h5k

Couch to 5K plan generator

A walk/run progression for someone who cannot run yet. Choose the weeks and the sessions you have, and the plan builds up to 30 minutes of continuous running. No pace to hit, nothing to sign up for.

Longer means smaller steps
Never on consecutive days
What you can manage today

Finishes at

30 min

continuous

Sessions

27

in total

Time on your feet

12.7 h

across the whole plan

Longest session

38 min

the last one

The target is 30 minutes of running without stopping, not the 5K distance. Most people cover between 4 and 5 km in half an hour, and the distance follows on its own soon after.

Repeating a week is part of the plan. If a week leaves you unable to finish a session, do that whole week again before moving on. The biggest single step in this version is into week 7, so that is the likeliest place to need it, but any week is fair game and there is no prize for finishing on schedule.

Your plan

Week 1

25 min jogging

Learning that the walk breaks are part of the session. Nothing this week should leave you unable to speak.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 8 x 1 min jog / 1 min 30 s walk 25 min The first one. Go slower than feels natural. If you can still talk in sentences while jogging, the pace is right, however slow that is.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 6 x 1 min 15 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 1 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 26 min A step up: 1 min 15 s is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 7 x 1 min 15 s jog / 1 min 30 s walk 24 min The same session as last time, on purpose. The walk breaks are what let you do enough jogging to adapt without getting hurt.

Week 2

29 min jogging

Jogs lengthening, walks shortening. The time on your feet barely changes; what changes is how much of it you spend jogging.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 6 x 1 min 30 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk 25 min A step up: 1 min 30 s is the longest jog so far. Take the full walk between each one.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 5 x 1 min 45 s jog / 1 min 30 s walk, then 1 min jog / 1 min 30 s walk 24 min A step up: 1 min 45 s is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 5 x 2 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 24 min A step up: 2 min is the longest jog so far. Take the full walk between each one.

Week 3

34 min jogging

Jogs lengthening, walks shortening. The time on your feet barely changes; what changes is how much of it you spend jogging.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 5 x 2 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 24 min The same session as last time, on purpose. The walk breaks are what let you do enough jogging to adapt without getting hurt.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 4 x 2 min 30 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 1 min 30 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk 25 min A step up: 2 min 30 s is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 4 x 3 min jog / 2 min walk 25 min A step up: 3 min is the longest jog so far. Take the full walk between each one.

Week 4

40 min jogging

Jogs lengthening, walks shortening. The time on your feet barely changes; what changes is how much of it you spend jogging.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 4 x 3 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 24 min The same session as last time, on purpose. The walk breaks are what let you do enough jogging to adapt without getting hurt.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 3 x 3 min 30 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 3 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 26 min A step up: 3 min 30 s is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 3 x 4 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 2 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 26 min A step up: 4 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.

Week 5

47 min jogging

Five minutes and up. This is the stretch people most often repeat, and repeating it is the right call.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 3 x 5 min jog / 2 min walk 26 min A step up: 5 min is the longest jog so far. Take the full walk between each one.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 2 x 5 min 30 s jog / 2 min walk, then 4 min 30 s jog / 2 min walk 27 min A step up: 5 min 30 s is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 2 x 6 min jog / 2 min walk, then 4 min 30 s jog / 2 min walk 28 min A step up: 6 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.

Week 6

54 min jogging

Five minutes and up. This is the stretch people most often repeat, and repeating it is the right call.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 2 x 7 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 3 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 27 min A step up: 7 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 2 x 8 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 2 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 28 min A step up: 8 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 2 x 9 min jog / 1 min 30 s walk, then 1 min jog / 1 min 30 s walk 29 min A step up: 9 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.

Week 7 biggest step up

63 min jogging

Long jogs and short walks. This is where the plan stops feeling like intervals and starts feeling like running, and where people are most tempted to skip ahead.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 11 min jog / 2 min 15 s walk, then 9 min jog / 2 min 15 s walk 30 min A step up: 11 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 12 min jog / 2 min 15 s walk, then 9 min jog / 2 min 15 s walk 31 min A step up: 12 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 14 min jog / 2 min walk, then 8 min jog / 2 min walk 31 min A step up: 14 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.

Week 8

74 min jogging

Long jogs and short walks. This is where the plan stops feeling like intervals and starts feeling like running, and where people are most tempted to skip ahead.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 16 min jog / 2 min walk, then 7 min 30 s jog / 2 min walk 33 min A step up: 16 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 18 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 6 min 30 s jog / 1 min 45 s walk 33 min A step up: 18 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 20 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 6 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 35 min A step up: 20 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.

Week 9

86 min jogging

The last week. Jog continuously, finish, and walk afterwards. After this you are ready to run a 5K and get a time for the rest of the site.

Session 1 5 min brisk walk, then 23 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk, then 4 min jog / 1 min 45 s walk 36 min A step up: 23 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 2 5 min brisk walk, then 26 min jog / 1 min 30 s walk, then 2 min 30 s jog / 1 min 30 s walk 37 min A step up: 26 min is the longest jog so far. The shorter jog after it keeps the total up while the long one grows, so do not skip it.
Session 3 5 min brisk walk, then 30 min jog, unbroken 38 min Graduation. This is the session the whole plan was pointed at, and you have already done something close to it twice.

How this plan is built

Couch to 5K is a walk/run progression. After a five-minute brisk walk you alternate jogging and walking, and over the weeks the jogs get longer and the walks shorter until the jogging is one unbroken block. That is the standard format, and it works.

This page generates the progression instead of copying a published table, which is what lets it produce a 6, 9 or 12 week version at three or four sessions a week. Two things follow from that:

Total jogging goes up from one week to the next and total walking goes down. Sessions stay between about 20 and 40 minutes throughout, so the plan takes roughly the same slot in your day in week 1 as in the last week. What changes is how much of that time you spend running.

Thirty minutes, not five kilometres

The plan is built around running for half an hour without stopping, and that is the number in the summary above. It is not built around the 5K distance, because a beginner jogging at a conversational pace covers somewhere between 4 and 5 km in 30 minutes. A plan that promises “5K in 9 weeks” and delivers a 38-minute first 5K makes a normal result feel like a failure.

Thirty minutes of continuous running is the hard part. The distance usually arrives within a few weeks of getting there, without any change to what you are doing. When it does, the pace calculator will tell you what pace you ran.

Repeating weeks

Every published Couch to 5K is a fixed nine-week ladder, and a lot of people quit around week 5, when the jogs get long enough to be hard and a bad session starts to look like proof that they are not cut out for it. Usually it means they need another week at that level, which is an ordinary thing to need.

Repeat the week, not the session, and do not try to make up anything you missed. If you are ill or away for a fortnight, drop back a week or two when you return.

What this plan does not include

There is no interval timer. It is what most people want mid-session, but it is a different product, one that has to keep running in your pocket with the screen off. Any phone timer app that does repeating intervals will do the job, and so will a watch.

There is no pace, for the reason given in the first question below. And there is no account, no saved progress and nothing stored: the page generates the plan in your browser and forgets it. Print it or screenshot it.

Where the format comes from

Couch to 5K was written by Josh Clark in 1996 and has been reproduced so widely since that it is effectively generic. It has never been tested as a protocol, and the exact ladder of intervals in any version is a convention. The principles behind it are well supported: progress gradually, and keep beginner running easy enough to sustain. The version here follows the same principles with the arithmetic made explicit, and is described with every other formula on this site on the methods page.

When you finish

Hold at 30 minutes three times a week for a few weeks. Tendons and ligaments adapt more slowly than the heart and lungs, and the weeks straight after graduating are where people get hurt by adding too much too fast. Then run a 5K and get a time.

That time unlocks everything else here. Put it into the VDOT calculator for training paces, or into the 5K training plan generator for a structured block aimed at running it faster.

Common questions

How fast should I be running?

Slower than you think. The plan gives no pace on purpose. The test is whether you could hold a conversation while jogging; if you could not, slow down. Running the jog intervals too fast is the most common way people fail this plan, because it turns a manageable session into a hard interval workout. In the first weeks the jog may be barely faster than a brisk walk. That is fine. What counts is time on your feet, not distance covered.

What if I cannot finish a session?

Repeat the week: do the same three or four sessions again before moving on. Published nine-week plans assume everyone progresses at the same rate, which is not true, and people who quit usually took a hard week as a sign they were failing when they just needed another week at that level. There is no prize for finishing in nine weeks. Plenty of people take fifteen.

Will I be able to run 5K at the end?

You will be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping (20 on the six-week version). Whether that covers 5K depends on your speed. A first-timer jogging at about 7:00 per kilometre covers a little over 4 km in half an hour, and many graduates take 35 to 40 minutes for their first 5K. That is normal. Once you can run for 30 minutes, the distance usually follows within a few weeks without changing anything.

How many days a week, and do they have to be spaced out?

Three is the standard and enough. Four progresses a little faster and suits someone already active in other ways. Either way, leave at least one day between sessions. The adaptation happens on rest days, and running on consecutive days is where beginners pick up shin splints and sore Achilles tendons. Walking, cycling or swimming in between is fine.

Is Couch to 5K actually based on anything?

Not on a trial. The format comes from a 1996 article by Josh Clark and has been reproduced in hundreds of places, none of which cite evidence for the particular ladder of intervals, because there is none. What it has going for it is two well-supported principles: progress gradually, and keep early running easy. The exact numbers are a convention, which is why this page will generate a 6, 9 or 12 week version instead of insisting on one.

I am already jogging a bit. Can I skip ahead?

Set the starting interval to 60 or 90 seconds instead of jumping into the middle of a plan built from a 30-second start. That regenerates the whole progression from where you are. If you can already run 10 minutes without stopping, this plan is probably too easy for you: run easy three times a week, and once you have a 5K time use the 5K training plan generator.

What should I do after I finish?

Keep running 30 minutes three times a week for a few weeks before changing anything. The fitness is newer than it feels, and tendons and ligaments lag behind the lungs. When you want a number, run a 5K (a parkrun is the easy way) and that time becomes the input to every other calculator here: the VDOT calculator turns it into training paces, and the 5K training plan generator builds a block around it.

What about shoes, stretching and aches?

Running shoes that fit and are not a decade old are worth having. Beyond that, the evidence that any particular shoe prevents any particular injury is thin. Static stretching before a session does not help; the five-minute walk is the warm-up. Muscle soreness for a day or two afterwards is expected. Sharp pain, pain on one side only, pain in a joint, or pain that gets worse as you run is not, and is a reason to stop and get it looked at.

Other calculators

Running pace calculator What pace do I need to run for a target finish time? Race time predictor What could I run for a 10K off my current 5K? Race splits calculator What should each kilometre read on my watch? Treadmill pace converter What pace is 7.5 mph, and does 2% incline matter? VDOT calculator and training paces How fast should my easy runs and intervals actually be? 5K training plan generator Give me a 5K plan that fits the days I can actually run.