Coach Jay,

I recently began running again after taking about a year off (had a baby) and I’ve set a goal to run my first half marathon in 12 weeks. Is this a realistic goal? I’m 31 and in good (not great) shape. Right now I’m running 4-5 days per week (3-5 miles during the week and a 5-6 miles on the weekend). I’m averaging a 10 minute mile, but pace is not that important to me...I’m just looking to finish. I saw your post earlier about setting goals along the way and I had the same idea when I started a few weeks ago. I’m planning on completing a 5K in August, a 10K in September and the half marathon I want to run is October 18th. Please tell me I’m not crazy.

Thanks,
Corinn

Corinn,

You're definitely not crazy and you definitely have time to get ready to meet your half marathon goal.

The first point I want to make is that some women do come back to running too quickly after pregnancy. With the dramatic change in ligaments and tendons during pregnancy, as well as the increased elastin in skeletal muscle, a woman's body post-pregnancy is not a running body. It sounds like you had your child several months ago and that this is not an issue for you, but I do want to highlight that jumping back into training too soon can be a problem.

The amount of running you're doing is great and the fact that you have the 5k and the 10k set up is fantastic. October 18th is plenty of time to not only finish the half marathon, but to run it well, even though your goal is just to finish. And with regards to finishing, you do want to get your long run up to ten miles, with the goal of doing that two or three times prior to the race. But honestly, your fitness is at a much better place than most runners who want to run a half marathon and you still have more than ten weeks of training.

Good luck Corin and if the 10k goes well, don't be afraid to re-evaluate your goal of not only finishing the half marathon, but running it well.

Coach Jay,

I am relatively new to the sport of running. I finally built up to running 3-4 miles, 5-6 days a week just for fun and exercise, but I have just moved from an altitude of 300 feet to an altitude of 6000 feet. Needless to say, this has been a shock to my system. I know that it will take awhile for my body to adjust, but I was wondering if you have any suggestions for acclimating to running at high altitudes.

Should I just start over with walking and do a training program as if I were going from "couch to 5k?" I want to do what is best for my body and I don't want to overdo it, but I'm also a bit impatient and wish I could get back to the distances that I was able to build up to before I moved, and then increase those distances.

Thanks!
W

W,

This question is interesting as I just finished two weeks of my high school running camp, The Boulder Running Camps. We had 140 students over the two weeks, with 65% of them being from sea level. The students were able to get in a great week of training, yet after seven years of directing the camp we've learned to make a few training adjustments for the campers coming from sea level.

You don't need to take your running from "3-4 miles, 5-6 days a week" down to the walking program—you can run the same volume at 6,000 ft. as you did at sea level. However, you do need to be mindful of two things. First, hills are not going to be your friend for the first two months at a higher elevation and you should go out of your way to find flat courses. Second, simply ignore your watch and blow off the pace of these runs as the stimulus of simply running at elevation will not only improve your overall aerobic fitness, but it will keep your training enjoyable. Your body is working hard in the 23 hours you're not running or working out to make more red blood cells and your body needs six to eight weeks to produce those cells. Once you have the cells, you can go back to training close to your sea level pace, though you'll eventually have to make a big jump in fitness to be able to run your sea level race PRs at 6,000 ft.

So, if you're focused on the distance/volume of your running, then the move to 6,000 ft. isn't a problem and you should continue to train...just keep the runs easy and train on flat courses.

Enjoy this new adventure!

Coach Jay coaches athletes at RunnersCoach.com and blogs at CoachJayJohnson.com. And don't forget, if you have training question for Coach Jay, email him here: coachjay@nike.com.

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