A much shorter plan simply because when I checked the dates, we were way too far off from the half marathons (Hastings and Kent Spring) in 2026 to do one long training block.

So I’ve broken it down into 2. What that means is it gives us an opportunity to focus a bit more on speed rather than endurance. We can add that in the next plan as we look to build back up for the spring half marathons.

What it does mean is a few more runs. Your average runs per week jumps up from 3.09 to 3.67, which is quite a big step, but that’s mainly due to the fact there are a fewer long runs.

There are enough long runs in there to keep the endurance at a decent level, but I just didn’t want you to get into some stale habits. 2 hour Sunday long runs are great, but if it means you lose quality in your weekly training then it’s not always going to benefit your fitness.

It’s quite a busy start to the schedule with plenty of races in the first 6 weeks. 4 in total if we include Snape Wood.

There will always be 1 interval session. At the moment I’ve pencilled in Tuesday evening but we can change that up. As long as you get those fast twitch muscles fibres engaged and the heart rate up, it doesn’t matter too much when you do the speed work.

There will be always be at least one easy run, most weeks two. Add into the mix the S&C and it’s quite a demanding schedule, but also one I think is achievable.

The average training points has only increased gradually from 102 – 106 which shows the small step up and will hopefully lead to further progress.

I’ve put 3 parkruns in towards the latter end of this plan to have a few attempts at improving that 5k time. Obviously it will depend on the weather and if need be we can always replace one of those for a long run.

It’s a nice balance of speed work, easy miles and long runs. Then once we reach the new year we can start to focus more on the half marathon pace and get you primed for both Hastings Half and the Kent Spring Half.