hiya,

Well im 19 and have set my sights on training for a local half-marathon in july. i think i am generally a athletically fit person but i am also a couple of stone overweight.

My question is that is this enough time to lose the weight AND get to a fairly good standard of fitness leading to a good time in the race

also, has anyone got a good site where i could pick up some kind of a running plan or diary?

thanks for your help

welcome to the forum.
That should be plenty of time to get to a good standard of fitness .

First thing i would suggest is to actually enter the half marathon as this will give you the motivation of having a target to aim for .

Be realistic with your weight loss a sensible diet and a good excercise programme are going to be your key to success

It's a well worn phrase but cut out the junk food apart from that i'd eat all the same foods that you enjoy just slightly smaller portions However remember that your going to be training for a half marathon so you still need to eat enough to fuel your runs.

If you log on to runners world forum you can download half marathon schedules .i think they cover 8, 10, and 16 week plans fro runners of various abilities

I think thats covered most of the points you brought up.

One thing i would recommend is go to a specialist running shop to get your gait analysis done so they can kit you out with the correct shoes.

good luck with everything


take it easy

Plenty of time if you ask me, just take it slowly and build up gradually. Through running and just eating a sensible diet you lose the excess baggage in no time at all.

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Premiership by the end of the 2009 :D

*nods in agreement*

I use mapmyrun.com as a way of just keeping track of my runs and other workouts. You can probably find a diary spreadsheet type thing if you look on download.com or something. Otherwise, paper and pen! Oh, and I have found runnersworld.com to be quite good for ideas for training and stuff, they have a "smart coach" thing that can give you a training plan. One thing would be though, quite a lot of the stuff on there is quite unrealistic for your regular joe runner... and at the end of the day, you'll work out for yourself through trial and error what works.

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Mr Octopus has taken over, and you will all bow down his awesome power of massage-magic. Bow little ones... Bow.

Is "Joe Runner" a member of this forum, A-N-S?

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GONE RUNNING

I think i know his relation joe jogger, the imelda marcos of the family

well thanks a lot everyone, i shall try to put all these ideas into practice.

happy running!!

Not sure if you've looked at it but the training schedule I'm on goes from beginner to half-marathon standard in 12 weeks. Sounds like you have enough time to me.

from your post your a fit/athletic person, allbeit a little overweight. Depending on what sort of finish time goal you're setting yourself then you shouldn't have any problems at all.