What Is The Best Way To Structure A Year Of Running?

2 A-races are already set. 50km German champs by the end of February and Rennsteig Supermarathon (73,9km, 1800m elevation gain) in May.

Like Sarah I am a Marathon (Brighton in April) then I want to concentrate on a faster 5km work towards 20 mins

Manchester marathon and then (fingers crossed) Berlin and Chicago!

I would love a video about race day strategies. Do you start out at your goal pace? Do you account for speeding up?


How much to warm up for a race?

Does anyone run just for the fun or for the sake of it, no races or lofty goals planned in the year? How does one structure a year like that? I used to race all the time, in everything. Now many years later I have come to hate official racing and will ever go back to it. Any thoughts?

brighton marathon booked in 🏅
watford half
windsor half
maidenhead half
endure 24
beat the sunset 50k
good luck everyone smash 2025🏅💪🏻

Loads of base building till February on the bike, cross trainer and running.
10km may,
sprint triathlon, June,
4k swim+ sprint triahlon in August,
half in October,
10k this time next year 🙃🙂

I'm running for the longterm. 3 days a week 15-20 miles total. Mixed up different effort levels.

Main Goal For The Year is a sub 16 Flat 5k and Sub 17 Hilly 5k

2 A-goals are set. My marathon debut in Copenhagen in May and a PB attempt in Copenhagen Half Marathon. Set for Lisbon Half marathon in March as part of the preparation

at 63 trying to take up running again after gaining 120 pounds (and lost it the last two years lost the weight) and a prior smoker 10 years ago, can walk for 15 miles but cant run more than 200M without a 5 min rest to catch breath and HR, wondering if i should work more on shorter sprints rather than pushing distance. END goal is to run a 5k without stopping, i think next year would like to run maybe close to a mile without stopping, not sure if its doable unless i can lose the last 25 pounds to be at my 17 year old body weight when i was a HS Track star and USMC bootcamp.

You guys need to plan for Philadelphia Broad street run in May! Over 40,00 participants for a 10 mile run. I’m planning to run it for the first time, a promise I made to myself last year to get into shape.

My goal is to run 100 miles at the bridge 100. So I can run the tunnel 200 feb 25.

I have a spreadsheet with plans A-D, a new gym opening that has me excited for winter strength training, as well as a bike trainer and swim league for the off season. Plan A for next year is 1 triathlon, 1 marathon, and 2 fun shorter races in between!

Very helpful video! Thank you so much Running Channel!

My two big goals for next year are a 90min HM and a sub 40 10k

So far my plans for 2025 are:
April – Berlin Half-Marathon
August – Trail Half-Marathon (23k & 361 elevation gain)

I might do Wings for Life in May and I'd love to do something easier in autumn, maybe refocus on 5k and speed work. Will see!

next year I'm currently hoping to run 2 half marathon races at least, to PB in the 5K and have a good cross country season. thanks for this video, maybe there's some more to fit in but I just want to enjoy running and find my rhythm after a big but very normal life adjustment

I just train all year round but step up the intensity every few weeks and go for a PB.

I'm planning a back to back to back 10k-5k-Marathon plans.

Working on gaining speed first so I can go for a Marathon PB.

This year I did my first marathon. So next year I'm doing two in a month, Brighton and Manchester. Training block starts in a couple of weeks. Not sure I want to plan beyond that 🤔 😂

"how to plan a training season" by Strength Running has some additional info. Nearly 10 years old but filled many knowledge gaps I had: When to have maximum mileage? How to spread test races (he calls them "tune-up races") throughout the season? How many of them? How long should they be, depending on the length of the goal race? Etc etc.

Why are all your videos all the things I’m thinking love it ❤❤❤

Looks cold, A race Tokyo marathon and run sub 4 hours

What if my goal is consistency? How do I... hmmmm....

My wedding this year so iv booked 2 half's 2 10ks and 4 leisure rides

I'm running London Marathon in April for Leukemia Care ❤ my first full marathon!! Farnborough Half in Feb is my B event 🏃

Training for a marathon in April (hopefully a BQ), followed by the B.A.A. distance medley (5K, 10K, HM) and throwing in an extra HM about a month before the B.A.A. HM. I hired a personal coach to guide me through this.

You meant complement instead of compliment in your list.

Very informative and excellent scripting and camera work in this one! 👏👏👏

Not every video needs to do while running, this kind of video should be make at studio. Please do a better video of this topic at the studio 😢

I have 5 x 10k races next year! The "Run like L" series in Scotland. There's only 2 weeks between a couple of them though, and I would like to run them all as hard as I can. I wonder what the advice would be for my training in between these two with such a short gap in between?

Wow, this video really opened my eyes to the importance of structuring my year of running effectively. I never realized how much of a difference it can make in terms of progress and injury prevention. Thanks for sharing this valuable information."

I plan to do a 5k every week or every two week this year to build a running base and improving 5k times

The best way? Don't. You'll never stick to it anyway

My off-season consists of getting tattoo's 😎😎

Great video 🙌🙌
I can’t think of many if any of club mates or Strava friends who do a planned 2-4 week run break. My social life November-December tends to guarantee it. And I need it too, struggling with end of season niggles. Rest of advice great too, will bear it in mind 2025

What if your goal is ‘don’t die’ and you just run to stay fit? There is no ‘taper’ for that..

Great topic! I love every video with Sarah <3

Trying to train for my first 10k in November 2025 after injury amd then having a baby. Planning on building back up to a 5k by summer, doing a few weeks of maintenance at that level, then building as the weather starts to cool down

I needed this 😊

ive always loved watching this channel and i have improved so much by watching!
i hope to run a half marathon in 2025!

Main goals for 2025 are the Berlin Marathon and Berlin Half marathon. In between, I'll be participating in a local running series, although I want to be competitive in the series, I will use it as part of my training

This coming year is the first year I’ve packed in races just for training purposes but in a pack of people! I get free entries through my local club membership for several races so these are a nice way to make a Sunday long run more fun but I won’t target them as A goals or even as goals at all. Racing for fun not times should make long runs more fun this year I hope! Still waiting to hear on Sydney ballot to see whether I’m doing that or a local marathon then I’ll plan my year accordingly.

Goals are first marathon and first ultramarathon. I have a lot of time until the event so I guess I’ll work on building strength first, since I have the endurance pretty well dialed in

After 7 years away from running i've been back at it since August and have my 3rd Half Mara booked in for April 2025. Taking a long training schedule but already getting a good 20 miles a week under my belt. Have recently started a Garmin training plan so enjoying the structure.. Have my eye on a couple of local 10k's to fit into my schedule and get some running medals again after all this time.. It's also been super interesting to see how running differs now compared to 7 years ago when my knees were a little better and I had a wee bit less weight on my frame!

I've been running half marathons for 20 years. If I had thought this hard about my running, I would've given up a long time ago.