half marathon training plan
A Half Marathon Training Plan That Fits the Weeks You Actually Have
Miss a Tuesday, travel for work, feel wrecked after a hard weekend — your plan rebuilds, your race goal doesn't move.
Best for
Runners training for a half marathon around a full life — first-timers stepping up from a 10K and returning racers chasing a time.
Why static half marathon plans break by week four
A twelve-week PDF assumes twelve perfect weeks. Most halves are trained around work, family, and travel — and a fixed calendar has no answer for any of it.
- A missed Tuesday has no answer in a fixed plan — you skip it, cram it, or quietly fall behind
- A travel week becomes a zero week because nothing on the calendar fits the days you actually have
- One over-ambitious weekend leaves you too wrecked to absorb the quality sessions that follow
- The template can't tell a busy fortnight from a lost season, so it treats both the same
Built from your running, not a generic week one
PaceBeats reads up to a year of your Garmin history — mileage, paces, consistency, long-run tolerance — and starts the plan where you actually are.
- Recent volume and long-run history anchor the starting load, not an aspirational template
- Threshold estimates from your own data set your interval and tempo paces
- Strength work is dosed to support durability without stealing run quality
- Running-first is a first-class mode, not a triathlon hand-me-down — no swim slots to ignore, no bike sessions to delete
Guardrails that keep the build injury-safe
Deterministic sports-science rules decide your load — volume caps, recovery constraints, progressive overload. The plan never asks too much, too soon.
- Weekly load jumps are capped before they become injury risk
- Recovery weeks are planned in advance, not forced by breakdown
- Hard days are spaced so tempo and threshold work actually gets absorbed
- Long-run progression respects impact cost, not just aerobic fitness
The weekly rebuild: your plan moves, your goal doesn't
Flag travel, illness, or a brutal work week, and next week is rebuilt around your availability, your races, and your constraints — while the race goal stays fixed.
- A compressed week protects the long run and lets the supporting sessions flex
- Constraints you set once — 'no Monday runs,' 'travel every third week' — carry forward automatically
- Rate how sessions felt in your own words; it's stored in your athlete memory and shapes how future workouts are written
- See your full season plan — base to taper — before you commit to anything
From 10K runner to a strong 13.1
The half rewards durable aerobic volume and controlled time at race pace. The plan develops both without turning training into a second job.
- Tempo and threshold sessions rehearse the exact discomfort of race pace
- The long run grows toward what race day requires — not past it
- Short, regular strength sessions build the durability that keeps mileage safe
- Race week arrives calm: fatigue tapers down while the running rhythm stays
A representative half marathon build week
Mid-build, for a runner training ~5–6 hours a week. The Sunday long run with its race-pace finish is the anchor — every other session is dosed so you absorb it, with two short strength sessions holding durability.
Recover
- Rest or 30 min strength — mobility, core & single-leg work
Run threshold
- Run 45 min — 4×5 min at threshold, 2 min jog between
Easy run
- Run 40 min easy (Z2), fully conversational
Tempo
- Run 50 min — 20 min at half marathon pace
Strength
- Strength 40 min — lower-body durability + core, or rest if the week is heavy
Easy run + strides
- Run 35 min easy + 6×20s strides
Long run
- Run 1:30 — Z2 with the last 15 min at half marathon effort
PaceBeats builds weeks like this from your training history — then reshapes them when you miss a session, nail a hard one, or your schedule shifts. Predict your race time or start free.
Questions athletes ask
How long should a half marathon training plan be?
Many runners use 10 to 14 weeks. Consistent runners with a recent 10K base may need less; first-timers usually benefit from more runway. PaceBeats sets the timeline from your race date and your actual training history, then keeps progression safe within it.
Do I need a Garmin?
Yes — PaceBeats builds your profile from your Garmin data. It reads up to a year of your history to set your starting load and paces, and your planned run sessions land on your Garmin automatically.
What happens if I miss a week?
Your race goal doesn't move. Flag what happened — travel, illness, a brutal stretch at work — and the next week is rebuilt around your availability and constraints, protecting the sessions that matter most instead of stacking everything you missed onto the next few days.
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