Half marathon training plan
A half marathon is run around lactate threshold — which is why threshold work is the backbone here, not intervals. Every other week the long run finishes at goal pace.
- Minimum weeks
- 10
- Ideal
- 14
- Maximum
- 20
Who it is for
For a runner comfortable with 10 km, going for a first half marathon or a faster one.
Who it is not for
Not for someone who has never covered 10 km. Going from nothing to 21 km in a few months is the shortest path to injury.
Sessions you will find in the plan
Long run with a goal-pace finish
Up to 25 minutes at half-marathon pace at the end of the long run, every other week. It teaches you to hold pace on tired legs.
Tempo run
Continuous work around threshold — the main stimulus for this distance.
Cruise intervals
Eight-minute reps with short recoveries, when a continuous tempo would be too much.
A sample week in the build phase
This is an example with four training days. With a different number of days the plan arranges sessions differently, but the rules stay the same.
What the plan enforces for you
- The long run never grows more than 10% beyond your longest run of the past 30 days.
- Two hard sessions never fall on consecutive days.
- Every fourth week is a deload — volume comes down, not up.
- With contraindications on file the plan drops to a conservative variant: no VO2max intervals, no maximal tests.
- Pain of 6/10 or higher blocks the session regardless of what the plan says.
Common questions
Why is the goal-pace block not every week?
Because it costs as much recovery as a hard session. Every weekend it would eat the entire intensity budget and push the plan out of the 80/20 split.
Other plans
Generate a plan for your race date
Pick a race from the catalogue or enter your own, tell us the days you have — the plan counts backwards from race day, with phases, deloads and a taper.
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