Half marathon - ten weeks to train. Any advice?

I'm following a Bupa running plan for Half Marathon (beginner) which is 12 weeks long and I'm nearly at the end of my second week so that might be do-able if you tweak it a bit?

Thanks. Just had a look, and it seems ok. Only worrying thing is that you need to do 4 runs per week, and I think I'll struggle to do more than 3.

I'm wondering if this is a bit of a stupid thing to do now!

Yeah I am finding the four sessions a week hard going and I've had to knock the gym on the head for the time being but I intend to drop down to three sessions and include a session of Body Pump once I get to week four where it talks about "cross training". But there's no escaping, it's a big commitment to stick to the plan and running in this weather is vile to put it mildly. I nearly drowned last night! ?

Go on to the Runners' World site - they have a programme that you can download based on your target time.

Second Sophie's suggestion - it's called SmartCoach. I followed it when training for my 5k Run for Life and it really helped.

Would you say SmartCoach is better than the Bupa plans then?

I've never used the BUPA plans, but I think it's a bit more fine-tuneable, iyswim.

Will check it out. Thanks Soph.

Thanks Sophie, I'll go and check that out.

Also - any recs for sports bras? I have two Royces which don't seem to be good at controlling bounce, and one Shock Absobrer, but that has really annoying straps (detachable) that seem to pop undone while I'm running. I'm a 32 FF (breastfeeding) so need a heyooge amount of control!

Shock Absorber D+ Max, I think it's called. You need to be a contortionist to get into it and Harry Houdini to get out, but my god it stops your boobs bouncing ? No strap poppage issues with mine.

I had a Freya Active when I was breastfeeding - they weren't bouncing anywhere!

Re your running, I would say you can do it on three runs a week - two shorter ones and a longer one (build it up slowly), and plan for time on feet, rather than trying to do any speed sessions or anything.

Good luck!

Hi baublegirl, I'm also training for the Royal Parks half marathon and following the BUPA programme, but as others have said, I'm tweaking it to suit me, so doing 2-3 runs a week together with my usual 2 weight-training sessions at the gym - I've cut out the easy run and, as Zebedee says, am doing 2 shorter runs and one long run. I'm going to check out that link Sophie mentioned. Good luck with the training - most impressive so soon after having a baby!

When is the Royal Parks Half? The Brum half is on the 11th October so I was hoping you guys would "go first" and then I could get some race day tips from you!

CBH, unfortunately the Royal Parks is also October 11th, so we will all have to suck it and see - we can come on here and natter about strategies afterwards (mine is just to get round the bloomin' thing ?)

Natter about how achey and sore we are you mean! ?

We're doing the Peterborough one on the same day. Did both Royal Parks and Brum last year - they're both fab events, especially Royal Parks - am gutted we couldn't get a place this year, we left it just too late.

Sounds like there are going to be a few of us recuperating on the Sunday evening then! I haven't yet told my friends that I'm doing it, as I want to be sure I can do the distance before I let them know and beg for sponsorship - a lot of people say that if you can do 10 miles, then on the day you can do 13, so until I hit 10 in training I'm keeping quiet!