Personal Trainer

i run 3 times a week but only for 1/2 hour at a steady speed
id like to train for a half marathon, any advice greatly appreciated

get in the gym and make use of the functions on the treadmil and cross trainer!! hills, interval and random at a good level and speed for 30 mins at a time are good for improving your endurance!! for cardio work if you could squeeze 5 sessions a week it would obviously benefit you alot more!! as running on a treadmill doesnt have the same effect as running on ground a few simple strength exercises 2-3 times a week to work the legs (weighted calf raises, plyometrics, squats, lunges....just simple exercises will work.)

a few weeks of this and you should see an improvement as long as your not a junk food addict

Hi there,

Do you know how far you are running in that 30 minutes?

I'd recommend doing some fartlek (speed play), just warm up for a mile at a slow pace, then give yourself short targets such as the next lamp post. Run at a faster rate until you get to the target then slow right down till the next one and then do the same again to the next target. Do this for a mile or two then a mile warm down.

Also Tempo runs are great for building speed. Do a slow warm up run, then run at a faster pace (a good way to tell is if you can only say one or two words without having to take a breath) for two miles. One mile warm down at a slow pace.

Hillwork is also great. My current workout involves a slow half-mile run to the hill. The hill is 150 long. I do sets of running fast up the hill, jog down slow to recover. I do that twice. I then have a 90 second rest before doing it again. I usually do about 5 sets of 2.

You probably want to try to do a long, slow run once a week to build endurance. Start increasing you run time about 10% each week and get up to 10 miles or so.

Don't do much too soon, running injuries seem to appear from nowhere and can take ages to heal. The above were just some suggestions of the kind of thing you can start adding into you training.

My typical week is:

Mon: Rest
Tue: 7 mile run with stops (its a club social run)
Wed: Rest
Thu: Hills
Fri: 6 Miles steady run
Sat: 3 miles tempo
Sun: 10 miles slow

Let me know if you need any further advice.

Pete

Sorry, I think I gave a bit too much info in my last reply.

If it was me I'd probably do the following:

Try to increase to four running sessions per week and do something similar to the following:

Sun: Increase your run to about 40 minutes (then increase another 5/10 mins each week). Till you are running 10 - 12 miles.

Mon: Rest

Tue: Steady 30 minute run

Wed: Rest

Thu: Hillwork or Tempo run

Fri: Slow recovery run of 2 or 3 miles

Sat: Rest