How to easily succeed in your first half-marathon? Here are 8 tips:
Tip #1: Requirements for participating in your first half-marathon.
Have at least two years of running experience.
Have participated in a few road races, particularly 5K and 10K.
Be able to run at a comfortable, easy pace for one hour and twenty minutes.
Tip #2: Develop your maximum aerobic speed.
You must do training sessions to develop your maximum aerobic speed. It takes at least two months to develop your VMA (maximum aerobic speed). The ideal time is September and October.
You also need a maintenance or refresher session every two weeks during the rest of the season to continue developing your VMA.
Tip #3: Specific Half-Marathon Pace.
If your goal is to run a half-marathon in 1 hour and 24 minutes, your specific pace is 15 km/h, which is an average of about 4 minutes per kilometer.
-The specific half-marathon pace you should train for is 4 minutes per kilometer. By running at this speed in your training, you will fully exploit your potential over the half-marathon distance and perform better during your race.
4th Tip: Base Endurance
Base endurance runs should represent 75% of your training.
-Easy runs.
-Warm-up runs.
-Recovery runs.
Long runs.
You should run these runs at an easy pace, breathing comfortably, and at 60 to 75% of your Maximum Heart Rate.
5th Tip: Why Improve Your Speed for a Half-Marathon?
-A fast athlete is able to accelerate their pace at any time, and their speed is crucial for winning a race. -As a general rule, the fastest athletes are the best in their disciplines.
-To improve your speed, you should do, for example, 10 repetitions of 150m. Run the 150m sprint all out and recover for 4 minutes between each interval.
-When you finish your runs, also do 4 to 5 80-meter sprints to gradually improve your speed.
6th Tip: Running Technique.
To improve your running technique, schedule specific physical preparation (SPP) sessions and general physical preparation (GPP) sessions.
7th Tip: How to predict your half-marathon performance?
-Multiply your best 10K time by 2.2.
-Perform the Half-Yasso test: a session of 15 repetitions of 400m at the fastest and most consistent pace possible, with recovery time equivalent to the running time.
For example, if you average 15 x 400 meters in 1 minute 24 seconds, then you're capable of running a half marathon in 1 hour 24 minutes. You convert minutes to hours and seconds to minutes.
Tip 8: Planning Your Half Marathon Training
To build a well-structured and effective half marathon training program:
You should plan a training program of at least 8 weeks with 4 sessions per week.
The program will have 3 parts:
4 weeks of general development.
3 weeks of specific development.
1 week of recovery.
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