Half Marathon goal times.

The half marathon is the people's distance — long enough to demand real training, short enough to leave a life around it, and raceable more than once a season, which is why it is so many runners' favourite distance to actually race. This page is its full ladder: 22 goals in five-minute steps, from sub-1:15 at 5:43 per mile to sub-3:00 at 13:44, each opening into a complete page of splits, readiness checks, and training paces. Every number is computed from the Daniels–Gilbert formulas — the same engine the Why Not app runs — so no two surfaces of this site can disagree with each other.

The right rung is derived, not declared. Run a recent 5K or 10K through the VDOT calculator and it will name the half your current fitness already predicts; pick the rung one honest step beyond that, and let a training block close the difference. The ladder spans VDOT 22.2 to 62.9, and a well-run block typically moves a runner a point or two — one rung, sometimes two where the steps are cheaper, rarely more. The honest step is the one that gets taken.

What makes the half distinct is where it sits against threshold. At the sharp end — sub-1:15 is 3:33 per kilometre — the race is run practically at threshold pace and becomes the purest sustained-effort test in road running. Down the ladder the pace falls progressively below threshold and the event turns into an endurance examination instead: the second hour, the fuelling, and the discipline of an even first three miles. Same distance, two different sports, one table.

The half also rewards a habit the marathon cannot afford: re-derivation. It recovers in days rather than weeks, so a season can hold two or three honest attempts — and each one is fresh input for the calculator, re-pricing your rung from evidence rather than memory. On a ladder of 22 rungs, the honest next step is always adjacent, and it moves with you.

One caveat rides with every row, and it is Daniels' own: equivalent times assume you train for the distance specifically. A 10K runner's engine does not automatically speak half marathon — the long-run history has to exist. The ladder tells you what your fitness is worth from sub-1:15 to sub-3:00; the goal pages tell you what the specific preparation looks like.

The ladder