How to choose a training plan

Not everyone wants or needs a coach, and not everyone who wants or needs one can afford one. Many people train very effectively using plans they’ve bought, researched, found, borrowed or written - you can do so too. Today I’m going to run through the things I’d check if I was choosing a plan for myself - these will help you pick something that suits you and will benefit you without overloading you, confusing you or making you stressed!

How does the plan work?

By this I mean firstly, is it written in time, distance, or a mixture of the two? Choose something that suits the way you already train. Distance tends to work well for people who primarily run on flatter, less technical routes - road, and easy trail. If you’re doing a lot of elevation, or messy, technical ground in your running, you may be better served working in time, as it will better reflect the effort you’re expending.

A word of caution on plans that work in time…check what the end point is! Time-based plans are often the product of the writer thinking in distance, and then converting into time with an average pace in their mind, which might be different from yours. If you’re using a time-based plan to train for a particular distance, check how it will work with your usual pace to see whether, by the end of it, you’ll have run far enough. For most distances, especially if it’s your first time, you don’t need to go the whole way in training. 10 miles is long enough before your first half marathon. Similarly, a 20 mile longest long run before your first marathon is plenty, and shorter might be fine, especially if you’re targeting a 6+ hour finish (I know this may seem counterintuitive - see the next paragraph if so!).

And a word of caution on plans that work in distance, too. For runners at the steadier end of the spectrum, I notice that distance-based plans can overload you in terms of the amount of time you’re spending on your feet, especially if that time is on tarmac. A good example of this is a back-of-pack marathon runner - the London cut off time is 8 hours. For someone expecting to use those full 8 hours, if you followed a distance-based plan with three 20-mile long runs, you’d end up doing three training runs of over 6 hours - that’s too much time on your feet, with the writer of the plan likely having in mind someone targeting 4-5 hours as a finish time.

Have a look also at how the plan balances easy running with harder sessions - to state the obvious, don’t choose something that has two hard workouts most weeks if you currently only do these occasionally. More on intensity below.

What’s the starting point?

It can be tempting when choosing a new plan to go with something that feels exciting and challenging from week 1. Check through to week 10, though, and the plan will probably have become bigger, and tougher.

If week 1 of your new plan leaves you sore and exhausted, you won’t adapt well enough to it to keep progressing through to the biggest weeks of it, and you’ll be risking injury and too much fatigue.

Instead, choose something where week 1 looks pretty similar to what you’re doing right now. If you’re coming back into training after a break, that means ‘right now’, not ‘what I did six months ago when I was last training’!

Look at the overall mileage or time in week 1, and check it matches your current load. You might be choosing this plan in order to try something new, which is great - make sure you only try one new thing at a time. For example, if you normally run three times per week, it’s fine to choose a plan with four runs if you’d like to run more often, but make sure that new run is an easy one, and that your mileage in the first few weeks is still similar to your usual. Don’t choose a plan that adds mileage and frequency and an extra hard session all at the same time! The key here is gentle, sustainable progression.

How long is the plan?

Most plans are written with a target distance in mind, but you’ll want to check that the length of it works for where you’re starting from. In general, the closer you already are to your goal, the shorter the plan can be. For example, 10k plans often range between 6 and 12 weeks. If you’re already regularly running 10k or more, a 6 week plan to fine-tune your 10k fitness will work well. If you’re building up from a smaller distance, e.g. you’re comfortable at 5k, go for a longer plan with a slower build. Similarly, someone who’s already in regular training and very comfortable running 13-15 miles could pick a 12 week marathon plan. If it’s your first marathon, or you’ve not run above 10k for some time, go for a 16-20 week plan. You might also need to add a month or two before the plan starts to rebuild fitness - back to the point above about choosing a plan that starts where you are.

Ultra plans can be…variable! There isn’t a universally-agreed approach to ultra training in the same way there more-or-less is for shorter distances. Some plans go for a lot of easy time on feet, and feature back to back long runs at weekends. Others look more like a traditional marathon plan, with lower mileages but including high intensity sessions. You can’t necessarily know for sure what will work best for you - but try to think carefully about what’s worked for you in the past, and also crucially about what hasn’t worked. Some runners respond really well to lots of slow, easy miles, and can comfortably do these week after week without problems. For other people, this volume grinds them down and ends up making them sick or injured. Speedwork can do the same - some people absorb it easily, others find it a major stressor. There are many routes to ultra-distance success, so choose a plan that lines up with what you know your body responds well to. If you’re anxious about choosing a plan with lower mileage or shorter long runs - don’t be! Many ultra completions, from elite to beginner, are built on a foundation of consistency and regular running through the week, not on massive ‘hero’ runs at the weekend.

How does it describe effort?

Finally, getting down to the nitty-gritty of the plan, have a look at how it describes intensity. As you develop as a runner, you’ll find that you can more easily distinguish different intensities. As a beginner, running just feels hard, which is why we begin by alternating running with walking. Once you’ve run enough to be able to start to run at a pace that feels ‘easy’, you’ll probably notice that you can run ‘easy’ and you can run ‘hard’, but there isn’t a level in between. I use RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) to describe intensity, which (for running) starts at about RPE4 (very easy) and goes through to RPE10 (very hard). As you progress, you’ll notice that you start to be able to find RPE7 - a kind of in-between, ‘comfortably hard’ pace, that you can sustain for 10 minutes, rather than 30 seconds. Eventually, a well-trained runner is able to distinguish more nuance in pace - they have a ‘feel’ for RPE5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Why am I describing this? Because your plan will work best for you if it meets you where you are now. If you currently have a feel for ‘easy’ and ‘hard’, find a plan that works in those terms, or perhaps one that uses three paces, e.g. ‘easy’, ‘steady’ and ‘hard’. You don’t need one that delves into ‘tempo’, ‘threshold’ and ‘VO2 max’ sessions unless you’re either already more advanced, or really interested in the various theories of how to train. If you have been training long enough to be able to pick out those different intensity levels, and you want to fine tune performance, you will probably benefit from a plan that is more prescriptive about how hard it wants you to work.

Final thoughts…it should mainly stay fun, and manageable! There are often a couple of weeks somewhere in the middle of the training for a big goal that feel hard - you’re more tired and more hungry than normal, and you may have to push yourself out of the door once or twice for a session or a long run. Take care if that turns into always tired, always hungry, or every run has become a chore or a dread. If that’s the case, there’s no shame in acknowledging that this plan is asking more than your current capacity, scaling it back to something more in line with the capacity you have, and exploring different roads that could lead to your goal.

Photo by Mango Matter on Unsplash