Sub-20 5K or first 10K. The plan knows the difference — the method doesn't change.

Every serious running plan ever written agrees on the fundamentals: run mostly easy, run enough, make the hard days count, and get to the start line fresh. The hard part was never the theory. It's the numbers — YOUR numbers.

Tell us one recent time. From it we derive every pace you'll train at: easy that's actually easy, threshold that's honestly yours (about your 10K effort, not a number pulled from a goal), intervals with targets you can hit on tired legs and miss on bad days. Your weekly volume starts where you actually are — connect Strava and we'll read it ourselves — and grows at a rate your legs can absorb, never more than your body earns.

Then the plan stays honest as you change. Run a time trial, log your runs, and your paces move with your fitness. Six different fartlek formats, threshold ladders, progression runs, long runs that learn race pace as the race gets close. One long run a week, always the biggest run of your week. A recovery week every eighth, whether you feel like you need it or not.

And if the plan thinks your setup can't deliver your target — not enough days for your mileage, not enough weeks for the distance — it says so, in plain words, before you've wasted a block finding out.