Some people think that if they want to run a half marathon then they should just go out and run 13.1 miles everyday. That is actually the worse thing you can do. Marathoners don't run marathons day in and day out. It is something that you have to work up to and running super long distances for long periods of time can cause injury.
To start I'm going to assume that you can run continuously for over thirty minutes. If you can't then you should go back and check out an earlier blog post of mine. So now we have to get you from running three plus miles to a half marathon distance. Now there are a lot of websites out there that do talk about this and I have linked a few in the past, but some of those websites don't tell you the why and only the how.
Getting ready to run a half marathon takes planning and the best way to start planning is have your event date set. So go purchase yourself a spot at a half marathon that you want to do and that is your end point. Now we will work back ward from that point (I'm going to use my workout calendar as an example).
(Sorry for the odd formatting, but its the only way to see it.)
So my half marathon race is the first weekend in May. It is best to start by planning when your long run days are going to be.
I started with that date and planned a two weeks of taper in that is my personal preference others only plan one week of taper. After that you know you have to at least attempt the race distance once before the actual race so you know how your body will react and feel after. (April 19th on my calendar). Then as you can see I simply subtracted a mile from my long runs every week. Now I have my long run days at different times of the week and some professional runners say that is a no no, but it is my family schedule that I have to adapt to.
So once you have your long run days figured out it is time to fill in the rest of your workout calendar. It is best to plan on running two additional days during the week and have at least one rest day before your long runs. As you can see from my calendar that I routinely do Yoga the day before my long run. It is to make sure I am stretched out and some what recovered before my long run.
Now as you can tell I don't have workouts planned on the weekends and that is because of my work schedule on those days I can't workout, so my calendar is adjusted so. You should also plan on two days a week to do some sort of strength or circuit training in order to strengthen the muscles that you don't use while running. This is done in order that you don't have an imbalance of strength in your muscles, which can lead to injury. As you can see my circuit training days are listed as different p90x or p90x3 (Beach Body) names or climbing gym. Those are just my personal preference of workouts.
So as you can see from my march calendar that I have after this week, in which I am having a rest or de-load week (also being sick), I am starting my training by just slowly ramping up my distance. I have other notes in my calendar, but those are my specific training for a OCR event. My half marathon distance is actually an OCR so I am planning other things then just running.
I hope this information is helpful as I am always open feel free to message me or leave comments.
I started with that date and planned a two weeks of taper in that is my personal preference others only plan one week of taper. After that you know you have to at least attempt the race distance once before the actual race so you know how your body will react and feel after. (April 19th on my calendar). Then as you can see I simply subtracted a mile from my long runs every week. Now I have my long run days at different times of the week and some professional runners say that is a no no, but it is my family schedule that I have to adapt to.
So once you have your long run days figured out it is time to fill in the rest of your workout calendar. It is best to plan on running two additional days during the week and have at least one rest day before your long runs. As you can see from my calendar that I routinely do Yoga the day before my long run. It is to make sure I am stretched out and some what recovered before my long run.
Now as you can tell I don't have workouts planned on the weekends and that is because of my work schedule on those days I can't workout, so my calendar is adjusted so. You should also plan on two days a week to do some sort of strength or circuit training in order to strengthen the muscles that you don't use while running. This is done in order that you don't have an imbalance of strength in your muscles, which can lead to injury. As you can see my circuit training days are listed as different p90x or p90x3 (Beach Body) names or climbing gym. Those are just my personal preference of workouts.
So as you can see from my march calendar that I have after this week, in which I am having a rest or de-load week (also being sick), I am starting my training by just slowly ramping up my distance. I have other notes in my calendar, but those are my specific training for a OCR event. My half marathon distance is actually an OCR so I am planning other things then just running.
I hope this information is helpful as I am always open feel free to message me or leave comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment