Hi!

Being a casual jogger for at least 30 years, a year and half ago, I ran my first half under 2. Since than have run a few others 1:46 and 1:44, with only 3 days a week of running, one tempo, one speed and one long run. The training plans I tried to follow always were interrupted with some sort of injury unrelated to running- (bike crash, flu, etc.) . The last half I did a month ago, I was not prepared for, even though I ran a good time, I could barely walk afterwards, shin splints, and extremely stiff sore muscles for a week after. I thought I could do another half about 10 weeks away. I jumped into a few tempo runs, and on 2 different occassions attempted to run 10 miles for the long runs, which I thought would be easy at this point. Instead I have another shin splint on the other leg and all sorts of pains after mile 8!

I was wanting to increase my time and run this next half at 1:43. What training plan would work for me? I do a spin class 2 x a week and some yoga. I was wanting a training plan without back to back days running, which I feel is just too hard on my 47 yr old body. However, my husband thinks maybe not enough days running is the reason going past 8 miles is killing me. How do you increase past 8 without hurting yourself in 10 weeks?