So, you want to complete a training plan for a half marathon and do it the absolute laziest way possible. Okay. so, maybe I’m giving you a little bit of a hard time. You've got work to do, you've got family life, you got all these other things, but you also want to complete a half marathon. I'm Jesse Funk and on today's episode of Runner's High, I'm going to show you the basics of a training plan that can help you complete a half marathon with minimal training.
Before we get going, let me be consistent and say, I'm not a big fan of going couch to half marathon or full marathon. I think the risk of getting injured is too high compared to what the reward is actually finishing that race. So, please run for a little while before you start this plan. If you want to ignore me, you are open to do that, you have your own agency. But please take my caveat, that's what I often say couch to marathon or couch to half marathon is risks of injury. So, now we got past that caveat, let's get on to the actual plan.
The plan I'm going to give you actually covers 16 weeks of training. And it's often prescribed to do 12 weeks of training before your half marathon. ?? 01:23> 16 weeks because I know some of you watching this, if you are watching this, and you're one of those people that wants to go from couch to half marathon, then you need that extra month. Please heed my advice. But down in the description, there's a link to the actual training plan that I'm describing here. Without going by week by week, I'm actually going to describe just some of the key elements in case you want to go rogue and do your own training plan. You'll have the key elements that I use in this training schedule. Again, if you want to get that training schedule I've already put together that will get you from very low mileage to completing that half marathon, go to the link below in the description.
The first key component to the training block that I've made for you is that it’s broken up into five mini blocks, or it's really periodized. I talked about this in some of my other videos on the channel, periodization, and how important it is to use it when you're building up to new mileage. It helps mitigate that risk of injury that I've talked about before, and then allows you to kind of build into new mileage a little more comfortably, than if you're just going to like try to slam that mileage in. So, from those 16 weeks, it's five blocks of two weeks building, one week recovery. And you repeat that five times. There's also one week of taper right before you get to the race because you want to make sure you're fresh, prepared, ready to go and have kind of maximum effort in you when you get to the starting line.
The real big key component to this training plan actually comes in these two-day blocks in the weeks. And what I mean is that there are two days back to back in the schedule where you're going to do your longest runs. This is something that I use in my training that my coach prescribes for me in my triathlon training, both for Olympics and 70.3 distance. So, if you're not familiar with those Olympics takes me roughly two hours and a little change. And then the 70.3 or half Ironman includes a half marathon at the end. But when we do this block, this two-day block, it allows you to build your endurance without going as far in one day. Which again, it's all about mitigating injury risk, and then increasing your potential to grow and become a stronger athlete.
So, what happens is that you have to pick out two days a week. Often for most people, that's the weekend. It's Saturday, Sunday. For me, it's Sunday, Monday, but I have a little bit more flexibility in my work schedule. What you'll do is you'll do a longer run, say it's Saturday, Sunday, the longer run on Saturday, and the still long but less long run on Sunday. You're trying to simulate the load of a long long run both those mileages together without having the risk of injury.
When you use this, this is kind of the bread and butter of getting to the start line of your half marathon and knowing that you can complete because your body's gone through a lot of the adjustments that it needs to to be able to go for a longer period of time because you've been doing these blocks of long runs over that 16 week building period.
It's also important to follow those rest weeks when they come up. Don't just think you're gonna plow right through all the mileage all the way to your race and be fine. That is a recipe for disaster. I don't know how many times I'm going to mention in this video, but again, you're increasing your risk when you do that. So, follow the two-one periodization.
Be patient, know that the training plan that I'm prescribing here for you, or the thing that you put together that builds that mileage over time, using all the suggestions I gave on the channel here is going to get you from the start line all the way to the finish line along with your determination to do so. But here's the thing. You don't necessarily have to take my word for it. I actually interview people. If you subscribe to the channel, hit that button right there in the bottom right hand corner, it’s red that says subscribe. Stay tuned for another episode of Runner’s High.
And my other series, the Smart Athlete Podcast, I talked to some very intelligent athletes that are also very competitive. Two people that you might be interested in particular is the episode called Marathon Mind with Chris Lundstrom. He's a highly qualified marathoner and also a coach of Team USA, Minnesota. And you also might be interested in the episode, I believe, 19 with Stephanie Howe Violett. She is an ultra-marathoner who's won the Western States 100.
If you don't know how epic that is, look up the Western States 100, it's 100-mile ultra-marathon, it's kind of the I’ll say, North American championship of ultra-marathons. So, both those people, we talked about injury, we talked about training, we talked about all those kind of things. So, don't take my word for it. It's very important to mitigate risk in your injury when you're building up, especially for long distances.
When you use those two essential elements that back to back two day long run long run, and the periodization where you go build two weeks, then rest week for that five repetitions and your taper; when you put those two together, those are the keys that you need to complete your half marathon with minimal training. So, if you want to know more about marathon training, half marathon training, 5K training; running in general, subscribe to the channel. Hit that button down there in the right corner. Stay tuned with me for more episodes of Runner’s High.