Running Training: The Complete Guide by Training Type

What Running Training Covers, and How This Page Is Organised

Running training breaks down into six types: base running (easy mileage that builds your aerobic foundation), easy-pace running and heart-rate awareness (a discipline that runs underneath every other type to keep your effort honest), tempo running (comfortably hard efforts that raise the pace you can hold), hill work, interval training (hard repeats with recovery) and speed training for race sharpening. Below: a phase map showing what each type does and where it sits, a section on each, and two situational guides, one for returning to running after a break and one for fitting doubles or strength work around your week.

The names of the sessions are the easy part. The order is where runners go wrong, and the right workout at the wrong point in the season is a quick route to feeling flat or getting injured. Everything below is laid out in the sequence I build a season, so you can see exactly where you sit now and what comes next.

The Coach's Training Phase Map: What to Do, and When

Let's face it — most "types of running" pages read like a glossary. They define base running, tempo, intervals, and hills, then leave you to work out the order for yourself. That's not how a training year actually gets built.

Here's the phase map I use with runners, in the sequence I build a season:


Cross-country and treadmill running aren't separate phases — they're terrain and environment variants of everything above, and the same sequencing logic applies whichever surface you're on. Training load management runs alongside every phase as the ongoing check: is the work you're doing actually producing results, or has volume or intensity outrun your recovery?

Here's the coaching call I'll make plainly: for most non-elite runners, base work should come before meaningful speed work — not run parallel to it. Build the aerobic engine first. Skip that step and speed sessions get harder, injury risk climbs, and the gains don't stick.

Base Training for Runners

Base training means building your aerobic capacity through easy-effort volume — running more, at a pace that lets you hold a conversation, before you ask your legs to do anything harder.

You need this phase if you're starting a new season, coming back from time off, or you've never actually trained on a structured aerobic foundation before. Here's the truth: most runners skip or shortcut this phase, jump straight to the exciting stuff, and pay for it later with stalled progress or injury.

Read the full base training guide for the drills and structure.

Easy Run Pace and Effort

Easy-pace running isn't a beginner-only topic — it's the discipline underneath every other phase on this page. And here's the uncomfortable truth: most runners, at every level, run their "easy" days too hard.

Get your easy pace right and your hard sessions get harder, in a good way. You'll recover properly, absorb your training, and actually be able to hit the effort your tempo and interval sessions demand.

See the full Easy Run Pace and Effort guide.

Heart Rate Training

Heart-rate training is the measurement layer that keeps your base and easy-pace work honest. Effort alone can mislead you — adrenaline, heat, poor sleep, and stress can all make an easy run feel easy while your heart rate tells a different story.

This section covers zones, monitors, and how to use both without becoming a slave to the numbers.

Full guide: Heart Rate Training.

Tempo Run Training Guide

Tempo running is the bridge from base to speed. You're holding a sustained, "comfortably hard" effort that raises your lactate threshold — the point at which fatigue starts building fast.

This is where base fitness starts converting into race fitness. Get your tempo effort right and you'll notice it first in the middle miles of a race, where things usually start to hurt.

Full guide: Tempo Run Training Guide.

Interval Training Workout Library

Interval training means structured hard/easy repeats — short, sharp efforts followed by recovery, designed to build your VO2max and speed endurance.

It belongs later in a training build, once a base exists underneath it. Start intervals too early, without the aerobic foundation to support them, and you'll get diminishing returns and a higher injury bill.

Not sure which workout you need? Start here for a workout overview of all eight interval-training formats before picking one.

Browse the full Interval Training Workout Library.

Hill Training for Runners

Hill training is strength training in disguise, and it's a tool you can phase in earlier than flat speed work, with a lower injury risk.

Hills build the leg strength, running economy, and mental toughness that carry straight into flat running. You get a lot of the benefit of speed work without the pounding.

Full guide: Hill Training for Runners.

Speed Training for Runners

Speed training is race-pace sharpening — the closest your training gets to actual competition effort. It depends entirely on the base, tempo, and hill work you've put in above it.

Try to shortcut to speed work without that foundation and you'll find the sessions brutal and the improvements slow to show up.

Full guide: Speed Training for Runners.

Cross-Country Running

Cross-country running layers a different terrain and race format onto everything above — varied surfaces, pack racing, and a season structure of its own — rather than replacing any of the phases you've just read about.

The same sequencing logic still applies. You just apply it to mud, grass, and hills instead of tarmac.

Full guide: Cross-Country Running.

Treadmill Running

Treadmill running is an environment substitution, not a different training system. Bad weather, safety, or controlled pacing might put you on the belt instead of the road, but the same phase logic from base through to speed still applies.

Full guide: Treadmill Running.

Two-a-Day, Strength, and Cross-Training: Fitting It All In

How do doubles, strength work, and cross-training actually fit around your running training? That's a scheduling and load-management question, not a training-type question, and it deserves its own answer.

Full guide: Two-a-Day, Strength, and Cross-Training.

Return to Running After Time Off

Coming back after injury, illness, or a long break is a different problem from starting base training as a first-time structured runner — detraining and re-entry pacing don't follow the same rules as building from scratch.

This is the dedicated path for anyone restarting, not a redirect back to Base Training.

Full guide: Return to Running After Time Off.

Training Load, Plateaus & Overtraining

This pillar is the diagnostic layer. When training stops producing results, or when your volume or intensity has outrun your recovery, this is where you work out what's actually going on, across any of the phases above.

Full guide: Training Load, Plateaus & Overtraining.

Running Tips

If you want general running guidance rather than a specific training phase — foundational principles and technique that apply across everything on this page — start here. It's also a router into every other pillar on this Hub.

Full guide: Running Tips.

Which Training Type Should You Start With?

Not sure which phase is yours? Use this quick guide:


For that last one specifically: 12 or more weeks out, start with tempo. Inside 8 weeks, bring in intervals. Inside the final 3–4 weeks, shift towards speed to sharpen for race day.

If you want one book that explains how all these workout types fit together, I recommend Daniels Running Formula by coach Jack Daniels.

If you'd rather have these training types put together for you, PlanMyRace is the plan generator I built. It turns your fitness, schedule and race date into a personalised week-by-week plan for any distance from 1500m to the marathon, and your first week is free.

FAQs

What are the main types of running training?

Six: base, easy-pace, tempo, interval, hill, and speed training — with heart-rate training running underneath all of them as the measurement layer. See the phase map above for how they sequence together.

How do I know which running training plan I need?

It depends on your current phase, not a single universal plan — whether you're new to structured training, plateaued, returning from a break, or racing soon. Use the "Which Training Type Should You Start With?" guide above to find yours.

Should I train my base before doing speed work?

Yes — for most non-elite runners. An aerobic base reduces your injury risk and makes your hard sessions more productive once you get to them. See the phase map above for the reasoning.

I'll leave you with this: pick the phase that matches where you are today, not where you'd like to be. That's the sensible approach, and it's the one that actually gets you fit.

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