I have signed up for a half marathon on March 8th, I want to run it under an hour and 30 minutes. My last half marathon was 1:38:41. I have 40 days of training to shave off 9 minutes of that time, but I have a plan, I have 20 things that will help me improve and get me to the start line as prepared as I can be to take on this challenge and will help me cross that finish line faster than I’ve ever done.

Now listing 20 things will take very long, so I will cut this up in a couple of episodes and make a little series on how to run faster. So make sure you don’t miss any of the other episodes.

First of all I’ve made a schedule for my training, so I know exactly what I need to do and when I need to do it. I did some traveling after the Dopey Challenge and so I started my training schedule on January 26th, which will give me 40 days until my last training run before March 8th.

So my first concern is actually running the distance of the race, now luckily I have been training for Dopey and the half marathon distance is actually a comfortable distance for me already. Plus I will also be training for a marathon in April, so I need to increase on that distance which will make the half marathon distance a lot easier. So step one in my training is doing long runs, but I don’t have to build up to the half marathon, I’m actually starting at 21K and work my way up to 25K in the 40 days. I’ll do a long run once a week.

Step number two is working on my speed runs, I’m starting out with 5K runs and just setting a good pace for those runs. A pace that might be faster than my half marathon pace, but a pace that I can sustain for the duration of the run. I will do a speed run once a week.

Step number three is also a run to train my speed, but it’s a fartlek run. Some people prefer to do interval runs, I started doing fartlek runs in my training last year and I really enjoy that, so once a week I’ll be doing fartlek runs in my training.

So the basis for my training are three runs a week, one working on the distance of the race and by increasing the distance making it more comfortable to actually run the half marathon. And two runs to work on my speed, endurance and recovery while running. Like I said I have 20 things to help me improve and the runs are only 3 of these things, they are very important things and the training is the most important part of getting ready for the race, but the other 17 things are the things that are going to give me that edge, that little bit of extra that I’ll need to cross that finish line before that clock runs out. I’ll share what my other tips and tricks are in upcoming episodes, so until next time, get out there and run.