Welcome to our Runner's World Club Couch to 5K plan, written by world-class coaches Tom Craggs and Robbie Britton. Here, we are offering non-members a free, two-week sample of our 10-week Couch to 5K schedule – available for 3–4 runs per week. To access the full plan, and a library of over 100 more plans for all distances and time goals, sign up to Runner's World Club membership here.
3-4 runs per week
Our Couch to 5K plan, encompassing three to four runs per week, is aimed at those new to running. Those with busy schedules may find this plan manageable in terms of fitting training around work and other commitments. Injury-prone runners, who struggle with high running volumes, may also benefit from this plan, which also includes plenty of walking and low-impact cross-training to build your fitness.
What types of session are included in the plans?
Rest days are an important part of your recovery and adaptation. Respect them and use them as a chance to reflect on your sleep and nutrition. Find some calm space and time to wind down to lower your stress levels and have some time away from your smartphone.
Running at a relaxed, conversational pace helps to build aerobic capacity, increases your ability to burn stored fats and promotes muscular recovery. Easy runs also allow you to increase your training volumes in a sustainable way. While we have suggested a guideline pace, how these runs feel is even more important. You should be able to hold a comfortable conversation and breathe easily. If you run to heart rate, these runs might be between 60-75% of your maximum heart rate, depending on the individual. You can replace some of these easy runs with cross-training sessions of a similar volume and intensity on a bike, rowing machine or elliptical trainer, or in the pool, swimming or aqua jogging. This is a good idea if you are injury prone because it will reduce the impact on your muscles and joints, while still working your heart and lungs.
Interval sessions involve a series of short repetitions of running, typically between 30 secs and 5-6 mins, with either static rest periods or a very easy recovery jog. Interval training is designed to get you breaking out of your comfort zone and challenging your body to work harder or faster, building fitness, as well as mental resilience.
Fartlek training is similar to interval training but differs in that the recovery periods are run at an easy or even steady intensity, rather than static rests. Often fartlek sessions will have a more relaxed structure and include a mixture of different paces in one session. They can be an effective way of varying your paces while maintaining a focus on continuous running and building endurance.
These sessions are designed to allow you to sustain higher intensity paces for longer. They can include a mixture of longer intervals between 3-15 minutes or they can be run as continuous efforts of between 10-40 minutes. They are run at a strong, but just about sustainable, intensity. It’s typically a pace you could hold for 60-70 minutes in a race.
Progression runs – which progress in speed as the run goes on – are a great way to start to work quality running into your week without getting too worked up about structure. They are good for getting you used to running at the intensity you would in a race and can be an effective way of adding more threshold running and race-pace efforts into your training week.
Long runs are a key run in your training plan. They are an essential building block for endurance, and not only have a wide range of positive effects on your cardiovascular system, but condition your muscles and bones to run for longer, while also helping to improve your running economy. Some long runs will be run at a fully easy intensity but sometimes you may be asked to run at a stronger pace or even include some blocks of race pace running, depending on what you are training for.
Strides are a good way to get used to running faster and developing speed without the demands of full sprinting. They involve running short efforts, normally between 60-100m, where the focus is on running at a fast but relaxed speed and running with good form. In the plan, we include strides + drills as part of our warm-ups before interval training to help you prepare for the sustained faster running in the main session. This could be a combination of 4-6 x 60-100m strides (fast but not flat out) plus 3-5 drills, such as high knees, ‘A’ skips and ‘B’ skips (find more on these here). In the plan, you may also see strides included after easy runs on occasions to help promote a feeling of speed and zip even on low-intensity days.
Strength and conditioning sessions are an important complement to your running. By building a greater number and size of muscle fibres, strength training can help you to sustain paces for longer, improve running economy and may prevent injuries. We have written some bodyweight plans, but feel free to replace these with gym-based strength training or Pilates.
Coach notes: Don’t start too fast in the first few runs – pace yourself for the full set.
Tuesday
REST DAY
•RODRIGO REYES MARIN.
Wednesday
CROSS-TRAINING Duration: 30-45 mins.
• Cross-training can be a real boost to your overall fitness and endurance. You can try a variety of exercises: a strong hike, a bike ride or different cardio machines at the gym.
Thursday
STRENGTH TRAINING Duration: 30 mins.
• The full workout and exercise descriptions can be found at the link here.
Friday
REST DAY
•RODRIGO REYES MARIN.
Saturday
RUN-WALK Duration: 38 mins.
• Warm-up: 10 nbsp;8-10 Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. •Main set: 8-10 x 1-min run with 45-sec walks between. •Cool-down: 5-10-min walk.
Coach notes: Don’t start too fast in the first few runs – pace yourself for the full set.
Sunday
REST DAY
• Rest days are important, but if you want to keep moving then a gentle walk or hike can be a nice way to boost your recovery.
Monday
STRENGTH TRAINING Duration: 30 mins.
• Full workout and exercise descriptions can be found at the link here.
Tuesday
RUN-WALK Duration: 42 mins.
• Warm-up: 10 nbsp;8-10 Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. •Main set: 3 Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. 4 Runners World Club: Couch to 5K training plan. 3 Best wireless headphones. •Cool-down: 5-10-min walk.
Coach notes: Don’t start too fast in the first few runs – pace yourself for the full set.
Wednesday
REST DAY
• RODRIGO REYES MARIN.
Thursday
CROSS-TRAINING Duration: 30-45 mins.
• Cross-training can be a real boost to your overall fitness and endurance. You can try a variety of exercises: a strong hike, bike ride or different cardio machines at the gym.
Friday
STRENGTH TRAINING Duration: 30 mins.
• Full workout and exercise descriptions can be found at the link here.
Coach notes: Aim for 20 efforts – by now you have built up well to this amount – but 15 is fine. You could consider a 2-min walk after the 10th effort if it will help you get to 20.
Sunday
REST DAY
• Rest days are important, but if you want to keep moving then a gentle walk or hike can be a nice way to boost your recovery.
Alongside our app-based library of plans, Gold members can get access to all of our plans via training platform Final Surge, where a drag-and-drop calendar allows you to plan and schedule training sessions with ease – and even push them to your GPS device (including Garmin, Apple Watch, Suunto, Polar, and more) so you can follow along in real time with guided prompts – taking all the thinking out of training for a race.
You can also buy our Couch to 5K plan as a one-off purchase via our Final Surge shop. Our 10-week plan is priced at £25. You can purchase it via the links below.
mins of brisk walking RODRIGO REYES MARIN (£99), giving you access to our Runners World Club: Sub-2:30 half marathon plans (plus lots of more benefits – including the print magazine delivered to your door every month!).
