Running

I guess all written plans look structured by their nature, but you can take a few principles that the Higdon plan uses:

• building one slightly longer run each week
  
• initially having at least one rest day or cross-training day in between running days; you can obviously do this off 3 days/wk, but then build-up to 4, then 5 days, by using the "hard/easy day" principle, in place of "run/rest day"
  I personally think there's some wiggle room with the 10% rule as well, i.e. build-up might be more step-like, e.g. step up to a 7k run, repeat the following week, if it feels easy and you've not had any niggles then step up to 8/9k (at an eeeaassy pace), even though it's strictly a bit more than 10%. Longer training plans for longer distances often have "cut-back" weeks as well; once you've started building up, have an easy week (just shorter runs, more rest days perhaps), which can help to recover from any niggles or tightness, before building up again.
  
  

I'm very loosely obeying my marathon training spreadsheet at the moment, which includes the reintroduction of target marathon pace tempo runs before Tuesday night intervals. Started last week and felt ok, so today's running double will be 19 miles total, 5 miles easy this morning, then this evening 3 mile jog to track, 2 miles @ 5:40/m (8 laps @ 85 secs), then 10 x 800m at whatever pace I can manage without straining too much, jog home.