About Training Planner
Training Planner builds a week-by-week plan for your race from where you are now: your current mileage, your longest recent run, the days you can train, the weeks you will be travelling, and the date of the race. It is free, and you do not need an account.
How a plan is made
Plans come from a rules engine we wrote ourselves, not from a template and not from an AI writing each week. The same answers always give the same plan. The rules set:
- Where you start. Week one is close to what you run now. Volume rises a few percent a week and never past the ceiling you give us.
- Recovery. A lighter week every fourth week (every third from about age 50), and lighter "hold" weeks around travel or busy weeks you tell us about.
- Hard and easy. Never two hard days in a row, and the day after the long run is rest or easy cross-training.
- The long run grows in stages, is capped by distance and by time on your feet, and peaks two to three weeks before the race.
- Paces come from a recent race result when you give one, projected to your race distance.
- A taper of three weeks for the marathon and two for the half.
Every plan lists the assumptions it made, so an odd answer gives a visible explanation rather than a silent guess.
When we say no
Some combinations are not safe: a marathon in six weeks from no running, or a weekly ceiling too low to prepare for the distance. In those cases the site explains why and builds nothing, rather than a plan that ramps too fast.
What it is not
It is not a coach who can see you run, and it is not medical advice. If something hurts, stop and get it looked at. If you have a heart or lung condition, or an injury that has not healed, talk to a doctor before you start.
What comes next
Triathlon (Olympic, 70.3 and Ironman) and long-ride plans (metric century to double century) are on the way. Later we plan an optional paid upgrade with written coach notes, calendar export and re-planning when life gets in the way; the plan itself stays free.