My goal is to eventually train for and run a half marathon. How do I start running?

It all depends on you. Since you are obese, the best thing you can do first is to eat 5 or 6 small meals in a day than a conventional 3 meals a day, and please dont eat till full. Eat a little and drink more. It will make you feel more energetic for the excersises (running in your case) You can start from running a 50 metres 3 times a day, or even walking 50m. Dont feel ashamed to start small. Start with what you are comfortable with, and repeat it again and again after regular interval till you cant do it anymore. And the second important thing is to increase that distance regularly (everyday will be good). Third important thing is don't run away from getting tired and feeling pain. You can not increase your stamina unless you will run beyond your current stamina regularly, and it will make you terribly tired. I started excercising in june, I could barely do a single pull up but I tried and did it many times a day. when I could do one complete pull up easily, I tried doing 2....Then 3...Then 4 and so on. I did it till my arms used to feel numb and terribly in pain. Today I can do 3 sets of 11pullups each at an interval of 2 minutes between sets VERY EASILY. So good luck to you, no pain-no gain.

This question brought back so many memories. Much like you, I have always been overweight and much less fit than I used to think I was. I too signed up for my first half marathon without having any clue how to go about it. The only difference is, that I was 27 when I thought about running my first half marathon. Believe me, the 10 years are going to be a huge help to you. One of the best things that you have done is that you have set a goalpost for yourself. That is fantastic! Now you know exactly what you need to achieve and by when. Now, despite what many many people will tell you, you can finish a half marathon. Anybody can, if you are willing to keep on plugging away at a schedule for about 20 weeks or so, you will cross that finish line...and when you do that, the sense of achievement will be greater than anything you've likely experienced before. You've mentioned that you like walking and running. Super! That's all you need for now. If you can run and walk a total of even half a km today, you will get to half marathon level. Here's what you need to do: 1) Start walking and running 3-4 days a week. Start every day with walking for 5 minutes. Once you're warmed up, start running. Run slowly...very slowly. In fact, run as slowly as possible. Speed is inconsequential. The only thing that matters is running till you feel tired. When that happens, walk again. Then run again once you feel less out of breath. Do this for a total of 15-20 mins to start (or even lesser if you can't do that long). Always end with 2-3 mins of walking. The above step is crucial to getting your body used to walking and running. 2) Every week, increase the time that you're doing this by 5 mins. Caution - Do not increase by more. Keep doing this till you reach a level where you can walk+run 5 kms. This could take anything between 4-8 weeks. Keep at it. Don't give up. At this point, you're ready to take the leap to the next stage. Now is when the professional training programs will kick in. Log on to halhigdon dot com (http://www.halhigdon.com). Pull out the novice 1 training programme for half marathons. This programme will take you from being able to walk + run 5k to finishing a half marathon. That too, in just 12 weeks. A few very important things to take care of: - Buy a good pair of running shoes. That is the best investment you can make towards this endeavour. To avoid injury, make sure that your toes do not touch the front of the shoes when you run. - The programme is dependent on the weekend long run. That is the most important activity of the entire week. Please don't miss it. If need be, do it on saturday or monday, but do it you must. - Never ever increase your mileage by bore than 10-15% per week. Any more than that is akin to inviting injury. - You don't need to run more than 4 days a week. If you can spend two more days doing stretching and cross-training (any other exercise other than running, i.e. cycling, swimming, weight training) then so much the better. However, the seventh day must be complete rest. That's when your body will rebuild your muscles and make them stronger. - You don't need to run the whole way. Walking + running is completely fine. So, just go ahead and get started at it and make sure you're consistently following the schedule every week. Over time, you will feel your stamina pick up and you will find it becoming easier and easier to do this. You will also start experiencing that sweet, sweet thing called the runner's high. Hope the above info helps! Wish you all the best!

just start by a step try 100m then 200m then 300m and so on............ and walk daily after running that increses the stamina. start now..... just now

Do a run, walk, run walk training program, take it easy and monitor your heart rate. If you can find the time, once a week try and work out for like 3 hours to get your body conditioned to handle a half marathon. Find out basic things like resting heart rate and running heart rate and recovery time.. Essentially when you wake up in the morning take your heart rate, thats your resting rate, after an arduous work out, take it again thats your work out max rate, and once you rest see how long it takes for your heart rate to recover from a hard work out. My personal heart rate is 60 bpm, when i am running hard it goes to 150bpm and takes less than 30 secs to get back to 110bpm, when i get there I tend to do another hard run. By doing that i develop endurance. For a start try something simple like 200metre sprints followed by a 30 sec walk, then : 400m 1 min walk rest repeat 5 times 600m 1m walk rest repeat 5 times 800m 1min walk rest x 5 1km  1min walk rest x 5 and raise these incrementally, monitor your heart rate. And listen to your body, if you find that you are hyperventilating or your heart seems to wanna beat outta your chest, you need to slow down. Breathing is the MOST important thing to train for distance runners. I see too many runners breathing badly...distance runners breath rhythmically.

Find a friend who shares this ambition and train together - set sensible objectives and don’t go overboard with things.I did my first half marathon last year and completed it at a fairly sedate pace with a friend of mine - we trained for around six months and she had never run before starting our training (I had but never anything near that distance).We trained using a couch to 5k initially and then switched to running intervals (2 minute run, 1 minute walk - repeat and rinse), building up the duration slowly over time (add a mile every other week or so).I’ve now completed a full marathon using that technique and while I’m never going to be a world beater - I’m in far better shape than I was previously and I have discovered I really enjoy running :)