Any distance, from a parkrun to a marathon. No signup, nothing to install. No race time yet? Describe your goal in a sentence and the builder starts from a cautious estimate.
2
Add your race and your week
Pick your race distance and date, how many days a week you can run, and roughly where your training is now.
3
Get your paces
Your race time gives your VDOT score. Jack Daniels' published formulas turn it into your easy, marathon, threshold, interval and repetition paces, plus a predicted finish time.
4
Get your week-by-week plan
Base, build, peak and taper, timed back from race day, with an easier week every fourth week (every third for new runners). Every session has its distance and pace, and today's session comes first.
5
Keep it where you look
Open it from your plan link on any device, add every session to your calendar, or download a printable PDF. It is saved on your device, with no account.
6
Update it as you go
Ran a faster race, missed some time, moved your race or changed your running days? Update the plan and the weeks ahead re-plan from today. What you have already done stays.
7
Race day
Get a pacing plan with your splits and print a pace band for your wrist. Set a goal time and the plan tells you honestly whether today's fitness supports it.
Example input → example plan
A runner describes their goal in one sentence:
"I want to run a 10K in 12 weeks. I run 3 days a week, my recent 5K was 28:30, and I want to break 55:00."
Run-R turns it into a 12-week plan with one hard session a week from week 4: fartlek first, then tempo runs and intervals. Every pace comes from the 28:30 5K.
Fitness
33VDOT
First week
11km
Peak week
19km
10K today
59min
against a 55:00 goal
Pace
Used for
Per km
Easy
Easy runs and the long run
7:09 to 7:51
Threshold (tempo)
Tempo runs and cruise intervals
5:58
Interval
Hard reps of 3 to 5 minutes
5:30
The predicted 59 minutes shows how far today's fitness is from the goal. You see the gap before you start.
Example first 3 weeks of a generated 10K planEasyLongQualityRace
Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Total
1Base
Rest
4.5kmeasy + strides
Rest
4.5kmeasy + strides
Rest
4.5kmeasy
7.5kmlong
21km
2Base
Rest
6 × 60 s hills
Rest
5kmeasy + strides
Rest
5kmeasy + strides
8kmlong
23.5km
3Build
Rest
5 × 400 m
Rest
5.5kmeasy + strides
Rest
5.5kmeasy
8.5kmlong
25.5km
How we build your plan
Run-R does not invent its own rules. Each one below comes from a published coaching method or study, named beside it, and the plan builder is tested against all of them on thousands of plans.
Paces from your race timeJack Daniels, Daniels' Running Formula
Your race time gives a VDOT score, and the score gives five training paces: easy (a range), marathon, threshold, interval and repetition. They match Daniels' published tables to within 2 to 3 seconds per km.
Mostly easySeiler 2010; Fitzgerald, 80/20 Running
Most of your running is easy. On average, under a tenth of the week's time is at threshold pace or faster, and never more than a fifth of it (a quarter on three days a week).
Two hard days at mostBowerman's hard/easy principle; Daniels
No more than two hard sessions a week, never on back-to-back days and never the day after the long run. A long run with race pace in it counts as one of the two.
A ceiling on every sessionDaniels, Daniels' Running Formula
Threshold running is at most 10% of the week, intervals the lesser of 8% or 10 km, repetitions the lesser of 5% or 8 km, and marathon pace the lesser of 20% or 29 km. Reps at interval pace last 3 to 5 minutes; repetitions no more than 2.
PhasesDaniels' four phases; Pfitzinger
Base: easy running, strides and hill repeats. Build: threshold and intervals, plus short fast reps for a 5K. Peak: race-specific work such as 10K pace reps, half marathon pace blocks and marathon pace runs. Then the taper.
A gradual buildFrandsen et al. 2025; Buist et al. 2008; Nielsen et al. 2014
Weekly distance rises by no more than 10% on your last full week, and no single run is more than 10% longer than your longest in the last four weeks. The single-run limit has the better evidence: the weekly 10% rule is a cautious habit, not a proven one.
Easier weeksMcMillan; Higdon
Every fourth week is about 20% lighter, every third for new runners, so your body adapts to the work before the next block.
Long runs with a ceilingHigdon; Pfitzinger; Hansons; Daniels
Marathon long runs peak at 32 to 35 km and stop at 3 hours, whichever comes first. If 3 hours at your easy pace is under 26 km, they go on to 26 km or 3.5 hours, whichever comes first. Half marathon long runs peak at 16 to 22 km. For other races, and the half, no long run lasts more than 150 minutes. On three or four days a week the long run can be up to 50% of the week, as in Higdon's novice plans. If the plan is too short to build to the peak safely, it says so.
A proper taperBosquet et al. 2007; Pfitzinger
One week for a 5K, about ten days for a 10K, two weeks for a half and three for a marathon. Distance drops step by step, by about 40 to 60% over the taper, and race week itself is lighter still. One short race-pace session stays each week, and so do your running days.
New runners start gentlyNHS Couch to 5K
Complete beginners start with run/walk on the Couch to 5K pattern: three days a week, one step forward a week, from 8 × 1 minute of running. No hard running until two weeks after they can run continuously.
The sessions in your plan
Every session is one of these. Paces come from your VDOT; the training paces chart shows them for every fitness level.
Easy runEasy pace, a range
Relaxed running you could chat through. Most of your week. It builds the aerobic engine everything else rests on, at little recovery cost.
StridesAbout mile race effort
6 × 20 seconds quick but relaxed at the end of an easy run, with a minute of walking or jogging between. Leg speed and form, without tiring you.
Recovery runThe slow end of easy
Short and very easy, the day after the long run if you run six or seven days. The point is to move, not to train.
Long runEasy pace
Your longest run of the week, at an easy, steady pace. It builds endurance. In the peak weeks of a half or full marathon plan, some long runs finish at race pace.
Medium-long runEasy pace
In marathon plans of five or more days, a midweek run of about two thirds of the long run. More endurance without another long Sunday.
Tempo runThreshold (T) pace
About 20 minutes at a comfortably hard pace, the effort you could hold for an hour in a race. It raises the pace you can sustain.
Cruise intervalsThreshold (T) pace
Threshold running in blocks of 5 to 15 minutes, with a minute's easy jog for every 5 minutes of running. The same benefit as a tempo run, easier to hold.
IntervalsInterval (I) pace
Hard reps of 3 to 5 minutes, often 800 m to 1600 m, with an easy jog for about as long between. They raise your VO2max, the top of your aerobic engine.
RepetitionsRepetition (R) pace
Fast, relaxed reps of 200 to 400 m with a full recovery jog. Speed and running economy. Mostly in 5K plans.
Hill repeatsAbout 5K effort
60 seconds up a steady hill, then a slow jog back down. Strength and form before the faster work. Run by effort, not pace.
FartlekAbout 5K effort
Swedish for speed play: 1 minute brisk, 2 minutes easy, repeated. New runners' first taste of faster running.
Marathon pace runMarathon (M) pace
A steady block of 6 to 16 km at the pace you plan to race. It teaches your body, and your fuelling, the race.
Race pace sessionYour race pace
In the last weeks: 10K pace reps, half marathon pace blocks, or short race-pace reps in the taper. Practice at the rhythm you will race.
Run/walkEasy, then walk
Running and walking in turns, as in Couch to 5K. The runs grow and the walks shrink until you run without stopping.
ShakeoutVery easy
A short jog the day before a race, with a few seconds at race pace near the end, to loosen up.
Jack Daniels, Daniels' Running Formula. Human Kinetics, 3rd and 4th editions. VDOT, the five paces, session limits and phases.
Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas, Advanced Marathoning. Human Kinetics. Medium-long runs, marathon pace long runs, the three-week taper.
Pete Pfitzinger and Philip Latter, Faster Road Racing. Human Kinetics. Session types and tapers for 5K to half marathon.
Luke Humphrey, Hansons Marathon Method. VeloPress. Marathon pace runs and the case for capping the long run.
Hal Higdon, Novice training programmes. halhigdon.com. Volumes and long runs for first-time racers; step-back weeks.
Greg McMillan, McMillan Running. mcmillanrunning.com. Pace zones and easier weeks every third or fourth week.
NHS, Couch to 5K. nhs.uk. The nine-week run/walk programme for complete beginners.
Seiler S, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2010. How endurance athletes split easy and hard training.
Bosquet L and others, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2007. Meta-analysis of tapering: two weeks, 41 to 60% less volume, intensity kept.
Frandsen JSB and others, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2025. 5,205 runners: injury risk rises when one run is more than 10% longer than the longest of the last 30 days.
Buist I and others, American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2008. Novice runners: the 10% rule did not lower injuries.
Nielsen RO and others, Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, 2014. Novice runners: weekly jumps over 30% may raise injury risk.