The week of workouts below is for SELF’s Learn to Love Running Program, our brand-new, beginner-friendly plan that will get you running 30 minutes nonstop! Here’s what you need to know to get started.
Welcome to Week 9—two months down, just one more to go! Give yourself a huge high five for what you’ve done so far. You’ve crushed eight solid weeks of running, capped off with those two huge 10-minute efforts last week.
Now that you’re in the final month of the program, let’s take a look at just how far you’ve come. In the second week—the first to include both walking and running—you walked for almost 55 minutes and ran for just over 15. At the halfway point, your weekly split became dead even: 35 minutes walking, 35 running. Then by last week, you walked for 22 minutes and ran for a whopping 48!
You might also notice that your runs are starting to click and feel ever-so-slightly easier, making it possible to get closer to that effort level of 3 rather than 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. Usually, it’s around the three-month mark that I see this shift in people—everything becomes a little more natural as your habit sinks in and your true runner identity begins to emerge.
With all that in mind, enjoy this cutback week, the last one of the program before you continue building up to the 30-minute run. You’re also starting a new strength workout this week—the final one of the three-part progression.
Week 9 at a Glance:
After your big run last week, today’s intervals should feel super chill—2 minutes of walking, 3 minutes of running. Challenge yourself to really keep your effort level at a 3 out of 10 when you’re running—it should feel much more natural to do so now than at the beginning of the program.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Pace isn’t at all a goal of this program. But if you’re using an app or watch that tracks it, consider peeking at your pace for this run/walk, just to compare it to your first walk/run of the program. Even considering the different lengths of intervals, chances are your speed at an easy effort level has picked up a bit. That—in addition to the length of your intervals and your ability to finish strong—is another sign of your improving fitness.
Monday: Run/Walk Intervals
- 5-minute warm-up
- Walk 2 minutes, run 3 minutes (repeat 4 times)
- 5-to-10-minute cooldown
- Total time: 30–35 minutes
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Tuesday: Active Recovery (Optional) or Rest
Time for a rest day—or, if you prefer, an active recovery day. Again, it’s choose-your-own-adventure here with one of our four routines. All of them are great, but if your hips have been feeling a little extra tight, might we recommend Routine 2? The 90/90 with overhead reach stretch will make those muscles along the sides of your hips and core feel oh so supple!
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Wednesday: Strength Training
Another lifting day! Today, you’ll move on to the final routine of our three-step progression. You’ll notice that the movements steer even more toward the single-leg—hello, single-leg deadlift and single-leg hop!—and others add a degree of difficulty. For example, the bird dog row and Copenhagen plank rank as advanced movements. But you’ve built up and are ready for them!
Remember, you might have to go down in weight or experiment until you find the dumbbell that’s exactly right for each move. Your goal, again, is to finish each set as if you could do just 1 to 3 more reps (1 to 3 reps in reserve, or RIR).
