Your First Half Marathon: How to Build the Plan That Gets You There

If you're training for your first half marathon, here's the short version: give yourself 12-16 weeks, keep most of your running easy, and let the long run drive everything else.

The long run is the centerpiece of a half marathon build. You want it to grow gradually — think one extra mile every week or two — until you're topping out somewhere around 10-12 miles a few weeks before race day. But there's a catch: that long run shouldn't swallow your whole week. Once it creeps past about 30% of your total weekly mileage, you're not building endurance efficiently anymore, you're just accumulating fatigue and raising injury risk. So as your long run grows, your overall weekly volume needs to grow with it.

The other 70-80% of your mileage should be easy, conversational running. This isn't filler — it's the aerobic base that lets you absorb the long run and any faster workouts without breaking down. If you're gasping through most of your weekly miles, you're working against the plan, not with it.

Good plans also build in a step-back week roughly once a month, where volume drops so your body can absorb the training before you push further. Skipping these is a common reason first-timers stall out or get hurt around week 8 or 9.

Finally, taper matters more than people expect. In the last 1-2 weeks before race day, cut your volume by 30-40%, but don't go fully sedentary — keep a bit of intensity in there so your legs stay sharp. The goal is to show up rested, not detrained.

Put together: gradual long-run growth, mostly easy running, monthly recovery weeks, and a real taper. That's the boring-but-effective formula that gets first-timers to the start line healthy and to the finish line strong.