When my niece told me she wanted to run a half marathon in the Fall for the first time, I was ecstatic. I love my niece, and I love running so I was thrilled she wanted to give something I’m passionate about a try. The furthest race she has completed is a 10k, so this will be her biggest running accomplishment by far. I told her I would put together a plan that she could use that would help her ease into her training for her first half marathon and get her across that finish line successfully. She has 13 weeks to train so that is where the number of weeks came from. She also enters this training running about 25 minutes at a 10 minute per mile pace 3-4 times per week. So if you’re thinking of training for your first half and have been doing at least that much running, this may be a good plan for you to follow. I put together a plan for myself to follow similar to this two months after having my baby and was able to follow it and complete my half marathon 2 months later, easily.

Because this is her first half marathon and her goal is simply to finish, I only have four days of running and have included no hill or speed workouts. She has some hip problems so I didn’t want to do anything that would aggravate her injury. The cross training will give her the cardio she needs, while not putting too much extra stress on her joints. For her cross training I told her she could either bike or walk, but any cross training you prefer to do (roller blading, swimming, etc) will work. As long as you’re getting your heart rate going for a good 45-60 minutes on those days.

You’ll also notice that this plan is based completely on minutes, rather than miles. If you run slower than a 10 minute per mile pace, I would add 5 minutes to each weekly run and 10 minutes to each weekend run (long run). Anything faster than a 10 minute per mile pace should keep the minutes as they are written. I discussed using minutes rather than exact miles to train in FitnFab’s Marathon Training Plan. This is a good method for me because rather than focusing on a specific route or exact distance, I just know I’m going to be on my feet running for a certain amount of time. For me, this works better because it seems to make the run go quicker because I’ve already determined I can’t stop before I get to that certain number of minutes.

Also, if your goal is simply to finish the race, don’t be afraid to take a few walking breaks during your training runs. It would be nice if eventually you didn’t need to do that, but for your first training series, do what you need to do. Maybe you run 20 minutes and walk for a minute before completing the next 20 minutes. Try to increase the number of minutes you run consecutively every time you run.

Hope some of you have the courage to sign up for that first half and give this plan a try. You’ll never regret it!

Novice Half Marathon Training Plan