half marathon run/walk ratio for beginners?

The main advocate of run/walk recommends doing the walking breaks from the get go..waiting until you are tired you lose the benefit.

When I do a 1/2 Mary I usually walk the hills to save energy and then do anywhere from 4/1 to 15/1.  Do what you know works in your training. I started trying 3/1 and it felt awful..HR would keep spiking every time I started running again. I tried 5/1 and 6/1 and I just found one felt better and stuck with that.  

take a look here ->

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html

and here - > 

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/half_marathon.html

Sounds like some great advice regarding the Run/Walk Strategy. I agree that following the plan from the beginning is the suggested best approach.

But, static run/walk plans are designed for relatively flat road course racing and don't really take terrain into account. Since your upcoming race is a trail run, I might suggest doing what kathy Suggests and basing your plan on the terrain. (IE, Walk the Uphills and Run the downhills)

If you find you have a lot left in the tank in the latter stages of the race, you might also consider altering the strategy. (Run the uphills, and walk/recover on the downhills)

Best of luck to you this weekend. Looks like it will be a very fun race

First of all, unless you've been doing a whole lot more running than your log indicates, you need to be brutally honest with yourself and realize that running only 27 miles in the last month and a half is woefully inadequate as training for a half marathon. You have apparently run so little that even a run/walk method may not be of much, if any, benefit.

However, you have signed up and it appears your best bet is to walk up the biggest of the hills so you can benefit from the gravitational pull and have some energy left for the downhill portions. This is not a run/walk method, but rather a method of strategizing for the course terrain and using it to help pull you through to the finish line. Run slowly on the uphill and walk as soon as you feel fatigue. Walk until you recover sufficiently to run slowly again. With any luck at all you may have enough energy to run the entire downhill and flat portions.

I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks all! I appreciate the advice. Yes, I'll be walking the uphills, they're mostly in the first half anyway (700 ft gain in the first two miles alone...). Then there's one longer one towards the middle of the race. The second half should be mostly rolling or downhill.

I read up on Galloway's method and what seems to be important is that the walk breaks last around 1 minute, not shorter, to give the legs ample time to recover. So, on the flats I'll do the 9/1. Then I'll run all downhills.

My run training has not been geared towards this distance but towards Oly tris this year. I signed up for the trail running series to kick my own butt. The half is the last one and they have a drawing for a flat-screen TV for those who finish all 5 races! So, if I have to crawl in on all fours, I'll finish.

I don't log miles during training! The 27 miles are all the races I've done.

I log only time in training for lack of a Garmin-type device. I'll get more serious about distance and speed when I have a 2-year base. My poor 44-year old legs have only been running for 15 months.