One of the best beginner training guides on the half marathon distance. Ha makes training for your first event easy and approachable with well thought out schedules and explanations for how to get to race day and have a great time.

If you are a beginning runner please do not be intimidated by the title "Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training" go ahead and pick-up this book! Hal Higdon is one of the most generous and engaging authors on the topic of running and he has training plans and advice for people at all levels and all stages of their running life. The book gives some history on both Hal and the development and growing popularity of the half marathon as a racing distance in the United States. Most importantly Hal writes about running in an engaging manner that is positive and encouraging without devolving into hype for running as a solution to all things. The book includes practical training plans for all levels from novice to advanced and includes guidance for those walk a half marathon to those who want to go beyond the half and run a full marathon of 26.2 miles. Whatever your preference or level Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training is a wealth of expert guidance and friendly encouragement that can get you to the finish line of your first race or re-energize your running enthusiasm to achieve that PR! ( )

This is a solid book. My main complaint is that it could have used another round of editing / copyediting (at one point Hal used an 'I' where he should've used a 'me' and the face of my inner grammar Nazi melted). There was a banged-together feel to the first part of this book, kind of a "take other book on running, replace all '10K' with 'half-marathon', add chapter on history of half-marathons, bake at 450 degrees" feel.

Also, I don't like the "So-and-so's Such-and-such" title scheme for books or movies (lookin' at you John Carpenter and Tyler Perry!): yes, we know it is yours - your name is on it ... but that's a personal thing.

Still, that was only the first half of the book and it wasn't bad. The second half of the book, the training programs, are probably why someone would buy this, and rightly so: Hal knows his stuff and you can follow his advice and be confident you are doing the right thing(s). I plan to drop into the program myself somewhere in part 2 of the base training, and go from there. I'll let you know how it goes: I probably won't get to a half marathon by the end of warm weather THIS year, but next year, for sure. ( )

Having run many half marathons using Hal Higdon's training plans, I was excited to receive this book through LTER. However, I'm not super thrilled with the book.

Firstly, this book is mostly aimed toward the audience of people who have never run a half marathon before, and also for those who have never run before, or who have only run minimally in the past. Many of the first several chapters focus on buying gear, finding motivation, different types of runs, health benefits, why run, how to run, etc. Those are all things that any seasoned running vet could tell you in their sleep.

Secondly, the training plans are great, but they're the same as the ones you can find online. You don't need to buy this book to find anything new. The training plans work well. I've used the novice plans, the intermediate plans AND the advanced plans and I've had excellent success with all of those. There was a very minimal section with base training, which I was hoping to see more of, and I find that the book is not well suited toward those who have done a lot of running in the past, could run 3-5 miles without problem, but just don't have a lot of consistency and want to get back into the sport after an injury. The base plans add an extra 12 weeks but they start with 1-2 mile runs, which may be laughably short for non-novices.

I also found the chapters to be confusingly titled. For example, a chapter at the end called "Tween" is not about training plans for 12-year-olds. It's about running several half marathons a year. If you're the type who would rather skim through a book rather than read the whole thing cover-to-cover, you may be misled by several similarly confusingly-named chapters.

Finally, I found the book to be too much regurgitation of Higdon's Facebook posts and feedback that he received online. If there's not enough content for a thick book, make it shorter! Leave out the crap I could read if I cared to look at your Facebook page.

I guess I would recommend this to somebody who has never run a half marathon before and would like to try, but anybody who has more experience may just want to borrow this from the library rather than spend money on a copy for their personal library. ( )

Great for both beginners and seasoned runners. Informational and easy to read. I am a runner and have completed many half marathons. This was a useful guide to improving my running. My husband also read the book and he will complete his first half marathon in June. We both enjoyed this book. ( )