Entries Tagged as 'Goals'

Andrew wants to do a half marathon

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One of my aims when I started learning how to run in January this year was to do the quarter marathon at the Auckland marathon in November this year.

Auckland Marathon

Maybe I’m totally crazy but I’ve started to think about doing the half marathon instead. I’ve had a look at Hal Higdon’s Novice Half Marathon training guide and he reckons it should only take 12 weeks to train up to complete it. I don’t think I’d be ready in 12 weeks but I have 30 weeks.

What do some of you more experienced runners think?

As motivation to keep up the training I’ve lined up the following races:

Upcoming Races:

I still need to find two events to do in August and September but will worry about that a bit closer to the time.

I don’t have to make a decision just yet so I will keep thinking about it. It still seems a little like a dream that I’m even considering doing a half marathon.

Tags: running by AndrewE
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What will be my next goal?

Seeing as I ran 5K on Monday I have decided to treat this as my final week on C25K. On Friday I should finish the program so I need to decide what I will do next. One of the goals I have set myself is to do the Quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon this year. The quarter is 10.2 km so I need to train myself up to run 10K. Fortunately this is in November so I have some time to get there but I think it would be good to start training for it early.

I find I tend to do well when I can follow a program so I’ve decided that I will follow another training program to get me to 10 km.

There seem to be two major programs recommended to take you to 10K (or one hour of running).

The first is Hal Higdon’s Spring Training. This takes 12 weeks to get you to 6 miles (approx 10K) but it involves running most days and that might be a bit awkward.

The second is Cool Running’s The One Hour Runner. This takes a minimum of ten weeks (depending on how you go you can add weeks in) and involves running 3 times a week.

I quite like the routine of running 3 times a week only so I’ve decided to go with that.

The One Hour Runner program is as follows:

Weeks 1 - 3: Right now you are running 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Your weekly commitment of time is 90 minutes. Continue doing this for three weeks.

Week 4: Run 30 minutes, 29 minutes, 35 minutes. Weekly total: 94 minutes

Week 5: Run 30 minutes, 32 minutes, 38 minutes Weekly total: 100 minutes

Week 6: Run 30 minutes, 33 minutes, 41 minutes Weekly total: 104 minutes

Week 7: Run 30 minutes, 34 minutes, 45 minutes Weekly total: 109 minutes

Week 8: Run 30 minutes, 36 minutes , 49 minute Weekly total: 115 minutes

Week 9: Run 30 minutes, 38 minutes, 54 minutes Weekly total: 122 minutes

Week 10: Run 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes Weekly total: 130 minutes

So what I will do is finish C25K this week and then launch straight into OHR as the first 3 weeks of OHR are the same as the last week of C25K.

I’m also going to run all of the Run Auckland series races (circumstances permitting). These are 5K or 10K races so I will aim to run them on my 30 minute days as I’m planning on doing them as 5K races. Having said that I may do the last one as a 10K if I have managed to run 10 km by then. Of course, this all assumes that I enjoy the 1st 5K event which is about 3 weeks away

Boy, times have changed for me. A few months ago I would have said you were nuts if you told me I’d be pondering which running program to take.

Tags: C25K, OHR, fitness, running by AndrewE
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