istock/Nanci Santos

Juggling running with work, family and a busy life means finding a training schedule that works for you. Planning your runs and strength sessions on the right days can help you get the most from your training, while still fitting everything else in.

The key to making any training plan a success – whether you’re working towards your first 5k or training for a marathon – is to make it sustainable so that you can be consistent and keep ticking off your sessions each week. In order to do that, you need to make it work with your life.

1. Audit your time

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t full-time elite athletes so we have to fit our training around a job and family. The first step to creating a weekly schedule for training that is sustainable and works for you is to figure out how much time you have available.

Be realistic and honest with yourself about what you can actually fit in. There’s no point telling yourself you’re going to make that Tuesday night pilates class if you know that most weeks you end up working late on a Tuesday.

Equally, it’s important to recognise time that you’re not currently utilising – could you get up an hour earlier and run before work? Could you watch your favourite TV show later in the week rather than live? Once you know how much time you actually have to play with, you can start planning your training.

Image: istock: Nadija Pavlovic

2. Planning your schedule for training

Once you know how much time you have available you can start planing out where to put your runs, strength sessions and cross training. What each runner includes and how much of it they do will be unique to them, so don’t worry if you’re not filling every available hour with training.

Where you put your runs is important – try to spread them out as much as possible to give your body chance to recover from one before you go into the next. This is obviously easier for runners who are doing three runs per week than those who are doing five, however the common pitfall for all runners is to put off runs earlier in the week and then try to fit too many in towards the end of the week. If you’ve audited your week and planned your runs on days when you have the time, you’re less likely to have to postpone them.

3. Plan when to do your runs

Long runs are traditionally done on the weekend because that’s when many people tend to have more time. But not everyone works a classic Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job so depending on what line of work you’re in, it might make more sense for you to do them on another day. This is absolutely fine to do regardless of what your training plan says. Just try to keep it the same day of the week so that your body has a good 6 to 7 days to recover between them.

If you’re including harder training runs such as speed sessions or tempo runs, it’s also a good idea to keep these on the same day each week for the same reason. Keep your long run and faster paced runs a few days apart too so that you’re not heading out for your long run with tired legs from your intervals or hill reps.

Even if you’re not training for a race, it’s a good idea to use a training plan as this will give you a good balance of runs each week and make sure you don’t overdo it. If you’re not interested in increasing your overall running distance, you could simply repeat the first four weeks of a training plan.

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4. Find the best day to strength train

Once you have your runs planned out, you can start to plan your supplementary training such as strength sessions or yoga. Many runners enjoy running but struggle to make time for strength training – either because they don’t enjoy it so much or because they’re unsure what they should be doing. Strength training is really important for runners and is especially important for women as they age, so try to make space for it.

If you’re short on time, you can do a strength session on the same day as an easy run. This means you can double up on training one day and keep another free for a complete rest day. It’s also a great option for saving time – doing your strength routine straight after an easy run means you don’t need to get changed and will already be partially warmed-up.

Aim for two days of strength work each week, but even one can make a difference. Avoid doing it the day before a long run so that your legs are less tired for your long run.

5. Schedule your rest days

Rest days are an important part of any training plan but are often overlooked by runners. Rest days are when your body recovers from all the hard work you’re asking it to do and becomes stronger. Make sure you have at least one rest day each week and plan this in the same way as you plan your runs or gym sessions.

If you’re training for a longer race such as a marathon or half marathon, it’s a good idea to have a rest day the day after your long run.

Need to fit your training around a packed schedule? Here’s our tips for working out when life is busy.