Running expert John Stafford has put together a schedule to help novices training for the Bracknell half marathon. John works at Bracknell Sport and Leisure Centre.
 
A basic beginner's schedule would consist of a minimum of 2/3 runs per week.

* The long run is the most important, as stated in the half marathon tips, and should be built up gradually in the weeks before the half marathon. If you can manage to run for the same amount of time that you hope to complete the half marathon in, that would be good, but you would certainly hope to be able to manage at least 75% of the anticipated half marathon time before the half marathon itself. The pace of this run should be 1-2 minutes slower than 'race pace' (described below).

* The second most important run is the "race pace" run. This run helps your body to learn and be familiar with the pace that you will be running the half marathon. The pace of this run should be faster than the long run and the distance should again be built up gradually in the weeks before the half marathon, but only up to a distance of 4-5 miles maximum.

* If you can manage it, running faster than "race pace" in shorter bursts will make "race pace" seem easier on the day of the half marathon. A good way of doing this is to run faster than "race pace" (by about 30-60 seconds per mile) in half mile (800m) intervals and to walk or jog slowly in between these intervals. The recovery (walk or jog) time should be roughly equal to the time taken to run the intervals. The number of intervals can be increased by one per week.

* These three runs could be done with the long run on a Sunday, the race pace done on a Tuesday and the intervals done on a Thursday, for example.