8 Ways Training for a Half Marathon Will Make You Master Life

There are so many benefits of training for a half marathon that will help you take control of your life, but I’m going to tackle 8 of them.

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8 Benefits of Training for a Half Marathon

Whether you’ve been thinking about trying your first half marathon, or you’ve already ran several, you can be confident these benefits of training for a half marathon will help you level up in life.

Training for a half marathon gives you a sense of purpose

Sense of purpose is a huge benefit of training for a half marathon. It’s a big enough goal to organize your efforts and give you something to focus on, but it won’t consume your entire life. You’ll still have time to spend with family and friends or work on your other goals.

If you feel like you’re just going through the motions of life, sometimes you need a central focal point for your efforts.

This really helped me focus the direction of my life after achieving a huge life goal and going through a major transition that involved moving to a new state, entering a completely new job, and overhauling my lifestyle.

            Related: Setting Goals in the Midst of a Major Life Transition

Running puts you in a better mood

When I run in the morning, I feel like a rockstar for the rest of the day. Running allows me to clear my head, wash away stress, and gives me that natural endorphin feel-good high to start my day.

Mood boost is one of my favorite benefits that I experience while training for a half marathon, and the results are instant!

When I run in the afternoon, running is that stress relief I need. It’s a release before I go home to spend the evening with my family. It resets my priorities and reminds me how awesome life it. Running also helps provide a stress buffer between work and home, so I don’t take out my frustrations from the day on my husband.

Training for a half marathon improves your health

Okay, so this is the obvious one.

Running is good for your health. But when you’re running with a specific purpose (such as training for a half marathon), you’re more likely to push yourself harder in your workouts. You’re more likely to challenge yourself to run farther than you’ve ever run before. AND you’re more likely to consciously eat healthy to support your tough training rather than “reward” yourself with junk.

For me, following a training plan makes me less likely to skip runs. When I’m not training for a specific race, there’s no impact of me missing a run here or there. However, if I miss a run while half marathon training, it could mean the difference between me hitting my finish goal or not. That keeps me motivated to do each and every workout.

What goals keep me motivated? I’m glad you asked. Check out my 2019 Running and Life Goals post.

Running makes you more productive

I mentioned above that running clears your head. It helps you prioritize and knock out the rest of the tasks in your day.

When I finish a run, I feel accomplished. Then, I just want to keep kicking butt all day. When you do this every day, it can really make a HUGE difference in your productivity over time. Starting my day with a clear head from my run helps me break down my big tasks into smaller ones and take action steps that move me closer to my goals every day.

Oh, and one of those action steps is getting my workout done so I’m closer to completing my next half marathon goal!

            Related: Productivity: How to Run Your Life Like a Boss

Training for a half marathon makes you more confident

When I set the goal to run my first half marathon, it scared the hell out of me. What if I couldn’t do it? I thought I was crazy, completely lost my mind, and everyone else in my life thought the same. When I set the goal, I had run less than half of the distance. What made me think I could do the whole thing??

            Related: My Crazy Resolution: How I Did It

SPOILER ALERT: I did complete my first half marathon. And I felt on top of the world. My co-workers admired me just for the dedication of sticking to a training plan and finishing the race distance.

Finishing my first half marathon was the moment I realized: If I can finish a half marathon (something I thought was crazy, probably impossible), then I can really do anything I set my mind to.