Half Marathon training starts Saturday

If your idea of fun involves getting out of bed early on a Saturday to work up a sweat, consider training for the St. Jude Country Music Half Marathon.

Fleet Feet Sports, a Brentwood running-gear store, will launch a training programSaturday to prepare walkers and runners for the race, which takes place in Nashville on April 27.

The Half Marathon — not to mention the full 26.2-mile Country Music Marathon — together are the biggest running races in the state, said Tammy Sanders, marketing director at Fleet Feet. The event’s now in its 11th year.

Running, or even strolling, 13.1 miles is no small feat. So Fleet Feet for the past four years has provided group training, available to runners, walkers and those who take a middle-of-the-road approach, so to speak, covering the distance with a mix of running and walking.

“Folks wanted to train for it. It’s not a 5K. A half marathon is such a bigger piece to tackle,” Sanders said.

Half the people who signed up for the training by this week have never done a race of this distance before, she said.

Read the complete story in The Tennessean.