Checking in on our 'Plan to Get Fit by the Fall'

How's it going for you?

A quick note before we get started: if you find yourself struggling with motivation to run, or just needing an extra boost to keep you inspired, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid member of The Half Marathoner. Every week, we share thoughts and stories that keep us going, as well as races and places I think you’ll love running across the U.S. and around the world.

And soon, I’ll be reviving our book club, in which we’ll get to chat with

Maggie Mertens

, the author of last year’s amazing Better, Faster, Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women.

All you need to do is click/tap here to join:

For the past several weeks, I’ve been running three to four times a week. I’ve been staying pretty consistent — not perfectly consistent, but overall pretty good. I’m happy that my motivation to run hasn’t left me, that I’ve stuck to my goals each week, because I’m looking forward to running with you all when we meet up again this fall.

And then I remembered: wait, I put together and shared with you a year-long running plan back in January, yet I haven’t checked in a single time on how it’s going for you — if you’re following it, how it’s going, and whether anything might need to be changed/updated.

So I thought I’d re-share the plan with you, as it will conclude just about perfectly with the time of the year I’m looking at for us to meet up to run a race together: early to mid-November.

At this point in the year, we’re in the middle of week 14 (if my math is right!), and so we have a few weeks before our training begins in earnest, when we start following a week-by-week plan.

Here’s how you should be running for the next few weeks:

Weeks 14-20

• If you’ve been able to stay consistent, you’re doing great — now is when the weather should be getting warmer (depending on where you live), as spring is here

• Try to keep running three days a week, 3 to 3/2 miles at a time — if you drop back to two days one week, that’s okay; just get back to three days the next week

Weeks 21-25

• Keep it up, and even push a run or two to 4 miles if you feel ready

• You’re building consistency, building your base, conditioning your body to run 9-12 miles a week now

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By this point, summer will have begun and you may find your commitment wavering; you may feel like “ehhh, I can put this on pause for a while.” That’s completely normal and okay — it’s fine to take a break for a week here and there. Try not to take a break longer than a week, if possible, though.

From this point, we’ll start the actual training for the half marathon. So, I’ll start here with week one of training, but know that it’s actually week 25 or 26 (depending on whether you took a break for a week) of the nearly year-long training we started all the way back in January.

So, here’s where we start — and keep in mind, these days are all running miles: