Step One - What is your goal for the half-marathon? 

Do you want to finish the race with your head held high, not on your last leg, or maybe just finish the race without walking one bit of it? 

1. If so, it will be more important to run regularly than to incorporate speed/tempo work into your training.  You should target running 3 times a week with one of those runs being your long run.  For example, you could run M/W/F with one day being your long run, one day being a mid-distance run and Friday being hills. To read more... 

Agnes sent me this link - it’s the coolest little calculator I’ve ever seen!  If you have a current race pace, plug it in and the calculator will tell you what pace to train long, tempo, Yasso 800s, etc.   To calculate your pace click here.... 

Your “results” will look like this display to the right.  For this example, if you run a 4 hour marathon, your long run should be done at about a 10:15 min/mile pace (I would recommend shooting for the lower end of that range due to the program we follow - I can explain sometime if you’re interested), tempo at 8:33 min/mile, and Yassos at 3:57 min/mile.  Cool, huh?!?!?!

I’ll delve into the basic science of fueling (which I have hugely over-simplified but hopefully it’ll get my point across).  To fuel our runs we have 3 options - Creatine Phosphate (CP), glycogen and fat.  You have about 15 seconds worth of CP fuel - that’s it.  Think Usain Bolt running the 100m - he fuels with CP and it works because he can run 100m in less than 15 seconds.  CP is where your body will go first looking for fuel, particularly if you take off like a rocket from Starbucks.  Think of CP as kindling on a fire - it catches fire easily but burns out very quickly.  Glycogen is the next fuel option.  Glycogen is basically stored in your muscles and in your liver and because of that it makes glycogen a bit more difficult to burn as fuel (think of damp firewood - it will eventually burn but it takes quite a bit to get it going).  Fat is the 3rd source of fuel and most runners, even the very lean women, have an ample supply of it.  Think of fat as a butane tank of gas on the BBQ grill - once it’s lit, you can have countless cook-outs before the fuel is gone.  Here’s the important part.....  all of those fuel sources - kindling, damp firewood or butane gas need something to ignite them and keep them burning.  Physiologically speaking that ignition or burning “tool” is ATP which is created by mitochondria; so, the more mitochondria you have the more efficient you are as a fuel burning machine.  Bear with me here - I promise this is leading somewhere.  What is mitochondria and how do we get more of it?  Some of us are genetically blessed with higher mitochondria counts.  Thank your mother for that - it comes through the maternal side of the genetic equation.  If you didn’t win the genetic lottery, then the only way you can increase mitochondria is through LONG, SLOW, ENDURANCE training (LSE).  When you go for a long run at a slow pace, you actually produce mitochondria.  Kind of cool, huh?  Now remember - we need mitochondria to help ignite our fuel sources.  So what does that mean for you??????  It means SLOW DOWN on your long run - give your body a chance to become a mitochondria production factory.  If you do your long run at a strong pace, you’re missing out on this benefit.