Running

When I last built back up I was doing weeks like this (yes, I was starting at 3k as I'd just come back from an ankle fracture, did couch25k under physio recommendation and then wanted to take it really easy):

3, 3, 3 -> 3, 3, 5 -> 3, 5, 5 -> 5, 5, 5

Then from a few weeks of 3 x 5k runs a week (just to get into a routine) I'd move to:-

5, 5, 6 -> 5, 5, 7 -> 5, 5, 8 -> 5, 5, 9 -> 5, 5, 10

So my long run was finally up to 10k. I actually moved it up to 11.5km which was my commute into work which I did once a week as a run. (Two days in the office a week: cycle in Tuesday taking loads of stuff in, Cycle home Tuesday. Run in Thursday 11.5km, play 5-a-side after work, go to the pub, get pissed, get train home.)

I'd often throw in a parkrun as a "fast" 5k on a Saturday but this depended on family stuff, although now my daughter wants to do parkruns and we're both going to drag each other round as we get faster and faster.

All of these were just general "runs". Next stage was to add some specificity into the mix, so one of the mid-week 5k runs moved to intervals, so my week was:

5k, intervals, long run or 11.5k commute

For intervals I'd work on a 4 week rotation (each interval having a 1k warm up jog, 1k cool down jog):

• Week 1: 6 x 800m with 90s recovery walk between each
  
• Week 2: 5 x 1000m with 100s recovery walk between each
  
• Week 3: 4 x 1600m with 120s recovery walk between each
  
• Week 4: was my "easy/recovery" week and I'd just do a gentle 5k run instead
  
  

Each cycle I'd add one to the number of 800m intervals, and then bump up the others if needed (e.g. I wouldn't move to 7 x 800m AND 5 x 1600m as that would be too big a jump for the 1600m distance intervals).

The eventual goal is to get to 10 x 800m, 8 x 1000m and 6 x 1600m and repeat those every 4 week cycle along with the "easy" week. With the warm up, walking between intervals and cool down they all end up being about 11-12km of running.

To push on to longer runs I just did a similar thing. I think I extended my long run (usually my commute) by 1km at a time all the way up to 20km, and then the magic 21.1km for a HM.

For marathon training I followed a Bupa one I found just by random googling.

All a bit moot as the furthest I've ever run is ~30km, at which point it's all fallen apart and I've either had to jog/walk or just walk to finish all three of the marathons I've done. All three I wasn't fit enough, was too heavy and the last one I felt my hip flexor go at 28km and walked the rest knowing any more running would have put me out for even more months.

Anyway, most of the above has been pulled from various sources/plans/ideas etc. There's lots of science between many of the individual things but who knows whether the whole thing goes together in any kind of a sensible way. But it seemed to work for me and I remained injury free.

Note that I was also doing the above on top of a regular week of 2-3h of swimming, ~50km cycling, and 1h40m of 5-a-side football. All whilst way too heavy (BMI of ~33). I did get down to a BMI of 27 one time I ran a marathon but it soon all went back on. I'm a relatively solid "rugby" build so it would take a lot to get me down to a BMI < 23, so generally just BMI=25 is my main target, and so that's losing 1/4 of my current bodyweight.