Half-Mary Training Questions - lots of them!

What's the motivation for doing the half?  Just want to do it to say you did it?  Curious to see if you can do it?  Not real sure, but it seemed like a good idea?  Want to go out and give it the best shot you can, then try again to improve?

If you insist on attempting a half, do so slowly.  Ramp up your mileage every three to four weeks.  In other words, if you're at 25 miles this week, run the same weekly mileage for another two to three weeks, THEN increase your weekly total.  Do so in small increments, say 5% (only because it's nice and round).  If you find you can handle that increase easily, then next bump try adding a greater percentage.

 Do not do anything fancy.  There are no shortcuts or tricks here.  Stay away from high intensity.  Start with three days, work in a fourth as soon as you can.

I do not like the 3/2 idea; too much down time from running.

I'm a relatively new/slow runner, but I did do 2 half marys this year, so I'll chime in. 

I can recommend the Hal Hidgon beginner half-marathon plan (www.halhidgon.com), assuming you don't have any lofty time goals.  It has a very conservative schedule of running with cross-training built into the plan. 

His intermediate plan is all running, but says in the description that you can trade the easy run days for other crosstraining.  I'm using the intermediate plan now and I plan to switch at least one run day with a bike.  The  mileage is low enough that I have enough energy to also do other things, for now anyway (in week 3). 

I do yoga and ride my bike, since I just finished my last multisport event for the season on Sunday - a duathlon.    My goal is to ride 1-2 times a week until the weather turns nasty, swim once a week at least, and keep yoga once a week.   Sounds like something along those lines would work for you too.  Although I agree checking with a doctor in your case might be smart.

First of all, from what you wrote it's not clear if shoes can be ruled out. There are a vast assortment of shoes, with many being made for specific biomechanical footstrikes. Have you gone to a running store and had a gait analysis done? If you are in the correct shoes, have you tried going to a doctor to see if you might need orthotics?

What kind of stride/footstrike do you have. Many people who don't run much tend to be overstriders who land heavily on their heel. The force of repeatedly landing in this position can cause all sorts of problems. Generally the higher mileage a person does when running in this manner, the more numerous the problems.

Your logs indicate you have run just less than 15 miles so far this month. That's like 5 miles per week. Training for a half marathon is going to take substantially more mileage. You really need to get to the root cause of your problems because from where you are, getting up to 25-35 miles/week would be very difficult and it may take that much running to get through a decent half marathon. If your only goal is to finish regardless of time, then you can do just about anything but you may end up needing to walk some.

Thanks for all your replies, I will put together a plan tonight. To answer some of your questions:

A personal goal/motivator is to run a marathon; a half-mary is a lesser goal but one that I can use for training and learning for longer distances. Or maybe I just have nothing better to do than training since I've done it all summer. 

I've gotten rid of the 2/3 runs each week idea.  Minimum will be 3 and will build slowly.

I'm not in the race for time, and am okay if I have to walk. But, I'm not training to run/walk.

Luckily my regular doc is family practice and sports medicine.  A few years ago when I was injury-plagued and only a "weekend warrior" playing soccer once a week in the summer, he said that one leg was longer than the other, but it could be an alignment and/or muscle imbalance issue.  After becoming more athletic after that Dr visit, I no longer had those issues.  Injuries since then have been of the overuse type (ITB, shin splints, tendonitis, etc) and I've corrected them with rest, focused stretching, and better nutrition.

I have not had a full sports-med gait analysis done, but between my doc, a PT, and the shoe store experts (fleet feet) checking my running style, I've been able to find some stability shoes that work. I used to get shoes for over-pronation, but found I only had moderate pronation - I was over-correcting!  When my shoes start to wear out I can feel it in the ball through the top of the foot and eventually the arch. I have molded orthotics from a podiatrist, but they actually cause more foot pain when running, so I use them for walking if my arch begins to drop.

I'm a mid-foot striker.  I'm careful about the proper technique about landing underneath my body, not out in front.

I mostly indicate running time in my logs due to not knowing the distances I run because of running on trails. Otherwise, if it's a known distance or can be gmap'd I will enter the distances in my log.  My last few weeks in the log were odd as I was traveling, resting from a tri, then building, then tapering for the season's last tri and trying to transition to running.

I am using BT and Hal Higdon's Novice plans for putting something together.

What's the thought on the longest run a week before race day?  Should it be a build week of 12mi, or 10mi, or a recovery week where the long run is 9mi from a previous week long of 11?  I like the idea of building to race day from an 11 mi run the week before.  Again, thanks for your insights.