Happy Friday!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the upcoming fall running and racing season. I’m looking forward to it and it sounds like many of you are too! I wanted to follow up today with training plans and information on group training.
As part of my ambassadorship with the Charlotte Marathon last year, I assembled an online half marathon training group. We had right around 500 people in the training group and quite a few ran in Charlotte. While that was fun, I’m not trying to organize anything of that scale/formality this year. I would love to create a space where we can all share training questions, updates, post race recaps and generally have a community of support.
I created three day a week training plans for my crew last year. Personally, I’ve found three day a week plans to work well for me for the half distance because they allow me plenty of time for recovery between runs and the freedom to continue with my strength and yoga workouts without having to double up on workouts to get them in. I know that many of you also lead busy lives, want to prevent injury and keep up with your other workouts. The training plans were well-received by my group last year so I thought, why reinvent the wheel!? This year I’m going to share them publicly.
The plans are 12 weeks in duration but feel free to shorten or lengthen them as needed. I created two versions of the plans. The first is geared towards novice/first time/I just want to finish and have fun. The second is geared towards those looking to meet a time goal.
Here are the links…
PBR Half Marathon Training Plan – Beginner/Finish & Have Fun
PBR Half Marathon Training Plan – Intermediate/Time Goal
Within the plans I also include guidance on when to include HIIT, strength, cross training, yoga, etc. and provide links for workouts on my site that you can use for that.
I would also like to do a weekly Facebook live yoga class for you guys this year if that’s something you might be interested in. Maybe on Sundays after the long runs and we’ll gear it towards recovery and deep stretch?
Speaking of Facebook, if you want to participate in the group training, we’ll post all of our updates in the Peanut Butter Runner Community Facebook Group. It was last year’s group for training and it morphed into a general community group. It will be geared towards training for the next few months and then we’ll go back to general fitness and life group after!
Here is the link to the group.
Peanut Butter Runner Half Marathon Training Facebook Group
FYI, I am planning on making Labor Day the official start of the 12-week plans. I think I’m running the Charlotte half this year and the Kiawah half or full so I’ll have to do some tweaking of the plan but I thought early September was a good start since most races occur between October and early December.
Let me know if you have any questions about anything! I hope you’ll join us.
Happy running!
Jen
Thanks Jen! I like your training program for the 1/2 because your longest run is 15 miles, I just can’t deal with training that has the longest run way shorter than the actual race! I’m only up for doing a 15k this fall but will modify the schedule.
Thanks for sharing!
I trained for my first 6 halves by running 3 days per week. last year I upped it to 5-6 days per week with a lot of speed work and although I got faster, I ended up with a stress fracture in my leg:( Your plan looks so wonderful- I might try it once I’m ready to train again!
I plan to run the Charlotte half marathon too. I dont see the link to the Facebook group you mentioned above. I love the idea of running 3 days a week and supplement with strength training. I am coming off a sprained ankle, so i hope to start around Labor day too.
Thanks!
Hi Jen!
I love this 3 runs a week training plan! I am doing a local training team for the Richmond Half Marathon on November, but I am tweaking it a little bit, as I don’t have time to run the recommended 4-5 days a week. I teach BodyPump 1 morning a week and have an 8 month old. So 3 days is perfect for me right now! Also, I would LOVE a live stream of yoga!!! I need some yoga in my life but I just have a hard time finding the time to get to a studio to take a class. It would be perfect to be able to do it from home. Also, the Richmond half and full are AWESOME races, you should look into them for the future !!! (Although I think they fall the same weekend at Charlotte…)
Hi Jen! I love your blog and have been following the beginner’s plan getting ready for a half marathon next weekend (!!). Do you think the plan could work for a full marathon? I’ve read that it’s better to keep lower mileage if you are injury prone or a slow runner (like me!) because runs of 2.5 hours or longer can actually be more risk than they are worth. Would love any thoughts you might have and would be so happy if you ever decided to turn this into a full marathon plan!!!