Another busy weekend of half marathon running is behind us, with racing from the roads of Whangamatā and Devonport to the trails of Cape Kidnappers. We also had the Māngere Bridge Fun Run, where the emphasis is on community participation rather than official individual race timing, while we’re still waiting for results from the Sri…
You’ve trained for weeks or months. You’ve completed your long runs, practised your race pace, worked on your fuelling and arrived at the start line ready to run 21.1km. But there’s one final piece of preparation before the gun goes: Your warm-up. For runners wanting to race their half marathon, I don’t believe the first…
Training determines much of what you are capable of on half marathon race day. But even the best training programme can be undermined by a nutrition strategy that has never been practised. Your half marathon nutrition plan should not begin at breakfast on race morning. It should begin weeks beforehand, during your training. You need…
Threshold running is one of the most valuable forms of quality training for a half marathon runner. It develops your ability to sustain a strong intensity for longer without crossing the line into the considerably harder work associated with Level V. This week’s Coach Ray’s Workout of the Week is 3x 10min Threshold Runs. After…
What a weekend for half marathon running. Around New Zealand we had racing from the roads of Cambridge, Hutt and Hatuma through to the trails around Lake Tekapo and Te Āpiti. We’ve also finally got the results from the previous weekend’s Sri Chinmoy Auckland Half Marathon. But the biggest half marathon story this week came…
The first few kilometres of a half marathon usually aren’t the problem. You’re fresh. Your legs feel good. Your breathing is controlled. If you’ve paced things sensibly, you might even wonder whether you’re running too slowly. But a half marathon isn’t decided by how good your legs feel at kilometre three. The real test comes…
Training for a half marathon is about much more than gradually running further each weekend. To prepare well for 21.1 kilometres, you need to develop your aerobic fitness, build the durability to keep running as fatigue accumulates, introduce the right quality training at the right time, recover properly, practise your fuelling and pacing, and arrive…
Short hill repetitions are a simple but highly effective way to introduce harder running into a half marathon training programme. They develop qualities that will support the longer threshold, tempo and race-specific sessions that come later in your preparation. This week’s Coach Ray’s Workout of the Week is 10x 1min Hill Rep Runs. After a…
Another busy weekend of half marathon racing is behind us, with some genuinely impressive performances from Dunedin to Auckland. This week we’ve got a particularly quick battle at the front of the Dunedin Half Marathon, a woman taking the overall victory at Run Auckland’s Millwater Half Marathon, and a fantastic marathon debut from one of…
You can have the fitness. You can have the perfect pacing strategy. You can arrive at the start line rested, confident and ready to run your best half marathon. But if your stomach doesn’t tolerate the fuel you’re putting into it, your race can unravel surprisingly quickly. Nausea, bloating, stomach cramps or an urgent search…