I’m f*cked… I impulsively signed up for a half marathon after getting sh*t faced Saturday with friends. I have 5 weeks for this half marathon in Philly and I haven’t run a mile in a year. Do you have any advice? Shoes? Training?

Ironman triathlete and coach here .
It depends what your current baseline is . 3 runs/week is the minimum. Ideally broken up as speed /tempo/long.

As far as shoes go , get a gait analysis done , so you know if you pronate or not. That'll determine if you need neutral or stability shoes .

For caloric intake , you wanna be around 250-300 calories an hour . You can use gels such as maurten, gu's etc.

I'm a skyrunner (which means like running up big mountains for 50-100 miles), but I started at a similar place as you, and totally out of shape, so I believe you can actually get there if you want to go for it. So I put together a little training plan:

A lot of the comments here are recipes for injury, but I think you've got a shot and you can surprise yourself if you lean into the challenge and give yourself 3-4 weeks to build a base of strength and endurance. In 3 weeks, you'll realize that it'll get easier to run distances that were previously untenable, and from there are you'll grow into a more efficient athlete.

I'm writing all this up for you, so you owe it to at least give your body a shot and potentially add 5 years to your life in the process. That's 1 year per week... And I think that's a good deal :)

I'm kind of person who will tell you you can hit the McDonald's drive-thru on the way to your workout because you'll burn-off the calories anyways, and it can help you bulk up your musc, and also feel free to walk on your runs when you need it. I do have 1 rule though: You're going to cut out the alcohol for FIVE weeks leading up to the big day, and then you can go on a bender if you want after your big race. You won't set any course records but you will finish and wear the finisher medal to your next pub outing lol!

Injuries mainly happen when you increase speed, volume (amount of miles/week), and intensity too quickly, so keep it slow and easy, and build your aerobic engine by keeping your heart rate steady around 150 bpm, prioritizing jogging VERY slowly over having to walk at first, and building up the strength in your calves to eventually take on longer sets.

Find a trail/road near you where you can train often. Even better if it's somewhere were you won't run into many people, so you can focus on your process and focus on running slowly without feeling like you need to impress anyone. Get a nice pair of shoes because they're important but don't get hung up on it, just pull the trigger. I wear saucony on trails and hoka on roads.

Week 1 goal: "Actually" get through week 1

Tuesday 1: Walk/jog 2 miles (jog slowly for 30 sec, walk for 2-5 minutes. Rest or stop completely when you need it)
Wednesday 1: Walk/jog 4 miles (jog slowly for 30 sec, walk for 2-5 minutes)
Thursday 1: Walk/jog 3.1 miles (jog slowly for 30 sec, walk for 2-5 minutes)
Friday 1: Active recovery day (move around, but not workout. You may find it hard to sleep at night if you don't move around and because your body will have excess energy)
Saturday 1: long easy hike along some of the eventual course (8-10 miles walking, occasionally jogging for 10-15 seconds to get your heart rate moving, so you can get an idea the kind of terrain and challenges you'll need to specifically work on)

Week 2 goal: Hit 13.1 miles in one (mostly walking) workout

Sunday 2: Active recovery
Monday 2: Active recovery
Tuesday 2: Walk/jog 3.1 miles (jog slowly for 30 sec, walk for 2-5 minutes)
Wednesday 2: Walk/jog 6.2 miles (jog slowly for 30 sec, walk for 2-5 minutes)
Thursday 2: Walk/jog 5 miles (jog slowly for 1 min, walk for 2 min)
Friday 2: Active recovery
Saturday 2: long easy hike along some of the eventual course (10-13.1 miles walking, occasionally jogging for 30-60 seconds to get your heart rate moving, so you can get an idea the kind of terrain and challenges you'll need to specifically work on)

Goal of week 3: jog 1 very slow mile without walking

Sunday 3: Active Recovery
Monday 3: Active Recovery
Tuesday 3: Walk 15 minutes to warm up, then jog 1/2 mile at a slow aerobic pace, then a 15 minute cool down
Wednesday 3: Walk 15 minutes to warm up, then jog 1 mile at a slow aerobic pace, then a 15 minute cool down
Thursday 3: Taper: Walk/run 2 miles easy
Friday 3: Active Recovery, pick up your 5K packet the night before race so you have a stress-free morning.
Saturday 3: Find a local 5K (3.1 miles) within 50 miles of your home and go run it. You'll be surprised by how good you feel, and how much of it you run when you doing it around other people.

Goal of Week 4: finish a 10K

Sunday 4: Active Recovery
Monday 4: Active Recovery
Tuesday 4: warm up 1 mile, jog 3 miles at a very slow, sustainable pace (taking walks as needed), warm down 2 miles
Wednesday 4: warm up 1 mile, jog 6.2 miles at a very slow, sustainable pace (taking walks as needed), warm down 2 miles
Thursday 4: warm up 0.5 miles, jog 2 miles warm down 0.5 miles
Friday 4: Active Recovery
Saturday 4: Find a local 10K (6.2 miles) within 50 miles of your home and go run it. You'll be surprised by how good you feel, and how much of it you run when you doing it around other people.

Goal of week 5: TAPER, then finish the half marathon ahead of the course cut-off. Go to an Italian place or olive garden and get something with a lot of carbs to eat every dinner of the week, and eat more carbs in general throughout the week.

Sunday 5: Active Recovery
Monday 5: Active Recovery
Tuesday 5: Jog a light 2 miles.
Wednesday 5: Walk/run a 5K at the pace/mile of your previous weekend's 10K
Thursday 5: Jog a light 4 miles
Friday 5: Active Recovery
Saturday (race day):

Marathoner/Ultra marathoner here. I advise against it. Without any mileage base to work from you can seriously injure yourself. If it was a 10k, maybe but your tendons, bones and ligaments are not ready for 13.1

“Catch” Covid and don’t show up… otherwise brooks and ASICS are great running shoes. Also progressive training like many others have commented. Don’t worry about time just do a mile every day for a few days then keep going up every few days. I am sure if everyone is doing it together they would walk/run/jog sporadically rather than running the whole thing all the way through.

So, you’ve gotten yourself into a pickle. No worries; I have a foolproof, 5-step plan for you to enact over the next 5 weeks.

What you’re gonna wanna do is:

- Get a PhD in quantum mechanics
- Develop time travel
- Go back in time
- Stop Drunk You from signing up for the half marathon
- Profit

Hope this helps ❤️

Do a Michael Scott and eat 3 pounds of pasta morning of... you will do great

Marathoner here. If you do it, plan to walk more than you run to avoid injury. You can’t cram for distance, your body needs time to acclimate.

Don't run. You can still pick up the swag if you paid for registration! I've done this before!

You don’t have to run the whole thing… is there a walk/run combo you feel good about?

un-sign up

Bro check your DMs. I literally wrote you an entire plan lol

I wouldn’t do it. That’s a short amount of time to get to 13 miles. I’d rather back out now than jack up my knees

Fake your death

I would like an update! How has the first run gone?

You should have talked more trash. This happened to me in college with a run bro. Told me I couldn’t “finish” a marathon and I took him up on the spot for a $500 wager. Then he tried to change the terms that I couldn’t finish in under 5 hours. Still said yes, as I played soccer and ran 5-7 miles a game on average. He eventually backed out.

If the bet is finish, you can absolutely do that. Just walk/run it. Clean up your nutrition like others mentioned and get your mileage up, albeit carefully so you don’t get hurt. I ran a full on only 14 miles for my longest training run as I got hurt halfway through training. You should be able to do a half on 6-8, but don’t overtrain!

My story above aside, runners are probably the nicest athletes out there. I loved my time running because of the culture. Enjoy the experience and maybe you’ll become a runner for life!

At least you didn’t sign up for the marathon that Sunday

In my 30s I routinely did half marathons with little to no dedicated training. Mostly alternated running/walking to avoid injury. Is it smart? Nope. Just got my hydration plan in place and a kick ass playlist. Doing that with a marathon….whole different story. Don’t try that.

You’ll want to get started today of course lol. Similar to what D1 said above, make sure you’ve got a couple pairs of running shoes you can switch between during your runs the next few weeks. I personally like Brooks shoes, and use the Ghost for shorter/quicker runs, and Glycerin for long runs. Make sure to wear your long run shoe enough during training to break it in for race day.

At this point you’re not training for speed, you’re training to finish. Focus on how much time you spend running each training session. Can you run 30 minutes straight if you went out today? Go out and do four days of running this week with rest days in between, starting with 30 minutes for the first two and 35 for the third and fourth. The next week, up each run’s times for the first three by 5 minutes each, and then on your fourth day (long run day) take things very very easy, but keep running for an hour. Repeat for the remaining weeks, with the long run going up by 15 each time.

This is trying to balance the need to not blow yourself out and get injured with needing to get to the half marathon distance. I have no idea what kind of shape/speed you are in or what running you’ve done before, but this will get you about as close as you can get to where you need to be safely. You won’t have enough runway to hit race distance during training, but that is ok. If you can make it to 10 miles on your last long run, you’ll be able to push out the last 3.1 on race day. Good luck!

I wouldnt recommend it unless you were a runner a year ago.