I've never run more than 10k and I just signed up for a half marathon 3 months from now

[healthyjoel]

First question- is this a bad idea? The longest I've ever run is 10k and that was a couple of weeks ago...

And I only ran that out of peer pressure. A number of colleagues were descending upon the park right next to my house so I felt obliged to do it. To prepare I ran 5k, the next weekend the same, and the weekend after that 6.5k. 3 runs in total. I didn't die and that seemed like a good sign.

In all honesty the 10k was hard. It felt like a mental battle. My tendency is to waste my energy early on so I just kept thinking to myself, 'the tortoise wins the race'. All in, it took 58 minutes 30 seconds (or something very near that). You can see me crossing the finish line and my daughter cheering me on to the right 😍.

Anyway, back to the marathon. I'm doing it for a charity my neighbour runs and I'd like to not fizzle out half way through, which leads to my second question. I don't have time to run more than 3x a week. I was thinking about running 5-7k 2x a week, mostly focused on speed, and slowly increasing my distance with one long run on the weekend. What do you think?

[dagshar Half Marathon]

Sounds absolutely fine. Just make sure you keep it steady. Your 10k was fast!!! A lot of us have taken a long time to get to that sort of time or haven't got anywhere near it yet (not sure how young you are ). Your longer run should probably be taken a bit slower.

[healthyjoel in reply to dagshar]

Thanks so much for the reply! My birthday is this Thursday so I'll be sure to take it even slower from that point forward

[Realfoodieclub Marathon]

Sounds like a plan last year around this time when I was training for the Hackney half I was doing similar sort of distances. The longest run I did was 17km. I would also try a couple of weeks with three 7km runs if you can as that gives you the total distance over the week (21k) and they say that helps but you don't have to do that too often. I'm doing the Hackney half again this year and I'm run/ walking it, I'm a lot slower that you, so your pace will be fine. If your used to setting off really fast try and learn to pace yourself as On the day it's so easy to set out far too fast and I try now to mentally slow myself down at the start of any run to help with that. Happy running and good luck with your training, you can do it.

[healthyjoel in reply to Realfoodieclub]

Thanks!! I'm doing the Hackney Half as well. It goes right by my house!

[ju-ju- Marathon]

Great pic... And wow your 10k time is fabulous!!! I trained for the Paris marathon on 3 runs a week. I did a 5k, 10k or so and then a long run on Sunday increasing every week. I think your plan sounds fine. Keep us posted how you are doing and I think you will nail it completely!!!

[healthyjoel in reply to ju-ju-]

Thanks!!! I hope you're right!

[MarkyD]

Hi Joel, sounds like you'll be just fine. Why not find the Runners World race time predictor, stick in your 10km time (very good for a first run) and it will help you gauge your time (hence, pace) for the HM. It can also produce a training plan, based on the number of sessions per week, how fast you want to do the HM and how hard you want to train. By having a schedule, you'll know when you will be running, and what to do (slow, intervals, speed, tempo, distance).

Good luck.

runnersworld.co.uk/general/...!

runnersworld.co.uk/racing/f...

[healthyjoel in reply to MarkyD]

Meant to say thanks for this!

[healthyjoel]

For an update on my journey, which isn't looking so great. See here: healthunlocked.com/marathon...