done a few races in the meantime. Have a 4 mile PB of 33.21 and a 10k PB of 54.51. Neither time is fantastic but for a recent beginner, I think they're reasonably solid.

Initially for the half marathon, I'd planned on following the Hal Higdon Novice II program.

I've started to wonder if another option would suit me better though, especially after seeing some of the criticism of his plans on the DCM threads.

So, then I looked at his Intermediate Training Plan. Going from 3 to 5 days a week would be too big a jump for me, but I did think about swapping the Thursday run for a crosstraining session which gives me 4 runs a week but also some speedwork.

Then I found the Runners World Sub 2 hour plan and my head exploded.

Before I waste the next two weeks looking up every single plan I can find, does anyone have any advice? I'm leaning towards the Runners World plan with the backup of switching to a HH one if it proves too much for me. I know the important thing for a beginner is just time on your feet, but I'm (nearly) 28 and in good shape and so I don't want to be too cautious or conservative either.

Or am I overthinking the whole thing, and should I just pick a plan, any plan, and stick with it.

Slow_Runner

Hi Vitani, if you're only running a few months the main thing to be converned about is not to overdo the training. As you said a jump from 3 to 5 days/week may be too much and cause injury. If it were me I'd pick a plan that fits around your schedule and thats not too taxing.

vitani

Thanks!

I'm concerned about not overdoing things as well. Whatever plan I go for will only have 4 days and probably only two running days in a row. I suppose I just want to be sure of my decision before I start training - I don't want to realise a few weeks into it that I should have chosen something with interval training or threshold runs, and have it be too late to change.

I know I'll have plenty of other opportunities to run half marathons but for my first, I want to look back on it and be happy that I prepared as well as I could.

LSRs are obviously an important element of building up to the distance involved but I'm not sure what other types of runs are important/necessary to include.

statss

would you join a club? a typical week of 2 club sessions + 1 weekend LSR a week would see you flying.

vitani

I've looked into it but it's something that doesn't really suit for the next few months. Most training sessions seem to clash with my daughter's bedtime and as I work full-time, evenings are my main chance to spend time with her.

I'm starting a 10 week course in mid May for something else, but once that's over, I'll have more time to look into it again.

Slow_Runner

I'm in the same boat regarding getting time to train hence the 5:30am starts! You could try the following training plan which covers the basics, just remeber not to ramp the milage up too quickly, no more than 10% milage increase per week.
http://running.about.com/od/racetraining/a/basichalf.htm

vitani

Slow_Runner wrote: »

I'm in the same boat regarding getting time to train hence the 5:30am starts! You could try the following training plan which covers the basics, just remeber not to ramp the milage up too quickly, no more than 10% milage increase per week.
http://running.about.com/od/racetraining/a/basichalf.htm

Thanks for the link. The basic half seems a little too basic, but the advanced beginner is another possibility.

Yeah, 6am is when I run most during the week. I actually quite like it though - it's usually just me, a handful or drivers and one or two other runners out on the road.

madon

I done HH intermediate for a half marathon, I was only running three days when I started it, and probably averaging an embarrassingly small amount of miles a week approx 10. I upped to four days a week so I didn't include the Thursday 3 mile run.
I always did the LSR and tempo or intervals and would drop one of the other longer runs if I could only get out three times I the week. It served me very well.

vitani

madon wrote: »

I done HH intermediate for a half marathon, I was only running three days when I started it, and probably averaging an embarrassingly small amount of miles a week approx 10. I upped to four days a week so I didn't include the Thursday 3 mile run.
I always did the LSR and tempo or intervals and would drop one of the other longer runs if I could only get out three times I the week. It served me very well.

That's good to know. That's a similar base to me and if I go with that one, I'll definitely be leaving the Thursday run out in favour of some kind of crosstraining.