Half marathon | 4 months to go training plan
- Overview
The following programme is part of a six-month training regime for a half marathon. See the full programme here.
More experienced runners will tend to begin their training for a half marathon with four months to go. If you're a beginner, you should have used the month or two prior to build up your base level of fitness and endurance.
This month you should look to get more specific with your training and increase the intensity. A good rule of thumb is not to increase your weekly milage by any more than 1%. It does not seem at lot, but if you increase more than this after about four weeks you'll find you start to get small injuries and tight muscles.
Tip for the month
Interval training on a treadmill can be a good way to control your time and speed effectively.
By the end of this month you should...
Run or jog a 5km race. There are park runs all over the country every Saturday that are free to enter. These are a great way to start getting used to running in race conditions without the pressure. People of any age can take part.
Programme
As we're getting more specific in training this month, the runs become more diverse. Here's some explainers:
Stretch session - In a stretch session you should stretch for two minutes per leg muscle group: calves, quads and hamstrings.
Interval session - In an interval session you should run as fast as you can for one minute, then walk for two mins and repeat. You should feel out of breath, it should feel hard; if it doesn’t you’ve not gone hard enough.
Steady run - On a steady run, run at a comfortable, relaxed pace.
Tempo run - run as fast as you can without stopping.
Long and slow run - Start out running as far as you can and increase you distance by 1% every week from this point. Go as slow as you can without stopping.
WEEK 1
| Day 1 | Interval 20 mins |
| Day 2 | REST |
| Day 3 | Steady 20 mins |
| Day 4 | REST |
| Day 5 | Tempo 20 mins |
| Day 6 | REST |
| Day 7 | Long and slow + stretch |
WEEK 2
| Day 1 | Interval 25 mins |
| Day 2 | REST |
| Day 3 | Steady 25 mins |
| Day 4 | REST |
| Day 5 | Tempo 25 mins |
| Day 6 | REST |
| Day 7 | Long and slow + stretch |
WEEK 3
| Day 1 | Interval 25 mins |
| Day 2 | REST |
| Day 3 | Steady 30 mins |
| Day 4 | REST |
| Day 5 | Tempo 25 |
| Day 6 | REST |
| Day 7 | Long and slow + stretch |
WEEK 4
| Day 1 | Interval 30 mins |
| Day 2 | REST |
| Day 3 | Steady 30 mins |
| Day 4 | REST |
| Day 5 | Tempo 30 mins |
| Day 6 | REST |
| Day 7 | Long and slow + stretch |
WEEK 5
| Day 1 | Interval 30 mins |
| Day 2 | REST |
| Day 3 | Steady 30 mins |
| Day 4 | REST |
| Day 5 | Tempo 30 mins |
| Day 6 | REST |
| Day 7 | Long and slow + stretch |
Last updated Wednesday 3 January 2018
First published on Monday 11 April 2016