I can’t really give you an appropriate goal race pace since I am not aware of your current fitness level but in most cases, 2:30 is a decent target time for your first 21K if you are training consistently. But ideally, if it is your first, I highly recommend that you just run without putting any time pressure on yourself. Start conservatively and save your legs for the last 5K. Try to make your first 21K experience as pleasant as possible then focus on outdoing your PR in succeeding races.

Good luck!

The aches and pains you’re experiencing are tell-tale signs that your doing too much too soon. Ideally, your first race should’ve been a 5K then you slowly built up to a 10K within the year before even attempting to run a half marathon. Although 54 minutes for your first 10K is quite impressive, as you can see, the physical stress will catch up with you sooner than later. I really wouldn’t recommend running the 15K especially if you’re still in pain and suggest you take a couple of weeks off and see a doctor immediately regarding your aches and pains. The discomfort won’t go away unless you let it heal with complete rest. The doctor will be able to tell you what next steps to take. I don’t mean to scare you but it would be better to have that checked before it’s too late, which could result in having to put your running career on hold indefinitely.

Hope you feel better soon!

Thanks for the very informative article. I’ve just started training last Nov 2009 from zero and joined the Condura run at 10K with 54+ mins (Last Feb7) then two weeks after I’ve joined the Century Run at 21K with 1hr and 54mins+ (Feb 21). Now I realized why i had pain at the back of my Knee until now (I think it’s a ligament part) and being unaware of injuries that might happen to me, I’m still running in 5K race and some routine exercise even I’m on pain just hoping it would heal. The bad thing is I already registered in Mizuno run this April for 15K run and looking forward to run another 21K in Run Rio 2nd leg to beat my PR. Please advice…

Thanks and more power.
Kelly

If I could write like this I would be well chuffed

The more I read articles of such quality as this (which is rare), the more I think there might be a future for the Web. Keep it up, as it were.

I really plan to post the 8-week training program just in time for RunRio Leg 2 but in the meantime, I’ll post more training tips and techniques which I hope will also help you prepare for your first 21K. =)

As mentioned in my post, ideally, you should give yourself at least a year before you start joining the longer races coz your body needs sufficient time to get used to all the pounding and stress it will experience as you train and race for your first 21K. Coming from a coach’s point of view, I would not recommend targeting your first half-mary in May especially if you want to enjoy running for as long as it is humanly possible. Although I am confident that 2 months of training is enough to get you to the finish line, my concern is how well you will recover after the race. The last thing you want is ending up with aches and pains or worse, injuries that will keep you from running for weeks or even months after that. If your goal is more long-term and you want to be able to run consistently by avoiding injuries, then I suggest you save your legs at least until leg 3 of the RunRio Trilogy, or better yet, schedule one next year to celebrate your first year as a bon a fide runner.