Of course, I cannot recommend a couch-to-half-marathon plan – it is, on the face of it, ridiculous. Consult a doctor, etc.

Anyway, when you’re beginning to train for a race of any duration, your goals are pretty much always the same:

• Improve your cardio,
• Don’t get injured,
• Build endurance.

You also need to engage in non-cardio exercise that strengthens your core, balance, hips, and upper body. If you do have an ultimate goal of longer distances, you do not want to build up bulky muscles in your arms and shoulders, but you do want to have lean muscle that will help your whole body stay in balance, muscularly.

With Bob as my coach, I have it pretty easy. He knows what he’s doing, and gives me detailed plans for each day. So I just do what the white board says, and don’t have to try to create my own plan (which I categorically would not be able to do).

Improve cardio

Going into this, I was very primed to look at mileage. The further you go the better you are, right? Not exactly. Particularly when you’re just starting out, you want to just start moving. I started out with 15 minute increments. After a couple weeks, we did a little heart rate test on the treadmill to find out where I hit 140 bpm, which at the time was 3.8 mph. Now my goal is to try to stay above 120 bpm and not to go much beyond 150 bpm. We are aiming to continue to lower my heart rate at higher speeds, for longer periods of time. Around 5.0 mph is now where I’m at about 150 bpm, which is strenuous for me. During the heart rate test, 3.8 mph was very strenuous, and now I’m lucky if I can stay above 120 bpm at that pace. We’re mixing in both active recovery days (usually 30-45 min easy or as I feel), and a day off a week. On Wednesday I typically have an interval of some type and on Sunday typically a difficult pace or distance or both. Mondays are off entirely (except for the evening strength exercise).

Don’t Get Injured

Your real goal isn’t a race, it’s to not get injured. Injuries can reset your progress all the way to the beginning, if not further. Running isn’t easy on your body, so you really don’t want to invite the possibility of injury, because it’s a very real threat. That’s not to say you won’t be in pain at times – particularly as your muscles change and develop and your joints adjust. You’ll have twinges in your knees, and you might have shin splints or compartment syndrome. Going from fairly sedentary to active is going to be painful, no matter what. But a little instructive pain is very different from injury, so learn to listen to your body. You do need to push yourself to do uncomfortable things, but if anything feels sharp (like shin splits), it’s a signal to change what you’re doing. You need to rest, stretch, slow down, etc., until your body catches up to your ambition.

Warming up properly matters. When I first started, I would forget to do the dynamic warm up (which is a matrix of lunges, hip rotations, and leg swings), and on those days, my shins hurt a lot more. Now I always do the dynamic warm up, and my legs are better for it.

Gear matters, too. You don’t have to have the shiniest clothing, but do get a pair of decent shoes, and only use them for workouts. Switching from an old pair of kicks that I already had to a new pair of sneakers completely eliminated this upper ankle pain I was experiencing. I find it motivating to get new sports bras and leggings and such, but your mileage may vary (that is a running joke, enjoy it, it’s the only one).

Change your route if you’re outside or change your elevation and pace if you’re inside. Your legs can definitely suffer from always walking the same pace on the same elevation. Mix it up – it makes it a bit more interesting at any rate.

Don’t skip the strength exercises. Even if you’re really sleepy. Spending 20 minutes on mobility and – god help me – planking will help you wake up without excessive tightness. It’ll also help your muscles recover better. You want to condition your body to recover faster and faster from workouts. This is something that people in the sports world are obsessed with. I think this is what got Tiger into trouble (besides the cheating thing); whatever it was that he was accused of taking was for faster muscle recovery, and therefore was a banned substance. These sorts of things are banned in running and cycling as well. You want to be similarly obsessed with improving your recovery, but while maintaining high ethical standards. You can recover better by improving your cardio, staying hydrated, and eating something with protein directly after an intense workout. Rest on rest days. Theoretically you should also begin sleeping pretty deeply and longer if you were not before, although this has not been the case for me yet.

Build Endurance

I mean, thirteen point one miles is quite a handful of miles. You do need to be able to maintain a high heart rate for hours. Our goal is three and a half hours of cardio, which does dismay me a little bit any time I think about it. Right now my long days are 105 minutes. This is the point where this entire business becomes quite cerebral. First of all, it’s boring to be on a treadmill for an hour and forty-five minutes straight. I can’t watch TV while on the treadmill – I find it distracting. I need to be both very focused while also pretending I am not doing what I’m doing. More mindless than mindful. I also need to listen to music fairly loudly. If I can hear myself or the treadmill, I get stuck in a spiral and everything is much harder. Clearly, I am not a natural runner.

On my most recent long day, I ended up right around seven miles, which is halfway there. In the first week of January my average mileage was 2.91 miles, with an average duration of 47 min (4 hours and 43 min in total). In the second week of January, my average mileage was 2.87, with an average duration of 53 min (6 hours, 14 min in total). In the third week of January, my average mileage was 3.81, with an average duration of 65 min (6 hours and 35 min in total). In the fourth week of January, my average mileage was 3.71, with an average duration of 57 min (4 hours, 45 min total). This week, my average mileage works out to 2.89 miles (so far), with two long days on Saturday and Sunday still to come (today is an easy 30 min). Comparing the whole month of December to the whole of January, in December my average mileage was 2.24 miles, with a total of 44.89 miles covered. In January, I was covering an additional mile per exercise on average, for 3.24 miles on average, and a total of 81.02 miles covered for the month. Since we’re building cardio health and endurance, it’s not just about mileage – it’s about sustained heart rate. In December, my minutes in the moderate zone averaged around 22 min per exercise day, with a total of 6 hours and 29 minutes in the moderate zone in December. Moderate is between 109-131 bpm. In January, I spent an average of 36 min in the moderate zone per exercise day, with a total of 15 hours and 23 min in the moderate zone in January. The vigorous zone is the next most active zone, and is 132-159 bpm. In December, I spent 16 min per average in the vigorous zone, and a total of 1 hour and 56 min in that zone. In January, I did one minute better, and spent 17 minutes per average in the vigorous zone, and a total of 3 hours and 46 minutes in that zone in total. There is one more zone – peak – which is 160+ bpm, and I have never visited there.

In Conclusion

So that’s really all there is to it. Bob thinks that I should plan to run a second race, to have something to compare the first one to, but I think I should just think about one race at a time for now. Speaking of, it’s really time for me to hit the ole treadmill. Good luck and don’t get injured.