Improving half marathon time

[Jamie55]

Hello,

Yesterday I ran my first half marathon! It went well and overall I felt good and I did it in 2:21 minutes. I am registered for a 2nd half marathon on November 9th and I would like to focus the time between on improving my pacing to have a faster pace. However, as I was well guided through various Apps up to now, I sort of feel at a lost on how to achieve my next milestone, how many times a week I should run, for how long etc... Any advice, or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Jamie55

[Jwolf]

Welcome to runningmania. And congratulations on your first half-marathon!

What training plan were you following for your first one? Since this was your first half-marathon, you are likely to see some improvement simply by continuing with the training from your first one. You don't necessarily want to stay at your peak mileage every week, but you could back off slightly and rebuild, repeating some weeks for consistency. For example, if your plan had you gradually building to the half-marathon distance, you could back off to what you were doing about 5 weeks before the end of the training, repeat some of those weeks and build back up toward November 9.

[Stampie]

Welcome to RM as well!

My 1st half was very memorable and a blast, and no matter how much I try I can never re-capture that feeling. Don’t get me wrong I’ve had many other half’s that were much better, but that day was unbelievable. Anytime I run part of the course, which is fairly regularly, I’m reminded of that run. I vividly remember that day even today.

Just to expand on what Jwolf said, I would say 3-4 runs per week would be good and I would mix it up like she has suggested. Keep one day as your long run, don’t worry about pace or speed. Work on the notion of time spent on your feet. Give yourself a day to recover from that and then look at an easy recovery run at low to moderate pace. The day after consider speed/hill workouts. Then have are rest day and follow that up with a moderate paced run of 45-60min.

For example:
Sunday – Long run
Monday – Rest
Tuesday – 30min easy or 5K
Wednesday – Speed/hill workout
Thursday – Rest
Friday – 45-60min moderate or 8-10K
Saturday – Rest

[Dstew]

http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51131 ... ng-Program

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-traini ... age=single

http://running.about.com/od/racetrainin ... ichalf.htm

Just a sample of some the different training schedules one can use but as Jwolf pointed out, merely continuing on and doing what you were doing will help. I ran on feel and without every consulting a schedule or program but instead used hints and tips from Runners World and in my third year of running qualified for Boston so getting out the door was the most important thing for me. My advice based upon my experience is pick a program or even the runs that good and right to your eye. If you read it and it looks good and you think to yourself, you can do that, then you are more likely to stick with it and it is more likely to work. Once you have some more races under your belt, you can start to get fancy with runs, etc.