Training plans for women: symptoms, life stages and the limits of generic advice
Support individual needs without inventing cycle-synced rules or blanket age-based reductions.
Training guides & running sessions
Choose the right plan, understand your sessions and build a routine that fits your life.
Session library
Easy outings, speed sessions, strength and recovery: understand the run you need today.
Choosing a plan
Find your starting point, choose a training routine and adapt it around real life.
Find your training plan39 guides
Choosing a plan
What the research can and cannot tell us about running plans
A transparent guide to the evidence, established programmes and our original editorial choices.
Trail and ultra plans: match the route, not just the distance
Check terrain, time, navigation and support before choosing a generic trail programme.
Should you run three, four, five or six days a week?
Arrange training around sustainable frequency, recovery and the rest of your life.
Tapering, race week and the days afterwards
Reduce the training without trying to prove your fitness at the last minute.
Strength, cross-training and recovery: the training around the running
Add support work without accidentally creating a second demanding plan.
Progression and long runs: beyond the 10% rule
Build a routine without treating a percentage, mileage target or time cap as a safety guarantee.
Pace, effort and time on feet: how to read your running plan
Keep easy running easy and understand why a time-based plan still needs distance checks.
Missed runs, illness and bad weather: how to adjust without catching up
A practical interruption guide that treats recovery as part of the plan.
How to choose a running plan that fits your actual starting point
Choose by recent training, available time and the event, not by a flattering ability label.
How many weeks do you need to train for a race?
Understand what shorter and longer calendars can, and cannot, change.
Fuelling and hydration belong in your training plan
Practise food and drink alongside the running, without making every easy outing complicated.
First finish or faster time? Set a race goal without turning it into a guarantee
Use recent evidence and process goals instead of a promised finishing time.
Beginner, improver or experienced? Ability labels without the pace snobbery
Use training history and recovery capacity rather than speed to find the right level.
Everyday runs
Run–walk training: a proper running strategy, not a consolation prize
Build manageable running exposure or rehearse a sustainable event strategy using planned walking breaks.
Steady runs: the useful middle gear—and how not to live there
Practise controlled sustained running above easy effort, when a programme has a reason for it.
Long runs: building endurance without turning Sunday into a survival test
Practise spending longer on your feet and prepare for the practical demands of longer events.
Recovery runs: when a gentle jog helps—and when rest is better
Keep a familiar running rhythm on a low-demand day without adding another substantial training challenge.
Easy runs: the everyday miles that deserve more credit
Build a repeatable running habit and aerobic training volume without making every outing a demanding workout.
Speed and race practice
Time trials and practice races: useful feedback without a weekly judgement day
Assess current performance or rehearse event decisions without confusing testing with everyday training.
Race-pace training: practising your event without racing every workout
Rehearse a realistic event effort, pacing decisions and race-day routines.
Progression runs: starting gently and finishing with purpose
Practise changing effort gradually and finishing a planned run under control.
Sprint training for distance runners: quick feet, full recovery, careful choices
Develop or maintain speed-oriented qualities through brief high-quality efforts, rather than prolonged breathlessness.
Strides: a small dose of quicker running, not a secret sprint workout
Practise smooth acceleration and relaxed quicker running in very short, low-volume bouts.
Hill repeats: making friends with the uphill bits
Practise controlled uphill running and add a terrain-specific higher-effort stimulus.
Fartlek training: a little speed play for your running week
Introduce varied pace, practise effort judgement and add playful structure without needing a track.
Interval training: faster running, sensible recoveries and no need to sprint
Practise repeated higher-intensity running with recoveries that make the planned work manageable.
Cruise intervals: threshold training with a little breathing room
Accumulate controlled threshold-style work in manageable blocks separated by brief easy recoveries.
Tempo and threshold runs: comfortably hard, without the mystery
Develop controlled sustained effort relevant to endurance performance, without turning every session into a race.
Terrain and settings
Treadmill running: an indoor setting, a proper workout and no magic incline
Complete a planned running session indoors with controllable speed and gradient.
Trail and downhill running: training for the ground beneath your feet
Develop familiarity with uneven ground, climbing decisions and controlled descending.
Supporting your running
Warm-ups and cool-downs: useful bookends, without the recovery myths
Prepare for the planned activity and finish in a comfortable, orderly way.
Cross-training for runners: keeping the purpose, changing the movement
Add variety or substitute some running with another form of exercise while managing the overall workload.
Plyometric training: small jumps, careful landings and no need for a giant box
Introduce controlled jumping and hopping as a possible complement to running and strength work.
Strength training for runners: useful work that does not need to take over your life
Build strength that supports running performance and everyday physical capability.
Training approaches
Rest days and cutback weeks: the parts of training that do not need a GPS trace
Make room for recovery, changing circumstances and a sustainable relationship with training.
Tapering: doing less so you can bring more to race day
Reduce accumulated training demand before an event while retaining suitable familiar activity.
Polarised, pyramidal and 80/20 training: sorting the week, not worshipping a percentage
Understand how easy, moderate and harder work are distributed across a training period.
Base-building: making running fit before making it harder
Create a repeatable foundation of manageable running before adding more event-specific demands.
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