Half-Marathon in 7 weeks for someone who hasn’t run in at least 5 years. Doable?

[olirain]

@ryan5o To finish? Yeah thats totally doable.

You're gonna work on running technique so you don't accrue any injuries training and on the day of. You also don't need to run the distance before the actual race.

Get some good shoes now. Try to run 2 to 3 times a week, with one of those being longer. Basically all your miles should be easy runs at a pace you feel like you could go all day.

 

[ryan5o]

@olirain Feel like I need to find a running coach now to make sure I have proper running technique! Thank you for the advice!

 

[olirain]

@ryan5o Nah, it's pretty easy to pick up for the casual runner.

I trained for a 50k last year, and I was able to wrap my head around it. These are my recommendations

• go to a running store (not Walmart, and real running store)and get good shoes. For real this will help a ton with injuries of any kind. The people there can also look at your gait and help out
• easy runs. Read that again, easy runs. Easy miles.
• have fun!

If you want any more ideas, I can share my experience training for that 50k (I'm actually training for 1/2 marathon currently as well).

I'd also reconsider checking out the r/weightroom weakpoint Wednesday posts about running. There was some good info there just for general knowledge

 

[ryan5o]

@olirain Yes! I’ll take all the ideas! I am going to try and go to a specialty running shoe store today to get fitted. I actually got fitted a couple years ago for a pair of shoes at another store and I have a pair of ASICS I got on their recommendation. Just not sure if that shoe is too old by now so was gonna get another pair and had hoped they might be able to look at my running and help me correct like you said.

Notes on the easy runs. One thing I noticed was that it was less that I was running out of breathe and more that my legs were just tired and I have pretty muscular legs. I guess it’s just not used to the high impact of running. I had hoped my indoor cycling would transfer over but I’m discovering it’s so different.

 

[olirain]

@ryan5o Well there's no eccentrics and/or impact with indoor cycling, and that's the part that beats you up while running.

A big part of training for any longer distances is that you are gonna have to run on tried legs. The first x miles are easy, it's the last couple that are gonna be hard.

Me and my coach trained pretty specifically with that fact in mind. So I would do my long runs the day after my event days, and my legs would always be tired. Or I'd do ten minutes of sled dragging before a run. That's how we're approaching this 1/2 marathon as well.

 

[ryan5o]

@olirain What are event days?

 

[olirain]

@ryan5o Strongman training. So for that time is was heavy overhead or deads, then heavy bss bulgarian split squats and then atlas stones.

Basically it was a hard and heavy day and my longest runs usually came the day after.

 

[ryan5o]

@olirain At got it! Thanks for clarifying.