Marion Freijsen A blog about Sports, Fitness & Health

Running Schedule

This is a great schedule. It’s both designed for novice runners that want to get started as well as for expert runners that have suffered an injury and need a guide to getting back into running again. I got it originally from a great phyisical therapist and have used it (more often then I’d like) over the past 20-odd years!

If you are new to running, start with Step 1!! Don’t underestimate how much your body needs to acclimatize to the action of running. All you will end up with is protesting limbs and joints by the time you get three weeks into it. So take it slow, and start at the beginning.

If you are experienced but recovering from an injury, again take it easy, better to start with a lower Step then you think you need and work more quickly through the steps to your regular running time/distances then get started too quickly and injure yourself again.

There are a couple of rules:

• The maximum number of  Steps you move through in one week is THREE
• You should only do about  3 – 4 running sessions each week. That means you can never go from Step 1 to Step 5 in one week even if you run 4 times that week. Move to the next step when you feel comfortable with the prior one – but don’t force it. Sometimes that means doing 1 Step for 2 weeks but that’s fine.

If you follow this diligently you should be running a full hour comfortably after only  about 5 months training. Not bad from scratch!

For every Step, unless noted otherwise, you walk the same TIME as you ran!!

Step 1.
Run 30 seconds/Walk 30 secs. Repeat 4 times.

Step 2.
Run 30 secs./Walk , Run 1 min./Walk, Run 1 min./Walk , R 30 Secs/Walk

Step 3.
R-30 secs/W, R 1 min./W, R 2 min/W, R 30 secs./Walk

Step 4.
R 30 secs/W, R 1 min/W, R 1,5 min/W, R 2 min/W, R 1,5 min/W, R 1 min/Walk, R 30 secs/Walk

Step 5.
R 1 min/W, R 1,5/W, R 2/W, R 3/W, R 2/W, R 1,5/W, R 1/W

Step 6.
R 1,5/W, R 2/ W, R 3/W, R 4/W, R3/W, R2/W, R 1,5/W

Step 7.
R 2/W, R3/W, R4/Walk 2 mins!, R5/Walk 2,5 mins! , R4/W 2 mins, R3/W, R2/W, R1/W

Step 8. from now, you only walk HALF of your running time…
R 3/W 1,5, R4/W 2, R5/W2,5, R5/W2,5, R5/W2,5, R4/W2, R3/W1,5

Step 9.
Run 5/W2,5, R10/W5, R15/W7,5, R5/W 2,5

FINALLY  Step 10:
Run 15, Walk 3 mins,
Run 25 mins., Walk to recover – min. 5 mins.

And now you are on your own. From here, you can work to reduce the walking times in between the two Runs – that should feel relatively easy after this schedule and won’t take you long to accomplish.

Have FUN on your RUN!