How not to prepare for a half marathon

There are a few key things to bear in mind when preparing for a half marathon.  Firstly, you need to train.  I knew I'd failed on that one when I logged my miles for August and realised I'd clocked up a grand total of 40.  I considered pulling out of the Glasgow Half Marathon but decided that, with the scarier challenge of the Nokia Coast to Coast just around the corner, it might be a good idea to fit in another 13.1 miles in preparation.

This blog is littered with the mistakes I've made in my own training - as I've said before, I know what to do but sometimes find it difficult to put into practice.  And I'm no natural athlete.  Here are a few of the principles I follow when constructing a training plan, and where I went wrong:

• Specificity - whatever event you're planning for, the training needs to be specific to the demands of your chosen sport.  Cross training is brilliant for building general fitness and preventing injury, but if you don't run in your training, you're unlikely to fare well in a race.  Your body gets stronger through repeated overload followed by periods of adequate recovery and appropriate nutrition.  This leads to 'adaptation', i.e. your body gets used to working harder. I had hoped my regular 2 hour+ bike rides would see me through a similar length of run. But while cycling works your heart and lungs in a similar way to running, the strain it places on your leg muscles is different.  Not to mention the fact that I didn't prepare to run on the road at all.  I spent almost all of those 40 miles running on trail, which didn't get my poor legs ready for the mean streets of Glasgow at all. No wonder I can't walk down the stairs today!
• Volume - the frequency and duration of your training also need to be appropriate.  Obviously if you're running a marathon, you'll need to log more miles than if you're training for a 5k.  Most marathon and half-marathon plans involve 5 days running each week.  However, I really like the 3-day plans from FIRST, which are easier to fit into a busy schedule and allow a bit more variety if you have time to train on another couple of days.  But less than 3 runs a week really isn't enough to prepare for a race above 10k, and an average of 10 miles a week certainly isn't far enough, no matter how much other activity you do.
• Intensity and progression - to avoid putting too much stress on your body, which will hinder your recovery and thus your adaptation, it's important that most of your training is at at an easy pace, slower than you plan to run the race.  But a couple of times a week, harder efforts will really help you to get stronger and faster. During rest periods, your body repairs itself and gets stronger, so hard days should be followed by an easy day or day off.  A weekly tempo run, at around your half marathon pace, is important to prepare your body for the pace you'll be running at in the race.  And another session of short, intense intervals will help you to get progressively faster.  If you increase the intensity and/or volume a little bit every week, you'll see results in no time.  Well, maybe not no time, but over a 12-week period, you'll have plenty of time to get ready to run your best half.  I didn't give myself 12 weeks to train properly, and what I did do was sporadic - a long run here, a tempo session there - so I had to stick to easy run pace to get myself through the race.  

The main event, an adventure race from Nairn to Glencoe, is only two weeks away now. I'm glad that I did the half marathon, even though I finished 18 minutes slower than my personal best, because it will have helped to get my body ready for another race.  It's too late now to ramp up my training for the Coast to Coast, so I'm just going to take it easy and enjoy the scenery.  But this sorry episode has really reminded me of the importance of planning and training consistently.  My focus for the winter is being kind to my body and building general strength but, if I decide to chase any PBs next year, sticking to a proper plan will be my number one priority.