Half marathon training plan: 8 weeks to race day

Eight weeks will not take you from the couch to 13.1 miles, but it can take a runner who already jogs for an hour to a half marathon finish line in control.

This plan assumes you can already run 45 to 60 minutes easy, three or four days a week, with no nagging injuries. It builds one long run each week up to about two hours, adds a single threshold session on Tuesday, keeps everything else easy, and tapers for the last two weeks. If you are still working up to your first 5K, start with our first 5K guide instead.

StartLane does not currently build half marathon plans. Its race plans cover the 5K and 10K, and it also builds 8-week Norwegian Method blocks. This article is a plan you can follow on your own, using heart rate zones from the same model the app uses.

Before week 1: the gate check

Start this block if most of these are true:

• You already run at least three days a week.
• Your longest recent run is about 60 to 75 minutes.
• You are not injured, and you can train four or five days a week for two months.
• You have a heart rate strap or a watch you actually wear.

If a five-mile run still feels like an event, spend another four to six weeks building easy volume first. Half marathon training on a thin base is a good way to get hurt.

Heart rate zones for this plan

Heart rate is a better guide than pace for most of this plan, because pace shifts with heat, hills, wind, and sleep. Heart rate does drift upward in the heat and late in long runs.

Start with your maximum heart rate. If you have not tested it, use the Tanaka formula: 208 minus 0.7 times your age. For a 30-year-old that is 187 bpm. In StartLane's five-zone model:

| Zone | Use in this plan | % of max HR | Example (max 187) | |------|------------------|-------------|-------------------| | Zone 1 | Easy runs and long runs | 60 to 75% | 112 to 140 bpm | | Zone 3 | Threshold intervals | 82 to 90% | 153 to 168 bpm | | Zone 4 | Not used in this plan | 90 to 96% | 168 to 180 bpm |

Zone 3 is threshold and Zone 4 is VO2max. Zone 2 sits between easy and threshold, and this plan mostly skips it.

Early threshold sessions should sit in the lower half of Zone 3, controlled, with a feeling that you could do more. Half marathon race effort usually lands somewhere in Zone 3 for trained runners, though individual heart rates vary, so treat this as a guide.

If you cannot speak in full sentences on an easy run, you are above Zone 1. See why you might be running too hard on easy days.

The weekly shape

| Day | Session | |-----|---------| | Mon | Rest, or 30 minutes very easy | | Tue | Threshold intervals (Zone 3) | | Wed | Easy, 30 to 50 minutes | | Thu | Easy, 30 to 45 minutes, with 4 strides | | Fri | Rest | | Sat | Long run (Zone 1) | | Sun | Easy 30 minutes, or rest |

On a four-day schedule, drop Sunday and one shorter easy run. Keep the long run and the threshold session. The plan leaves out VO2max work on purpose. A half marathon rewards base and threshold work, and a third hard day would crowd a week that already has a threshold session and a long run. Volumes are in minutes because a 10:30 runner and a 7:30 runner should not follow the same mileage chart.

The 8-week outline

| Week | Long run | Tuesday threshold (Zone 3) | Threshold time | |------|----------------------|----------------------------|----------------| | 1 | 75 min | 4 x 6 min, 2 min jog | 24 min | | 2 | 85 min | 5 x 6 min, 2 min jog | 30 min | | 3 | 95 min | 4 x 8 min, 2 min jog | 32 min | | 4 | 80 min (step back) | 3 x 8 min, 2 min jog | 24 min | | 5 | 110 min | 3 x 10 min, 2 to 3 min jog | 30 min | | 6 | 120 min (cap) | 3 x 10 min, or 2 x 15 min | 30 min | | 7 | 80 min | 4 x 5 min, 2 min jog | 20 min | | 8 | Race week | 3 x 4 min, 3 min jog | 12 min |

Every threshold day starts with 10 minutes of easy running and ends with 10 minutes of easy cooldown. Every long run is Zone 1, apart from the optional finish described below.

A few notes on the table. Week 4 is a step back on purpose, so the first three weeks can soak in. Do not use it to test your fitness.

The long run caps at about two hours. Past that, most recreational runners pay more in recovery than they gain, and if two hours covers only ten miles at your easy pace, that is fine.

Weeks 5 and 6 are the peak, with the longest long runs and the longest threshold reps. For one more stimulus, run the last 20 minutes of the week 6 long run at half marathon effort, around the bottom of Zone 3. Skip this if you are tired.

Weeks 7 and 8 are the taper. A 2007 meta-analysis of tapering by Bosquet and colleagues, which pooled 27 studies of competitive athletes, found the best results from a taper of about two weeks, with total training volume reduced progressively by 41 to 60% and intensity and frequency left alone. That figure is for total volume, not for the long run. Taking the middle of each range in the plan, running time comes to about 315 minutes in week 6, about 245 minutes in week 7 (roughly 22% less), and about 155 minutes in week 8 before the race itself (roughly 50% less). The week 7 long run drops by a third, from 120 to 80 minutes, but the other sessions shrink less. Week 7 still has a threshold session, just a shorter one. The study pooled athletes from different sports, so use it as a framework and not a prescription.

Race week, with a Saturday race:

• Mon: 40 minutes easy with 4 strides
• Tue: 10 minutes easy, 3 x 4 minutes at Zone 3 with 3 minutes jog, 10 minutes easy
• Wed: 30 minutes easy, or rest
• Thu: 25 to 30 minutes easy with 3 strides
• Fri: rest, or 20 minutes very easy
• Sat: race

If you feel flat on Wednesday, that is normal. Do not add a confidence tempo.

What the long run is for

The long run is time on your feet at a heart rate you could repeat tomorrow, not a rehearsal of the last 5K of the race. Start slower than feels necessary, so the first 20 minutes feel almost too easy. From about week 4, eat and drink the way you plan to on race day. Apart from the optional week 6 finish, if you need Zone 3 to get through the run, it is too long for this week or you started too fast.

Race-day pacing

Many half marathons go wrong the same way, with miles 1 to 3 too fast and miles 10 to 13 a negotiation.

Run the first three miles a little slower than goal effort. Heart rate on the start line is inflated by adrenaline, so use feel for the first mile and let heart rate settle after that. By mile 4, settle into an effort that feels hard but controlled, about what the later reps of your Tuesday threshold sessions felt like, and hold it to about mile 10. Spend whatever is left after that. Hide the pace screen for the first 20 minutes, since GPS wobbles in crowds.

Mistakes that ruin the block

• Racing a 10K in week 5 for fitness. You already have a hard Tuesday and a long Saturday. If the race is on the calendar anyway, run it as a controlled workout.
• Making every run a little bit hard. When none of your easy days are easy, the threshold session stops working.
• Taper panic. Feeling sluggish in week 8 is normal, and fitness does not vanish in a week.
• New shoes and new fuel in week 7. Use what you tested in training.

Check that it is working

Around the end of week 4, repeat an easy 30-minute run on the same route at the same heart rate you used in week 1. If you are a bit faster, the base is building. If you are slower and more tired, your easy days are probably too hard, or life stress is eating your recovery.

How StartLane fits

StartLane offers 5K and 10K race plans with a built-in taper, and an 8-week Norwegian Method block that you can run without a race.

What the app can do for a half marathon runner is the base and threshold work this plan relies on. The Norwegian block is made of easy Zone 1 running and Zone 3 threshold intervals, with 4x4 VO2max sessions in weeks 5 to 7 and a test week at the end. Every session shows a heart rate target. At the default weekly hours its long runs grow from 40 to about 60 minutes, which builds a base but is not half marathon preparation by itself. One option is to run the block first, then move into the long-run build in this article.

You need your zones before you start, whichever plan you follow. When you set up a plan you enter your age, your current easy pace, and your heart rate at that pace. The Your Zones page then shows heart rate ranges for all five zones and an estimated pace for each, using the Tanaka estimate unless you enter your own max. You can log runs by hand or bring them in with the Strava sync button or an Apple Health import. The daily check-in (readiness, sleep, soreness, and an optional HRV entry) helps you notice when the long-run weeks are piling up.

The weekly plan above is yours to manage. StartLane will not adjust it for you, so keep an eye on how you feel. For more on how the zones work, read Heart Rate Zone Training: How to Calculate Your 5 Zones.