Half-marathon training tips to ace your next 21.1K

Half-marathon events have seen a huge growth in popularity over the last decade, with entries skyrocketing in Canada and around the world. To give your training a boost, here are seven tips to ace your next half, from former Canadian half-marathon champion Andrew Smith, who has a 1:05:07 PB.

1. Find your starting point

To begin training for your half-marathon, you need to have a goal time. If you’re unsure of what a reasonable goal should be, use the VDOT chart developed by renowned running coach Jack Daniels. You can look up your current race performance over any distance ranging from the mile all the way up to the marathon, and the chart will show you what your predicted race finishing times will be for other common distances.

2. Boost your lactate threshold

Lactate threshold (LT) is a key indicator of race performance in the half-marathon – it’s the point at which you start to accumulate lactic acid faster than your body can process it to use as fuel for your muscles. The best way to improve your LT is to train at your LT pace. The two most common types of threshold training are tempo runs and cruise intervals. The traditional tempo run is a sustained run of anywhere between 20–40 minutes done at your LT pace. Cruise intervals are sessions that include run bouts ranging from 5–15 minutes at LT pace with 1–2 minutes of rest in between.

3. Run hills

Incorporate hill workouts once a week in the early weeks of the build-up. Try 8 x 1 min. hill repeats at 5K race effort, with an easy jog back downhill.

4. Do some workouts at 10K pace

The half-marathon is closely related to the 10K, so doing some workouts at your current 10K pace is going to help your half-marathon pace feel much easier.

5. Run long

The aim of your long runs should be to build up to running the full 21.1K race distance in training on most weeks, if possible. If you feel like you’re able to go slightly longer than 21.1K, feel free to add 1–2K so that you become very comfortable with the distance. You can add another element to your long runs by trying to finish the final few kilometres of the run at a strong pace. This gets your body used to working hard when it’s already fatigued from running for a long time.

6. Build up for 10 weeks

Ideally, you want to have about a 10-week build-up to your half-marathon race, averaging at least 65K per week (although beginners might not hit this level). Before the start of the 10-week build-up to your race, it would be ideal to have had at least six weeks at 45–50K per week as a base.

7. Go into the race with a plan

It’s important to head into your race with a firm plan to execute your half-marathon. Have confidence in all of the kilometres you ran at goal pace and try to find that pace as early in the race as possible. Remember, the more evenly paced race you run without going over that edge of your lactate threshold, the greater the chance you’ll reach your goal. 

Portions of this article appeared in an earlier issue of Canadian Running.