Couch to 5k
The goal is simple: run a whole 5k without stopping.
You don't need to be fit to start. You need shoes, a free parkrun barcode (you get one when you sign up) and a Saturday morning.
The goal
Run 5k, start to finish, without walking. Until then, walk as much as you need to.
parkrun is where you do it. It's a free, timed 5k every Saturday morning, in parks all over Australia. Every week you get a time, so you can see yourself getting better.
Start going whenever you like, even in your first week. Do your current step from the table below, then walk the rest. Each week your running covers a bit more of the 5k, until one Saturday it covers the lot.
What you need
Shoes, a barcode and a Saturday morning.
- Shoes. Comfy ones that fit, with some cushioning. Nothing fancy. Our casual runner shortlist can help.
- A barcode. Sign up once on the parkrun website. It's free, and they email you a barcode. Print it, or get a barcode key tag or wristband. No barcode, no time.
- A Saturday morning. Find your nearest event on the parkrun website. Start times run from 7am to 9am depending on where you are, so check yours.
Your first Saturday
- Get there 15 minutes early. Most events run a quick welcome for first-timers before the start.
- Walking is fine. There's no time limit.
- A volunteer tail walker is always the last one across the line, so you'll have company at the back.
- Your name and time go up on the results page, the same as everyone's.
- If you've got a health condition, or haven't been active in years, check with your doctor or an exercise professional before you start. Better Health has a short checklist.
What you need to know
Getting fitter is built in layers. Each one sits on the one below it, and the bottom matters most. Don't worry about a layer until the ones under it are solid.
- 1. Turn up2–3 times a week, every week
- 2. Keep it easyYou can still talk
- 3. Build slowlyOne small step at a time
- 4. Run the whole 5kThe goal
- 5. Get fasterLater
The wider the layer, the more of your attention it gets.
1. Turn up
Consistency is king. Volume and frequency over time is how you make improvements in anything.
Three sessions a week, kept up for months, beats five sessions one week and none the next.
2. Keep it easy
The best endurance athletes do about four in every five sessions easy. For now, make it all of yours.
Easy will feel slower than you think it should. That's the point. Easy is what lets you turn up again two days later.
Use the talk test.
| Talk test | How hard it feels (0–10) | |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | You can chat in full sentences | 3–4 |
| Medium | You can talk, but not easily | 5–6 |
| Hard | A few words at a time | 7+ |
On the 0–10 scale, 0 is sitting on the couch and 10 is the hardest you could possibly go. Coaches call it RPE, short for "rate of perceived exertion".
Got a watch? On watches with five heart-rate zones (Garmin and Polar, for example), easy is about zone 1–2. Apple Watch shows five zones too, but Apple doesn't say how it sets them. Either way, the zones are a guess, and they can be well off. Heat pushes your heart rate up, and so does being new to running. If the watch and the talk test disagree, go with the talk test.
3. Build slowly
Small steps, with a day off between runs, and an easy week every fourth week. The table in Make a plan does the building for you.
4. Run the whole 5k
That's the goal. Everything below it gets you there.
5. Get faster: later
Once you're close to running the whole 5k (say you can run 25 minutes without stopping), you can start testing yourself.
- Test Saturdays. At the end of each easy week, go for your best time at parkrun. Start slower than feels right and pick it up in the second half. Going out too fast is how most 5ks fall apart.
- One harder session a week, if you want it. Only once you're turning up regularly and nothing hurts. For example: 5 × 1 minute at medium-hard, with 2 minutes of easy jogging between each.
Make a plan
Pick your days: two or three a week, with a day between each. Make Saturday's parkrun one of them when you can. For example:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 a week | Run | Run | parkrun | ||||
| 2 a week | Run | parkrun |
Three a week is ideal. But the right number is whatever you can keep turning up to.
Work shifts? Use any days you're free, with a day between runs. If you're rostered on a Saturday, do a normal session another day that week.
Every session: walk briskly for a few minutes to warm up, then do your step. Your phone's timer works, or most watches and running apps have a run/walk timer.
Week 1 is step 1.
| Step | Run | Walk | Rounds | Total (after warm-up) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 min | 1 min | 5 | 10 min |
| 2 | 2 min | 1 min | 4 | 12 min |
| 3 | 2 min | 1 min | 5 | 15 min |
| 4 | 3 min | 1 min | 4 | 16 min |
| 5 | 3 min | 1 min | 5 | 20 min |
| 6 | 4 min | 1 min | 4 | 20 min |
| 7 | 5 min | 1 min | 4 | 24 min |
| 8 | 5 min | 30 sec | 4 | 22 min |
| 9 | 5 min | 30 sec | 5 | 27½ min |
| 10 | 8 min | 1 min | 3 | 27 min |
| 11 | 12 min | 1 min | 2 | 26 min |
| 12 | 14 min | 1 min | 2 | 30 min |
| 13 | 18 min, then 10 min | 1 min between | 1 | 29 min |
| 14 | 22 min | none | 1 | 22 min |
| 15 | 25 min | none | 1 | 25 min |
| 16 | 30 min | none | 1 | 30 min |
| 17 | The whole 5k | none | 1 |
The table is a general guide.Some people will feel ready and move faster than this. Some will need longer on a step. Both are normal.
Or go by feel.Learning what your body is telling you is part of this. Instead of counting minutes, use the Total for your step and the talk test: run until you can't talk in full sentences, then walk until you can. Repeat until the time's up. As you get fitter, the running bits get longer on their own. Mix the two however suits you: the table on some days, feel on others.
- Do at least two sessions on a step before you move up, and move up when it feels easy. Your legs feel ready before they are, so never add more than 5 minutes of running in a week. Early on, when steps are small, that can mean two steps in one week.
- Every fourth week is an easy week. Drop back two steps from wherever you are, just for that week.
- Too hard? Stay where you are, or drop back a step. Doing two a week? Same steps, same rules.
- On Saturday, walk-run your step from the start line. When it's done, walk the rest. Finishing on foot is fine. You should finish feeling you could have done a bit more. If you're wrecked, make next Saturday's step a smaller one.
- If your 5k takes longer than 30 minutes, keep adding up to 5 minutes a week after step 16 until you can run all of it.
What to work on
Walk-run
Run a bit, walk until you've got your breath back, then run again. The walking is your rest. The table starts you there and takes the walks away a bit at a time.
Hills
Walking up hills is excellent, especially early on. It works your legs and lungs without the pounding of running.
Take it easy going down. Downhills make legs that aren't used to them sorer than you'd expect for a couple of days. That eases the more you do it.
The Saturday 5k
Make parkrun one of your workouts. The 5k stays the same. What changes is how much of it you run.
It's your longest session by a long way, so run only your step and walk the rest. Running 10 minutes on a Tuesday doesn't mean you're ready to run the whole 5k on Saturday, however good you feel.
Don't overdo it
Working hard is good, but only if you can recover from it and stay injury free.
After an easy run you've mostly bounced back within a day. After a hard one, allow two days or more. Your legs can take longer than that.
Your heart and lungs adapt faster than your bones and tendons do. You'll feel ready for more before your body is, and that's when people get hurt. Build momentum: small steps, every week, for months.
Achy legs the next day: normal. Keep going.
Pain that's sharp, getting worse as you go, or making you limp: stop, walk home, and think about skipping your next run. If the pain is severe, keeps coming back or comes with swelling, get it looked at.
Life counts too. A rough week at work, bad sleep, a sick kid: your body feels that stress on top of your training. On those weeks, stay mindful and listen to your body. Stay on your step, or drop back one. A short easy session still counts.
But keep in mind that you can do hard things. Some sessions will feel tough and you'll finish them anyway. That's how you get fitter. Learn the difference between "this is hard" and "something's wrong".
Missed a week or two? Drop back a step or two from where you left off.
Keep turning up.
Stay casual.
Credits: the four-in-five-easy figure is from Seiler and Tønnessen (2009). The 5-minute cap, the walk-run start and finish, the sample hard session, the lighter week and the stop-at-the-first-niggle rule are from Mikael Eriksson's That Triathlon Show (beginner series and beginner tips). The rest is ours. parkrun is a registered trade mark of Parkrun Limited. We're not affiliated with parkrun.