My friend and I are currently training for a half marathon in December. She's run one before (years ago) and this will be my first. She and I are both 40 years old, we're casual runners, having run about 30 5Ks and a couple 10Ks.

She has not been following a training program, but has been running probably 5-6 days per week for the past 8 weeks or so. The problem is, all of her runs look like tempo runs - she runs up to 6 miles, at about an average pace of 8:20 per mile. She has no long, slow runs in her training. I have sent her training programs and have told her REPEATEDLY that she needs to slow down and add distance runs to her routine. I think she has finally accepted that, and she's going to meet with me this weekend so we can run together.

But I would like YOUR HELP in convincing her that this is the smart thing to do (she does know it, but any added knowledge helps). She's a Harvard trained MD, so get as physiologically complex as you'd like - or keep it simple - no worries! I'd love to hear from folks who run a 7:00 min/mile marathon or half marathon, for example, who slow down to 9:00 min/miles (or even slower, heck!) in training. Although, please do keep in mind that we're only training for the half, so our longest "long run" may only be 12 miles or so.

I used to think like she did - but after reading so much from the awesome runners on Cool Running, I changed my ways! It was REALLY tough to slow down at first - but I later discovered that it was so tough because I really wasn't in good as good shape as I thought I was! Once I added long runs and increased my mileage, ALL of my runs became easier.

Now ... onto convincing my friend. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!