Sub 1 hour 25 mins Half Marathon Training

This program is for serious athletes with a good quality base and experience of the various sessions required. The schedule will take you up to over 50 miles a week, so not for the faint hearted.

The main ingredients of the program are repetition and interval running, but with an emphasis on continuous, fast-paced runs to build up your speed endurance. Thus, much of your steady running should be at around threshold pace, which is reckoned to be the speed of your best 10 miles; this is slightly above half-marathon pace, but it is the best pace to train at.

For a bit of variety you also need some hill running and some short, fast bursts to ‘zap’ the muscles’ enzymes. As the training progresses and your mileage increases you should have the feeling of building up strength in your body. Don’t worry, you’re allowed one low-mileage week as a recuperation phase before testing your progress with a serious race over 10 miles or 10K.

You’ve got to listen to your body and fit your training to its needs, rather than impose a rigid schedule. The pattern is: hard effort, followed by easy running until you’re ready to run hard again. As race day approaches, the efforts become easier and the recovery periods longer, so that you’re bursting with energy on race day.

Remember that week 10 is as important as week 5 so that what you do in this last week won’t make you run any faster. Doing nothing at all would cause you to put on a few pounds, so you do need to keep running, but not too long or pacey, as it may leave you tired on race day.

View the advanced half marathon schedule >>

Running