22-week Half Marathon Plan

In the last year, Garmin added adaptive training plans for the 5k, 10k and half marathon. I was unable to try it out in Nepal, but after a couple of months of very consistent training back in the US, decided to give it a go and signed up for the 1/2 marathon plan.

Garmin Coach

Train for a 5K, 10K or half marathon race with expert coaching and a dynamic training plan that shifts based on your goals and performance.

Your Personal Coach

With Garmin Coach, your personal trainer is always on hand. Choose from 3 credible coaches to guide you on your journey: Olympian and best-selling author Jeff Galloway, physiologist and online running Coach Greg McMillan, or physical therapist and running expert Amy Parkerson-Mitchell.

Your Race Goal

Garmin Coach lets you select your race goal. The plans support beginner to intermediate participants, from run/walk up to a 7:00 minute per mile pace. What’s your goal?

Your Personalized Training Plan

Workouts sync to your compatible Garmin watch and will adjust based on your performance in the plan. Exceeding your own expectations? Your plan can push you harder. Did you miss a workout? Your plan will keep you on track. Throughout your training, you’ll also receive videos and running tips from your coach in Garmin Connect™.

My Experience

After answering a few questions about my training, Garmin Coach created a plan. I’ll be following ‘Coach Amy’ with a completion date in 22 weeks running 4 days/week with Saturday as my long run.

Even though of the 2 of the coaches are well known, I chose ‘Coach Amy’ who turns out to live in Kansas City, where I live and where Garmin’s head offices are. Here’s a little bio:

Coach Amy is a road and trail marathoner as well as a triathlete. She is a certified running coach, Garmin Coach consultant and physical therapist. She specializes in training endurance athletes with a focus on injury prevention and performance. As an athlete herself, she can relate to balancing other aspects of life with training. Her coaching style varies to match an athlete’s goals and personality.

CoachAmyPT.com

Coach Amy’s Runs

Coach Amy provides you with 4 to 5 workouts per week. Her training runs are based on distance. Coach Amy’s focus is injury prevention through crosstraining, that might involve some strengthening or mobility exercises in addition to the running part of the plan. These workouts will be introduced through videos and are a recommended, but not mandatory, part of the plan.

The plan starts with gradually increasing the distance of your runs. Specific workouts to build speed, endurance and the ability to run while tired will be introduced as you progress through the plan.

• Benchmark run is just that, a way to measure your progress. It includes a warm-up, a 5-min run as fast as you can maintain, then a cool down run.
• Easy run, short or long run intended to add mileage and endurance.
• Cadence drills focus on proper form, to help you run smoother and injury free. This workout is focused on cadence and aimed at getting your legs used to moving at a quicker pace.
• Negative splits, long run with a warm-up, then segment running hard (you can still talk at this pace), followed by another segment at a harder pace (you can talk but are breathless).
• Tired run, short or longer run with no pace goal to get your legs used to running on tired legs.
• Tempo run, 1 mile intervals at fast pace followed by a jog break.
• Pace run, easy warm-up followed by a hard run (where talking would be difficult).
• Speed repeats, short intervals at a pace slightly faster as goal pace, increasing in duration as your training progresses while the recovery period stays the same.
• Steady state run, long run increasing in distance with a large goal pace segment.
• Hill repeats, short intervals up a hill to build strength and to help you tackle the hills on your race course. 
• Superset workout, to teach your body to run at goal pace when fatigued. It starts with a 200 meter sprint, 600 meter at fast pace and ends with 1 mile at goal pace. As your training progresses, repeated sets are possible.
• Time trials, to check your current level of fitness at any given point during training. This data will be used to calculate your personalized training paces. Run hard, but at a pace you can maintain for the duration of the trial.

Before the plan even tells you anything, you have to do a 9:00 Benchmark Run (5:00 strong run with a 2:00 warm up and 2:00 cool down). Benchmark runs are done every 4 weeks to assess progress.

	Sunday	M	Tuesday	W	Thursday	F	Saturday
W1	Benchmark 2:00 easy 5:00 strong 2:00 easy (1)		Easy 4.83 km (2)		Easy 3.22 km		Negative Splits 4.02 km easy 1.61 km hard 0.81 km harder
W2	Easy 1.61 km		workout (stay tuned for details)		workout (stay tuned for details)		workout (stay tuned for details)

1. The workout stops recording when finished, so if you want to run more, you have to hit the start button. After I finished, it asks you how much effort it took, so I said “hard”.
2. Clearly the plan was made using ‘miles’ as the measure, that’s why these kilometer numbers look so strange. 4.83 km = 3 miles, 3.22 km = 2 miles, 1.61 km = 1 mile, 0.81 km = 1/2 mile. And after doing this run, it updated the workout for next Tuesday (a week ahead).

Total 22 Weeks

	Sun	M	Tues	W	Thur	F	Sat	total
W1	Benchmark 2.92 km (1)		Easy 4.85 km		Easy 3.22 km		Negative Splits 5.65 km (2)	17.5 km
W2	Tired Run 1.64 km		Easy 4.84 km		Cadence Drill 4.19 km		Negative Splits 8.04 km	25.1 km
W3	Tired Run 1.64 km		Easy 4.84 km		Pace 3.22 km		Negative Splits 8.04 km	26.8 km
W4	Tired Run 3.22 km		Easy 4.84 km		Cadence Drill 3.22 km		Negative Splits 8.04 km	25.6 km
W5	Tired Run 3.22 km		Easy 4.84 km		Pace 3.22 km		Negative Splits 10.46 km	27.2 km
W6	Tired Run 3.22 km		Easy 4.84 km		Cadence Drill 3.22 km		Negative Splits 10.46 km	26.8 km
W7	Negative Splits 4.02 km (3)		Easy 6.44 km		Pace 3.22 km		Negative Splits 10.46 km	30.2 km
W8	Tired Run 3.22 km		Easy 6.44 km		Cadence Drill 3.22 km		Negative Splits 8.04 km	26.7 km
W9	Tired Run 3.22 km		Easy 6.44 km		Hill Repeats 4.75 km (4)		Negative Splits 12.88 km	29.5 km
W10	Tired Run 4.83 km		Easy 6.44 km		Cadence Drill 4.83 km		Negative Splits 12.88 km	29.3 km
W11	Tired Run 4.83 km		Easy 6.44 km		Hill Repeats 6.58 km		Negative Splits 14.48 km	31.79 km
W12	Tired Run 4.83 km		Easy 6.44 km		Cadence Drill 6.44 km		Negative Splits 8.04 km	46.97 km
W13	Tired Run 4.83 km		Easy 8.05 km		Pace 4.82 km	(5)	Negative Splits 14.48 km	21.1 km

1. 5:00 Benchmark Run: 0.96 km, 5:11/km pace, 146bpm avg HR, 157bpm max HR
2. Negative Splits: 4.02 km easy, then 1.61 km hard, finally 0.81 km harder
3. This is listed as “Tired Run” but it actually is a short “Negative Splits” run.
4. This first Hill Repeats was 10:00 warm-up, then 20sec x 6 uphill, then jog back, repeat
5. Re-injured my right knee stepping off a high ledge (not during a run). Paused the ‘Garmin Coach Program’ and will take a week off to help the knee heal, then try to restart. This was in no way a result of the program which I thought was going great – super results up until that accident.

Other Garmin Coach References

• My Runner’s Life: Garmin Coach (blog posts)
• Garmin Coach Runners Community on Facebook
• Tim Price: 13-week Half Marathon Training (video series)