By the end of week ten you’ll be running anywhere from 2 ½ to 3 ½ miles per day, 10 to 21 miles per week. At the end of 10 weeks, you may choose to:
- Continue with the daily workout as you did at week ten
- Gradually increase your distance/time of the daily run (no more than 10% increase per week)
- Begin to try some strengthening work for upper/lower body
- Try some alternative workouts (speed work, hills, cross training)
Tips to help you plan your workouts:
- Build mileage and running frequency gradually: 5–10% increase in distance/duration per week.
- Plan your run/walk intervals so you can build-up to run a 5K without taking walking breaks. It may take a few weeks to train your body to achieve this level of exercise. Do not push yourself too hard, too far or too fast or your will wind up with extra sore muscles and potential injuries.
- Use the hard/easy system of training: follow hard training days (longer runs) with easier training days (shorter runs or slower pace). Be sure to build in off days for recovery.
- Don’t be a “weekend warrior”: don’t do all of your running on the weekend with nothing during the wee. The mid-week runs help with recovery from the long run.
- Warm-up and cool down every time: start each run with some easy jogging and finish the same way; better yet, use walking for both.
- Don’t forget to rehydrate and refuel post-run. This will assist in the post-workout recovery. Here are a few important things to remember at the end of your run.