Half Marathon Training Plan: 8 Weeks to Race Day

Eight weeks is not enough time to go from the couch to 13.1. It is enough time to turn a solid running habit into a half marathon you finish in control.

This plan is for people who can already run 45–60 minutes easy, 3–4 days a week, without a pile of niggles. If you are still building toward your first 5K, do that first. If you can jog an hour and want a target on the calendar, eight weeks of this work will get you to the line.

The structure is Norwegian Method flavored: most of the running stays easy, one or two sessions per week actually matter, and progress is pace at the same heart rate, not heroics on tired legs.

Before Week 1: The Gate Check

Start this block if most of these are true:

• You run at least 3 days a week already
• A 6–8 mile weekend run is imaginable, even if it would be your longest
• You are not currently injured
• You can train 4–5 days a week for the next two months
• You have a heart rate strap or a watch you actually wear

If a 5-mile run still feels like an event, give yourself another 4–6 weeks of easy volume first. Eight weeks of half marathon training on a thin base is how people collect IT-band stories.

Gear you need: shoes that are not dying, a way to see heart rate, and a race that is actually eight weeks away, not "sometime this fall."

The Weekly Shape

Five days is the default. Four works if life is ugly; you drop a weekday easy run, not the long run and not both quality sessions.

| Day | Session | Intensity | |---|---|---| | Mon | Easy 40–60 min + 4 strides | Zone 1 | | Tue | Threshold intervals | Zone 3 | | Wed | Easy 30–50 min or off | Zone 1 | | Thu | Easy with a short VO2 or race-pace insert (later weeks) | Z1, with a Z4 piece in weeks 4–6 | | Fri | Off or 30 min very easy | Zone 1 | | Sat | Long run | Zone 1, last miles can drift Z2 | | Sun | Off | |

Keep easy days easy. If you cannot speak in full sentences, you are not in Zone 1. Slow down. Walk the hills. The long run only works if Saturday does not wreck Tuesday.

Target distribution across the week: about 70% easy, 25% threshold, 5% harder. That is the same skeleton as the Norwegian Method, scaled to a race that lasts 1:30–2:30 for most of the people reading this.

Heart Rate Beats Pace Prescriptions

Half marathon plans love to say "run mile 8 at goal pace." That instruction is useless if Tuesday is 85 degrees, you slept five hours, or your goal pace was a fantasy from a good 5K.

Use heart rate:

• Easy / long: below 75% of max HR (Zone 1)
• Threshold: 82–87% of max HR (Zone 3). Controlled, not a time trial
• VO2 inserts: 87–92% (Zone 4), short, never the whole long run

Your half marathon race effort will sit near the top of Zone 3 for well-trained people, a bit higher if you are racing it as a one-off. You do not need to rehearse 13 miles at that effort in training. You need the engine that can hold it.

Track one number through the block: pace at a given easy heart rate, say 140 or 145 bpm. If that pace drops over eight weeks, the plan is working even if a workout felt ordinary.

The 8-Week Outline

Volumes below are time-based on purpose. A 9:30/mile runner and a 7:30/mile runner should not share a mileage chart. If you prefer miles, convert using your current easy pace and stay on the low side.

Weeks 1–2: Settle the week

Long run: 75 minutes, then 85–90 minutes. All Zone 1.

Tuesday threshold: 4 x 6 minutes at Zone 3, 2 minutes easy jog between. Total hard work ~24 minutes.

Thursday: Easy 40–45 minutes + 4 x 20-second strides.

No racing. No "I'll just see how the 10K goes." You are teaching the week to be boring and repeatable.

Weeks 3–4: Add a little heat

Long run: 95 minutes, then 105 minutes (about 1:45). Still easy. Last 15 minutes may sit at the top of Zone 1. If HR walks into Zone 3, you started too fast.

Tuesday threshold: 5 x 7 minutes Z3, 2 min jog. Then 4 x 8 minutes.

Thursday (week 4 only): 4 x 3 minutes at Zone 4, 3 minutes easy between. If you cannot finish all four under control, the pace was too hot.

This is the first week people overdo. Do not "test fitness" on Saturday. The long run is still aerobic.

Weeks 5–6: Peak work

Long run: 110–120 minutes. Cap it around two hours even if you feel like a hero. Extra minutes here cost more than they pay.

Tuesday threshold: 3 x 10 minutes Z3, 2–3 min jog, or 2 x 15 minutes if 10s felt controlled. Total threshold time 30–40 minutes. That is plenty.

Thursday: 4 x 4 minutes at Zone 4 (the classic 4x4), 3 minutes easy. Skip this session if HRV and resting HR have been ugly for a few days. Move it, do not double up later.

Optional: in week 6, pick 20 minutes of the long run at half-marathon effort (high Zone 3), not at a number you found on a calculator at 11pm.

Weeks 7–8: Taper without getting twitchy

Week 7 long run: 75–80 minutes easy. You already have the endurance. This run is a reminder, not a construction project.

Week 7 Tuesday: 4 x 5 minutes Z3, full easy recoveries. Keep the feeling, cut the dose.

Week 8 (race week):

• Mon: 40 min easy + 4 strides
• Tue: 3 x 4 min Z3, very easy recoveries
• Wed: 30 min easy or off
• Thu: 25–30 min easy, 3 strides
• Fri: off, or 20 min shuffle if you are a person who goes crazy on rest days
• Sat: race (or Fri/Sun; keep two easy days before)

Sleep and food beat a secret shakeout 10K. If you feel flat on Wednesday, that is normal. Do not add a "confidence tempo."

What a Long Run Is For

It is not a dress rehearsal of the last 5K of the race. It is time on feet at a heart rate you could sustain tomorrow.

Rules:

• Start slower than you think. First 20 minutes should feel almost too easy
• Eat and drink the way you will on race day, at least from week 4 onward
• Walk aid-station practice is legal. Pride is not a training method
• If you need Zone 4 to finish the distance, the long run is too long for this week
• Stop 10 minutes early if something specific starts to hurt. "Tired" is fine. "Sharp" is not

Back-to-back long days are for ultras. Not this block.

Race-Day Pacing

Most first (and fifteenth) half marathons die in the same place: miles 1–3 too fast, miles 10–13 as a negotiation.

A simple rule: first 3 miles at easy-to-steady, heart rate still in low Zone 3 at most. If you are already at redline at mile 4, you are not "banking time." You are taking out a loan.

From there:

• Miles 4–9: settle on the effort you hit in Tuesday threshold work
• Miles 10–11: still controlled. This is where people start racing strangers in costumes
• Miles 12–13.1: whatever is left. If you ran the first 10 under control, something is left

If you wear a watch, hide the pace screen for the first 20 minutes and watch heart rate plus feel. Road races lie about pace anyway: crowds, GPS bounce, adrenaline.

Common Ways to Ruin the Block

1. Racing a 10K in week 5 "for fitness"

You already have quality sessions. A hard 10K costs a week and strokes the ego. Skip it, or jog it as a workout you already planned.

2. Copying an elite mileage chart

If the plan on the internet starts at 50 miles, it is not this plan. Time-on-feet at Zone 1 scales. Ego mileage does not.

3. Making every run "kind of tempo"

Then none of them are. Protect the easy majority or the threshold work turns into junk.

4. Taper panic

Feeling sluggish in week 8 is the point. Fitness is not leaving your body in five days. Freshness is arriving. Go for a walk. Do not go for a 16-miler.

5. New shoes, new fuel, new everything in week 7

Nothing novel after week 6 except maybe a haircut.

How to Know It's Working

Mid-block (end of week 4), repeat an easy 30 minutes at the same heart rate as week 1. If you are 10–20 seconds per mile faster at the same HR, keep going. If you are slower and more tired, you have been running the easy days too hard, or life stress is writing a second training plan you are ignoring.

The race is the exam. The weekly easy-pace-at-HR chart is the homework grade. Read the homework.