This book, written by Jeff Galloway, is an excellent half marathon training guide. It has everything you need to learn half marathon training using the Galloway half marathon training programs.
The book has 6 sections. The first section covers how to assess your health prior to beginning your training. This is particularly useful for older runners. It discusses common health risk factors and the tests you can ask your doctor to perform to benchmark your health. It also covers shoe, watch and clothing selection.
The second section describes the “run-walk-run” technique that Galloway has made famous and that we discuss on these pages. The third section discusses how to choose training and race time goals. The fourth section describes how to run your long runs and maintenance runs. It also covers other training drills, which are particularly useful for experienced runners who have a time goal in mind.
The fifth section provides a series of training schedules and programs for runners of all experience levels. It covers the programs we have described on the website as well as several others for runners with specific time goals. The final section discusses several drills to improve your speed, such as hill training and track drills.
This book focuses on half marathon training for beginners. It assumes you have had little or no exposure to road racing, proper running technique, stretching or strength training.
It discusses health precautions, several training programs, proper running form and warm-up, cool-down and stretching exercises. It also covers strength training, mental preparation and motivational strategies.
The author is also a registered dietitian, so there is an extensive discussion of proper nutrition for training and competition.
Jon Ackland’s Beginner’s Half-Marathon Trainer provides training programs designed to help you run your best time without injury or time-intensive training. The programs address a wide range of training speeds, from walkers to competitive racers. The book helps you mentally prepare, train smarter, pace yourself and improve your speed, endurance and nutrition.
Ackland’s programs are 14 weeks long, slightly shorter than the Galloway method and slightly longer than the Higdon method.
Ackland’s method relies on his “Three Amigos” system of workouts. The Three Amigos are “Long,” “Hills” and “Speed.” Long workouts improve your endurance, and allow you to gradually build up to half marathon distance. “Hills” workouts improve your strength and endurance. “Speed” workouts help you run faster.
