Hi MattyP

Welcome to Cool Running.

A 7 mile race is an ambitious place to start, but as you said, you have given yourself plenty of time to prepare for it.

Since a 10 kilometer race is ~6.2 miles, you could *eventually get onto a beginners' 10k Training Program. It'll include a regimen with just about everything you'll need to be prepared to run 7 miles. No single post can advise you what to wear, what to eat, or any of those technical things - you just have to look around on the different forums and training pages here and find posts and articles that address your questions.

I say *eventually, above, because you have to start somewhere, and as mrinertia points out, you don't tell us where you're starting out. If you are in pretty good shape but are not currently running, consider the "Couch to 5K" program on this site. In 3 months you'll be running 3 miles, 3 times per week on a regular basis. That'll give you 3 more months to build up your mileage through slow, easy running, ramping up the weekly mileage on a very slow, methodical basis, before you start in on a ~3 month 10k training regimen.

If you're already running for 30 to 45 minutes per day on a fairly regular basis, I'd just advise you to slowly build up your weekly miles until you are hitting the minimum recommended mileages you'll find in the pre-training portion of the 10k training program.

Somebody help me out here and post the "Newbie Wiki" link on this thread.

bty

Thanks, all, for the advice. I'm essentially not running at all yet. I've started to run two miles two times a week, and I'm just trying to figure out what a good starting point would be.

I'll look into the Couch to 5K regimen as a starting point, and I'll be sure to check in along the way to share my progress and ask more specific questions.

Thanks again!

MP