dallas half marathon / training tips

If you’ve been following me for a while now, you know I am an avid runner. I’ve done a few half marathons, and I’ve done the BMW Dallas Half Marathon 3 times now! This December will be my 4th! So today I want to recap why I love the Dallas Half Marathon with y’all, and share a little bit about my half marathon training plan!

Personally, the Dallas half marathon is nostalgic for me. It was the very first half marathon I ever did, and really what got me hooked on races. I was born and raised in Dallas and love being able to run through downtown, lower Greenville, and some of my other favorite Dallas spots. Such a fun way to see and appreciate your hometown!

This race is also kind of nostalgic to me because my mom actually ran the full marathon a few years ago, and I’ve had several other family members do this race as well! So, in a sense, running the dallas half marathon kind of feels like ‘home’ to me.

Outside of personal reasons though, the BMW Dallas Marathon really is just an awesome race to partake in! Like I said, you get to run through so many cool parts of Dallas, the crowd is always really fun, and I love that it’s not super hilly! It’s also a good race because December in Dallas is always pretty mild when it comes to weather – so you don’t have to worry about freezing or about getting too hot.

And let’s be honest…the real reason we all race is for the brunch afterwards…and Dallas has about a million great brunch spots!

So, if you’ve been debating signing up for your first half, or getting the itch to do another…I strongly encourage you to sign up for the dallas half marathon! It really is such a great race. If you sign up, definitely comment below and maybe we can meet up and say hey!

OKAY, now onto my half marathon training plan and a few tips! So as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I really like Hal Higdon’s training plans – he has them for any length of a race, and I’ve followed his plans for all of my half marathons! For this race, I will be using his Intermediate 2 program because I want to work on speed and having my best half yet.

All of the details for that half marathon training plan are in the link I listed above, so I won’t go into too much more detail about that. I might do another post though in the coming weeks with an update on my training, and go into more detail on what that looks like for me on a weekly basis! As far as tips for training though…here are a few helpful things:

while you’re training for this kind of race, definitely increase your protein and water intake! it’s so important to stay super hydrated and protein will help with muscle gain and endurance.
if you’re running long distance, having a good pair of running shoes is super important. i love the shoes i’m wearing in these pics but definitely don’t wear them for distance running! see this post I did to check out my favorite running shoes
I legit cannot run long distance without my jams! if you want to check out my running playlist…just find me on spotify! my username is laurenkaysims

Like I said, I will be doing several more posts all about half marathon training: from snack recommendations to speed training tips and more. Today I just wanted to share the Dallas half marathon with y’all though and encourage you to sign up now before the entry fee goes up! I promise, you will not regret it!