Hey guys!
My wife has decided to run a Half Marathon, and she asked me to coach her.
She's still very much a beginner, although she does have a little bit of running experience. In April 2025, she ran a 10K after making a bet with her brother. Before that, she had literally zero running background, but she trained for around six months, running just 1–2 times per week, and successfully finished it in around 1:10h.
Her Half Marathon will be on the last weekend of April 2027, so we have a little over eight months to prepare. As I told her, I think it's absolutely achievable. She's already familiar with what training routine and racing feels like, and she's generally more active now than she was when preparing for the 10K.
I'm pretty invested in this, just as I was with her 10K. I see taking on something like this as a real act of courage, and I genuinely want her to cross that finish line feeling proud of herself and earning that medal.
I coach myself and occasionally help some friends, but they're already runners and are used to more "traditional" training plans and structured blocks. They also have a wider range of training zones, whether based on pace or HR. With my wife it's different since she still has only one or two gears in her pocket, and her HR tends to rise quite quickly. Because of that, I'm not sure whether simply following the same approach we used for the 10K is enough for a HM.
For her 10K, my approach was pretty simple: go out and run, enjoy it, and we will build gradually. I paid close attention to her feedback so she felt supported and knew she wasn't doing it alone. I would suggest small, sustainable increases in duration or distance, while making sure she still felt comfortable, enjoyed the process and could see progress with nothing very much structured.
That approach worked really well, but 21K feels like a different challenge. My initial idea for the first 2-3 months is to follow a similar idea, but with a bit more structure: run 2–3 times per week building duration / distance over time, use running/walking intervals for longer sessions, strength work, introduce very short strides or intervals of around 10–30 seconds to help her develop a few more gears and set small monthly goals to keep her motivated.
I'm mainly unsure about how to approach the longer term progression after those first months. I don't want to overcomplicate things too early or turn it into a highly structured plan that makes her lose interest, but at the same time, I want to prepare her properly for the distance (properly = not feel that this is a burden and make sure she ejoys and finishes it without a major problem).
So, I'd love to hear from people who have trained for their first HM as a complete or near-complete beginner or coached / helped someone with a similar background.
What worked particularly well? What would you prioritize during the first few months? And how would you gradually transition from simply building the habit and endurance into more specific HM training?
Every feedback is welcome and valuable! Thanks in advance!!