Couch to 5K Plan

Who this plan is for

People who do not run yet, and people coming back after a long break. Before week 1 you should be able to walk briskly for 30 minutes. Nothing else is assumed.

You need three days a week with a rest day between them, and 32 to 40 minutes for each session, walks included.

Check with a doctor before you start if you have a health condition, or if you are new to exercise.

How it works

This is our own schedule. It is not the NHS Couch to 5K programme or any other published couch to 5K plan, and this site is not affiliated with the NHS.

The plan is measured in minutes, so it works at any speed. Three rules build it:

• The running adds up slowly. A week 1 session has 8 minutes of running. From one session to the next the total never rises by more than 4 minutes.
• The longest run grows slowly too. 1 minute in week 1, 12 minutes in week 8, 30 in week 10. It never grows by more than 4 minutes from one session to the next.
• One thing changes at a time. In weeks 1 to 8 every session of a week is the same, and the walk between runs is always 2 minutes. From week 6 to week 9 the running in a session stays at 24 minutes and only the breaks go.

It runs in three stages:

• Weeks 1 to 3, short runs. Runs of 1, 2 and 3 minutes with a 2 minute walk between them.
• Weeks 4 to 8, longer runs. The runs stretch from 4 to 12 minutes and there are fewer of them.
• Weeks 9 and 10, one long run. In week 9 the first run grows by 3 minutes each session (15, 18, 21), followed by a 2 minute walk and a short second run. Week 10 drops the walk: 24, 27 and 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes or 5 km? 30 minutes of running is 5 km only at 9:39 per mile (6:00 per km) or faster. If you enter a slower goal, the calculator adds bridge weeks: 2 minutes more each session until the last run covers 5 km. A 35:00 goal adds 1 week (32, 34, 35 minutes) and a 48:00 goal adds 3.

Room to repeat. Any week can be done twice. Enter your 5K date and the calculator tells you how many spare weeks you have.

The formula

running in a session = the run segments added up
pace                 = goal time ÷ 5 km
distance in 30 min   = 30 min ÷ pace
bridge sessions      = (goal time − 30 min) ÷ 2 min, rounded up
bridge weeks         = bridge sessions ÷ 3, rounded up

Worked example

A goal of 35:00 for 5 km.

1. Pace: 35:00 ÷ 5 km = 7:00 per km. Per mile that is 11:15, rounded down to the second.
2. In 30 minutes at that pace you cover 4.29 km (2.66 miles), short of 5 km.
3. Bridge sessions: (35 − 30) ÷ 2 = 2.5, rounded up to 3, which is 1 week.
4. Week 11 is 32, 34, 35 minutes, and the last of those is your 5 km.

How to pace each run

• Run segments. Easy. You should be able to talk in full sentences. If you cannot, slow down, even if that feels barely faster than walking. Speed is not the point of this plan.
• Walk segments. Brisk, not a stroll. Keep moving until the next run.
• The long runs of weeks 9 and 10. The same easy effort. Start slower than you think you need to.
• Your 5K. Run it the way you ran the last session of the plan. It takes as long as it takes.

How long 5 km takes at a steady pace:

If you miss a week

• One session. Do it on the next free day and move the week along. Keep a rest day between sessions.
• One week. Repeat the last week you finished, then carry on. Enter your 5K date above to see whether you have a spare week for it.
• Two weeks or more. Go back two weeks from where you stopped and build again from there.
• A session you could not finish. Repeat that week. The plan has room for it.
• Stopped by illness or pain. That is a question for a doctor or physiotherapist, not for a training plan.

What the research supports

A few parts of this plan lean on published guidance. The session-by-session steps are how the plan is built, not settled science.

• Start low and build slowly. The US Physical Activity Guidelines tell inactive people to “start low and go slow”, raising how often and how long they are active a little at a time (Piercy and colleagues, 2018). The American College of Sports Medicine recommends at least 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise for most adults, and says that building up intensity and volume gradually may reduce the risks of exercise (Garber and colleagues, 2011). The last week of this plan has 81 minutes of running, plus 30 minutes of walking.
• Easy means you can talk. The US Physical Activity Guidelines describe the talk test: at moderate effort you can talk but not sing, and at vigorous effort you cannot say more than a few words without pausing for breath (Piercy and colleagues, 2018). A review of the research found the test valid and reliable for setting exercise intensity (Reed and Pipe, 2014).
• No proven safe rate. A trial with 532 novice runners compared an 8-week program with a gentler 13-week one built on the 10% rule. The injury rates were almost the same: 20.3% and 20.8% (Buist and colleagues, 2008). The slower build-up did not lower the injury rate, so this plan makes no claim that its own rate of progress is the safe one. Repeat a week when your body asks for it.

After your first 5K

The free next step is the beginner half marathon plan, which starts from a 5 km run-walk. Or keep three runs of 30 minutes a week for a while.

We also sell two 5K plans. They are paced plans for a goal time, with a PDF in kilometer and mile editions, a calendar file that puts every session on the right day in Google, Apple or Outlook, and a printable pace band for race day, and neither is a beginner plan:

• Sub-20 5K Training Plan, $14. 8 weeks, for runners who already run about 5 times a week (19.5 mi) and have a recent 5K near 20:43.
• 25 Minute 5K Training Plan, $14. 8 weeks, for runners who already run about 4 times a week (15 mi) and have a recent 5K near 26:09.

Print it or save it

The Print this plan button prints the plan alone: your paces, the overview and all 10 weeks, without the menus or the text on this page. Choose “Save as PDF” in the print dialog to keep a copy on your phone.

“Copy link to result” gives a link that reopens the page with your units, time and race date filled in. With a race date set, the page marks the current week each time you open it.

Questions

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Sources

1. Piercy KL, Troiano RP, Ballard RM, et al. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. JAMA. 2018;320(19):2020-2028.
2. Garber CE, Blissmer B, Deschenes MR, et al. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, and neuromotor fitness in apparently healthy adults: guidance for prescribing exercise. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2011;43(7):1334-1359.
3. Reed JL, Pipe AL. The talk test: a useful tool for prescribing and monitoring exercise intensity. Current Opinion in Cardiology. 2014;29(5):475-480.
4. Buist I, Bredeweg SW, van Mechelen W, Lemmink KA, Pepping GJ, Diercks RL. No effect of a graded training program on the number of running-related injuries in novice runners: a randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2008;36(1):33-39.