What advice can you give me in training for a half marathon?

I want to run a half-marathon in January (I live in AZ). I've never done any type of marathon before. I bought some awesome running shoes and started running about 30 mins a day, 5 days a week, inside and outside. Still doing my regular weight training 3 days a week (light weights). What advice or tips can you give me to help me train to be in the best shape possible by then.|||go to halhigdon.com, he's a pro runner and a coach here in Chicago. He has excellent free programs for you to follow.|||Need to know is correct Higdon is a legend in running, if he will give you a program it will work. Since you have been running 30 minutes continue that for about 1 month and then increase your mileage by 25%. You will be able to handle the extra. You have 4 months before your race, if you control your increases so you don't do too much too soon it will not be a problem. I am guessing you are doing about 3 miles in your 30 minutes run, so you can be running 6 miles a day by the begining of December. Start doing alonger day once each week, of about 8 miles. Keep up your weight training and stretch to stay flexible.|||I'm about to run a half in November. A simple way to get a training program is to use the SmartCoach at http://www.runnersworld.com , just enter your info.


You can also get other great helps in their archieve articles.|||Great to hear, Welcome to the world of distance running. Since you already have a great pair of running shoes you are already on your way to your 1/2 marathon.





I use John Stanton's running program, his books are available through the Running Room at www.runningroom.com his program is 18 weeks and assumse you are coming into the program with a nice base of about 25 Km per week. If you are running 30 minutes a day right now you are very close.





Most training programs are the same whether you go with Stanton, higdon or Galloway. Most programs consit of 3 parts. The first 1/3 start to get your base up and build endurance. The second third adds hill training to build strenght and the last third starts adds interval training to build speed.





John has a number of different schedule depending on your goal time. The most important run of the week is the Long Slow Distance Run which you do on Sundays. For a half they start out pretty modest and you work your way up to about 20K two weeks before the event.





Running is 5 days per week with two schedule rest (cross trainning days). His program is not elite but is designed to get you to your goal.





Good luck


Harry





for running advice check out the foruma at


www.runningroom.com


www.runningmaina.com|||Get into a rhythm, youll end up in a sort of trance, and the miles will melt away|||Hello,





The best advice that I could give would be to gradually build up to a 14-15 mile run 2-3 weeks before the January race. Do this gradually (i.e. increase your long run by 1-mile every weekend). I'd also add some speed workouts to help you get a good race time. See the link below for some for in-depth tips. Best of luck!





- Mike