How to Run a Faster Half Marathon

You've Got the Distance — Here's How to Get the Speed

If you’re at the point where you’re competing to run a half marathon, congratulations: you are officially a runner, and an accomplished one at that. At approximately 13 miles or 21 kilometers, a half marathon is a serious test of endurance and speed, and a milestone for a lot of aspiring runners. But once you’re physically able to complete a run of that length, you might start to hear that voice inside your head pushing you to complete it in record time.

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Assuming you’re not a competitive runner striving to take out your competition, but just an accomplished amateur looking to improve on their previous time, you may feel like your training has plateaued. The strategies you used to work yourself up to this distance won’t necessarily translate into future gains in speed; it may be time to take a different approach.

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5 Tips to Run a Faster Half Marathon

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When it comes to cutting your half marathon time, there are five tried-and-tested methods you should apply to your own training, as methodically as you can.

Track Your Times & Set a Goal Time

When most runners complete a half marathon, they’re dimly aware of their time, at best; the accomplishment is more about completing the distance than doing it with speed. But once you prove to yourself that you’re physically capable of that kind of run, and especially once you set the goal of doing it faster, knowing your times becomes critically important.

For a total newcomer to the half marathon distance, a good milestone to aim for is a run time of three hours. That kind of time requires sustaining a pace of just under 14 minutes per mile or just over 8.5 minutes per kilometer, which is relatively easy to do for an hour but can be extremely difficult to pull off for three hours. Think of that pace, then, as your new training target.

Train at Your Target Pace

Once you have established a goal pace, it’s time to train at it. No, you won’t be able to sustain it for hours on end at first, but you should accustom your body to meeting that pace. The first training approach is to take your goal pace and run at it for as long as you can, gradually working up to longer and longer runs.

The next, more advanced approach involves something called a negative split, where you take your target training distance for the day (say, a 10K run) and jog for the first half of the distance before ramping up to your target pace for the second half. Not only is this a great way to build up your cardiovascular endurance, but it will also teach you the importance of pacing, a crucial skill in longer runs especially.

Build Up Your Endurance With Longer Runs

Unfortunately, when it comes to endurance, there’s always another level. Once you’ve completed your first ever half marathon, pat yourself on the back, take a moment to appreciate the accomplishment, and then set your sights on a longer distance, because the fact is that the easiest way to make a half marathon feel like a sprint rather than an endurance race is to start training at marathon distances.

Obviously, because of the added recovery time imposed on you by longer runs, you’re going to need to ramp up your distance gradually and conservatively, but also deliberately. You have two basic approaches you can take: either you dedicate one of your weekly runs to greater distances, or you distribute your distance goals equally among your current runs.

Dial In Your Recovery Routine

Nutrition, stretching, foam rolling, sleep — anything you can do to help your body recover properly from the excess volume is absolutely essential. Also, be acutely aware that, as you ask more of your training runs in terms of speed and distance, so your body will ask more of you in the form of nutrition and recovery.

Whatever your previous calorie and carbohydrate intake was, reaching a new level in your training will require more; however much you slept previously, you will almost certainly need to add some winks to make up for the excess strain imposed on your body.

Incorporate Hill Runs & Elevation Training

If you don’t have a ton of excess time to dedicate to half marathon training but still want to make progress, you need to get creative. One easy way to get more bang for your training buck, so to speak, is to run at an incline, on a hill, or at elevation, where the air is measurably thinner.

Both of these training variables will impose greater adaptive stress on your body without requiring you to dedicate more time to your runs each week, which makes them a perfect option for the amateur runner with a family or professional life they need to prioritize. And if you don’t happen to live near a hill or mountain, well, it’s time to find an incline treadmill.

If you follow these tips and manage to keep yourself injury-free while adding volume and intensity to your weekly training, your half marathon times are bound to drop, and quickly, too.

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