Heather Fell: If it's your first time running a half marathon, it can be pretty daunting. After
all, you're probably going to be running the furthest that you've ever run in your life and
if you're not, there's still plenty that you can learn and we're going to be guiding you on how to
prepare for your first half marathon. [music]
If you set your sights on completing a half marathon, hopefully, you're already doing a
certain amount of running and training. Ideally, you need to be at around 5 to 6 miles on a regular
training run. From there, it's very much about building up that base gradually, this is very
much a thing of slow and steady wins the race, so your body has that time to adapt. You're not
going to gain anything from doing the occasional long or hard run here or there. It's consistency
and repeating this train that's going to give you that strength to then up the mileage ready
for the half marathon. Ideally, you want to be running at least three times a week in order to
complete the sessions required. These three runs can be simply split into the easy recovery run,
the hilly or tempo run, and a long run. We'll start by looking at the easy recovery run.
It is, as it says, it should be easy, and it's allowing your body to recover
and absorb the training and the hard work from those tougher sessions and also prepare your body
ahead of the next one. It can be anywhere between 2 and 6 miles, whatever is comfortable for you. By
the end of the run, you should actually be feeling better than you did at the start. It's just a
chance to get everything moving, and nice and relaxed. If you're not sure what pace to run at,
you should be able to hold a conversation. If you're running on your own way, you could practice
that, maybe, as long as there's no one around or if you're with a friend, you should be able to
talk as though you are out for a walk, if you can't, then you know you're running too fast.
The hilly or tempo runs are great for building strength in your legs and
creating positive adaptations within your body. When it comes to hills, they actually naturally
get you working harder as your heart rate is going to automatically rise and it's going to be
putting quite a lot of effort on your legs just to get up that hill. When you do reach a hill,
try to really keep good form, work a little bit harder at it, and then you can use the flats or
the descents as part of your recovery. As for the tempo runs, they recreate the
effort of hills, but on the flat. Tempo pace will be very similar to your half marathon
goal pace. Similar to those hilly runs, it's about increasing your effort level,
allowing a decent recovery in between these efforts. As an example, try two lots of 10 minutes
at your half marathon pace, allowing 5 minutes of easy jogging in between for you to recover. From
here, feel free to mix up the session varying the number of intervals and the duration, but remember
to build it up slowly and don't overdo it. Last but not least, the long run. This is one of
our favorites here at GTN and it's still going to be at that really comfortable conversational pace,
like your recovery run, except it's going to be a couple of miles further, at least to start with,
and you're going to start building it up. Ideally, you want to be adding on around a mile every two
weeks. If you don't quite feel ready to add on an extra mile at some point, it's okay, you can just
keep it at that and then build it up the following week. You're going to keep doing this until
you get to around 10 miles for your long run. You might be thinking, "Well, the half marathon
is 13.1, do I not need to do that in training?" You don't, you can save the extra effort for race
day. With all the other training, it'll mean that you're perfectly prepared and you're ready to go
the full distance when you need to. Again, it is about the consistency of completing these sessions
week after week, session after session. That's going to build that great base and give you the
confidence that you need for race day. Talking of race day, we need to think about pacing,
nutrition, and race day itself. [music]
Training, in theory, is the hard part. It would be a shame to forget the final few, yet key, details.
Race nutrition is one of those. You need to start thinking ahead when it comes to fueling for your
race. The typical fuel during a half marathon will be gels and some people will take a gel
every 20 minutes, for others, maybe just one gel in the whole half, some people won't even at all,
but you need to practice it. That's where the long run is perfect for this. Try a few different ones
because if you don't like the first, they're not all the same. There's different consistencies,
different flavors. If you're not wanting to carry your own gels during your race, you might
want to actually find out what the event provides because a lot of events will actually have gels or
sweets that are available on the course so make sure that they're okay. It isn't just the taste,
it's the effect on your stomach too, so make sure, practice, practice, practice with these.
I personally struggle on this but you will be grateful when it comes to the race day.
The morning of your half marathon itself is going to be full of excitement and
nerves so to try and reduce that as much as possible, you want to have plans and practice
as much as you can. The pre-race nutrition is a vital part of this. Use your long run again
to do this. Imagine you're going out and you're going to be doing your race. It's normally going
to be your breakfast because most half marathons tend to be in the morning. Whether that's going to
be porridge or rice pudding or toast, whatever it is for you that you find easy to digest, practice
this, and you'll probably find you need to have about two, two and a half hours before your actual
race so that you can fully digest it, you can go to the bathroom and when it's on race day, you've
got time to do that pre-race warm-up as well. We'd recommend trying out different routines
before your race as well so you know what works for you. Then look at some of the logistics as
how long it's going to take you to drive or to get the bus or get to the start,
how far away the car parks are, where the registration is, what the course is like,
and maybe where there's any fueling stations. All of these things, if you've planned them
ahead of time, you're going to be more relaxed, and you'll get far more out of your first event.
When the race begins, pacing becomes critical, you should have a fairly good idea of what pace
you need to run at from all of those training runs, especially the tempo ones. That said,
with the excitement and the adrenaline, it is super easy to go off way too fast and we see
it happening all the time. You've really got to control yourself here and be patient because if
you've got your training right, you're going to be feeling really good for the first half,
but you want to make sure that you're still feeling good for the second half, so
rein it in. If you're still feeling strong towards the end, or those final few miles,
that's the time you can start to up it. You want to dress for the conditions, you want
to try and find the right balance of something that's going to keep you the correct temperature
throughout the race. Obviously check the forecast beforehand and you'll have a rough idea from your
training, hopefully, especially if it's somewhere local. If it's going to be a pretty chilly start,
you might want to have something that you can discard, some people use bin liners,
you can discard them at the start, or maybe even an old jumper or piece of clothing, and some
races will organize for those to be collected and taken to charity, but just check that beforehand.
Once you've covered all of these points, there's one major thing you mustn't forget
and that is to enjoy it, go there with a smile on your face. After all, it's like the celebration
of all that hard work you've put in and now it's your time to go and enjoy that. Those hours of
training are going to be worth it. Remember that when you're going through the training,
and hopefully, you will have the best experience ever as you run your longest ever event.
Good luck. I think that's all that's left to say. If you've enjoyed it,
give us a Like, subscribe to us on YouTube by clicking the globe, and you can also follow us
on our social media channels. [00:07:34] [END OF AUDIO]