"6 miles in 1h" plan

6 miles in 1 hour — is it possible?

Yes. And in all likelihood, for anyone. The honest reasons not to make it are:

medical contraindication. Basically, if you see the doctor and you talk to them about physical activity in general and running in particular, and they say "no, don't go there, it's dangerous". To know if you're in that case, it's simple: go see a doctor;
you don't really want to. The answer to that question is yours alone. The question really is "do I want to?" and not "am I capable?". On the latter question — you might not be capable today, but with some good training, you could be capable tomorrow. If I gave you the full list of the things I decided to do before being capable of doing them, we'd be here a while. You make progress along the way, and that's what's fun.

The plan below is aimed at die-hard couch dwellers, smokers, the overweight, those who think "running, it's not for me...". And who are probably mistaken. It should let you run the local "10K" in an hour, or a bit more, but that's not the essential point. Mostly, it lets you "get started running".

Vocabulary

When I say "walk", I mean walk — the way you'd walk to the canteen or to the supermarket. Walking, normally.

When I say "trot", it's a little trot. Easy. Not the frantic sprint to catch the one with the ball and intercept them before they score. More the light trot when the ref has just blown a time-out and you're getting back to your position. You don't walk because, well, we're not here to mess around, but you don't get worked up either — you have to preserve your energy.

Gear

shoes. There are two schools of thought. The first: keep it simple, get sport shoes that aren't too expensive — for reference, I sometimes run in $40 budget shoes; to start out it's fine. Watch out though if you're significantly overweight (over 220 lb for 5'7" for example). In that case, models labelled "for heavy runners, strong pronators" can be a good idea. But still, don't drop $200 either, not at this stage. Bear in mind that your ancestors, two centuries ago (and maybe even two millennia), ran without all this paraphernalia. Your great-great-...-great grandfather made less fuss. It's better to run in shoes that aren't quite right than not to run at all. The second school says that if you have a comfortable budget, this is hands-down the top spending priority, the rest can wait. But if you like to "treat yourself" by buying colourful gadgets, then yes, blow your cash on nice kicks you'll be proud to wear. It can have a positive influence to tell yourself "I've invested in nice shoes, now I'm running, I'm going". But I'll warn you, that impact is essentially psychological — which shouldn't be neglected either;
a watch that gives the time and lets you read minutes, ideally seconds. An analogue watch with a second hand is enough. Forget the $500 smartphone that distracts the practitioner more than it helps them. I insist: drop the trendy apps that serve more to brag on Facebook than to make progress. Running is an individual sport, practised outdoors, with the legs and the head. A phone is meant to make phone calls. Old-school champions didn't have GPS;
socks, shorts, t-shirt;
for the ladies, a good sports bra (the sport-model ones sold in any sports shop), it's not good when things bounce around;
if it's cold, a fleece, a windbreaker, gloves, a hat — what's appropriate for a walk in the woods is also appropriate for running.

The killer trick

The trick is that it's not a problem not to run all the time — you can walk. It's allowed in races, it's an old-as-time technique, very commonly practised over long distances, there's no shame in it, quite the contrary.

For the record, running at a sustained pace ("resistance") without stopping, without easing up, is one of the hardest exercises. Paradoxically most beginners try to start there ("running without stopping") and so attack the hardest part. Whereas it's better to start with simple things...

3 times a week

The most important thing for you will be "getting into the habit of running". It's fundamental to slot this into your calendar, your day, your week. I can hear you from here: "yes, but I don't have time". Allow me to have my doubts. I have three kids, a job, I play music, I develop open-source software in my spare time, and incidentally I manage to fit up to 12 training sessions into the week. Time, you find it — it's a matter of priority and organisation.

A few avenues:

if like me you're lucky enough to have a cool employer with offices nice enough to have a shower at work, no hesitation: run at lunchtime. 5 minutes to get ready, 30 minutes for the session, 10 minutes for the shower, 5 minutes to get dressed again, 10 minutes for a sandwich. Total = 1 hour. And just like that, no longer than queuing at the canteen to eat a sole-leather steak with bland green beans and then smoke a cigarette.
if you're 3 to 6 miles from work, in the evening, come home running rather than taking the metro or bus. You'll shower on arrival. If walking out of work in shorts cramps your style, go change at the bistro 200 yards away, it'll cost you the price of a sparkling-water-and-lemon. If you live far away and come back by suburban train, get off at the previous station. The bistro-locker-room trick works in that case too;
if you're in Paris, there's surely a gym not far, with treadmills and showers — that works for the lunch break too;
if you're single, get up early (no risk of waking the partner...) and run before work;
if you're in a couple, buy your partner's favourite TV series boxset, and negotiate something like "you watch 2 episodes and during that time I go get some air";
...

Find a way.

Find one, really.

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing. If you manage to get out 3 times a week, even if the sessions aren't optimal, even if you do it wrong, you'll progress. The reverse is just as true.

In truth, once you manage to get out 3 times a week, you've almost won. The whole thing is getting there. Try, be one of the people who finds solutions, not excuses.

General rules

always start with 5 or 10 "easy" minutes
always end with 5 or 10 "easy" minutes
vary the sessions
don't go too fast
that's all

Basically, it's really important to warm up before and to let the machine cool down after the session. But, you'll say, how do you warm up when you can't even run 3 minutes in a row? Simple: you walk. I often do it — coming back from a race, or after an injury (rarer...) I start by walking, do my session, and come home walking. The surest way to injure yourself is to have your smartphone in your hand, try to beat a PR in training, and run like a madman at the end to "make up for lost time". Count 3 months before you catch, take your pick, tendinitis, a wrecked knee (sometimes both), a vicious back pain — examples abound. Take it easy. Easy before, easy after. In the middle we negotiate.

You have to vary the sessions. Don't do "always 20 minutes". Or worse, increase distance/time monotonously, like +0.5 miles every week. It's better to do uneven sessions, e.g. 2 sessions of 20 minutes and one of 50, rather than 3 of 30 minutes. Same idea — you need rest weeks, so "every now and then" a week "lighter than the previous one".

For info, I use a few simple rules like:

alternate "a tough day" / "a relaxed day"
one rest day a week (even more "relaxed" than the others)
one week out of 4 lighter

Sample plan

Here is a super-simple sample plan. You can pick up the plan at whichever week matches your level, and start there. Each week has 2 or 3 sessions.

Cycle 1: get out and move

Sessions described in detail; the idea here is to get you to be able to run 2 minutes straight, without suffering. If it's trivial for you, skip this stage — it can still be useful for some.

Week 1

session 1: 20 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 15 minutes alternating 30 seconds running (light trot) / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 45 minutes

Week 2

session 1: 30 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 20 minutes alternating 1 minute running (light trot) / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 1h

Week 3

session 1: 30 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 20 minutes alternating 30 seconds running (light trot) / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 3: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 20 minutes alternating 1 minute running (light trot) / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 1h30

Week 4

session 1: 25 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 15 minutes alternating 2 minutes running (light trot) / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 50 minutes

Cycle 2: 10-minute goal

Here the theme is "getting to run continuously for 10 minutes".

Week 5

session 1: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 25 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 30 minutes alternating 30 seconds running / 30 seconds walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 3: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 25 minutes alternating 2 minutes running / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 1h50

Week 6

session 1: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 30 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 30 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 3: 1h of walking

Week total: 2h20

Week 7

session 1: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 30 minutes alternating 2 minutes running / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 50 minutes alternating 30 seconds running / 30 seconds walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 3: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 20 minutes alternating 4 minutes running / 1 minute walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 2h10

Week 8

session 1: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 20 minutes alternating 2 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, finish with 5 minutes walking
session 2: warm-up 5 minutes walking, then 30 minutes alternating 10 minutes running / 5 minutes walking, finish with 5 minutes walking

Week total: 1h10

Cycle 3: more volume

Here, we turn the knob to "do a bit more". While keeping the walk/run alternation.

Always bracket your training with 5 minutes warm-up and 5 minutes cool-down. I'll just say "5 min warm-up" and "5 min cool-down" from here on; that can be pure walking, a light trot, a mix of both — whatever you want as long as you're comfortable and it's more restful than the body of the session.

If you already know how to run 20 minutes but "crack" after 20 minutes, this cycle can help — it lets you demystify the "60-minute barrier".

Week 9

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 4 minutes running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes alternating 7 minutes running / 3 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down

Week total: 1h50

Week 10

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 50 minutes alternating 30 seconds running / 30 seconds walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 50 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down

Week total: 2h30

Week 11

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 60 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 60 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 20 minutes walking

Week total: 2h40

Week 12

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 70 minutes alternating 1 minute running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down

Cycle 4: speed work

Here we'll go a bit faster, by simply reducing the amount of walking. You can also try to push a touch on the running parts, but don't overdo it — stay reasonable, be patient. Patience is the long-distance runner's real talent.

Week 13

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 4 minutes running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes running, without walking, 5 min cool-down

Week total: 1h50

Week 14

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 3 minutes running / 2 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 50 minutes alternating 7 minutes running / 3 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 5 min warm-up, 40 minutes alternating 10 minutes running / 5 minutes walking, 5 min cool-down

Week total: 2h30

Week 15

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes running, without walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 30 minutes alternating 9 minutes running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 3: 50 minutes walking

Week total: 2h00

Week 16

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 40 minutes alternating 9 minutes running / 1 minute walking, 5 min cool-down
session 2: 5 min warm-up, 10 minutes alternating 1 minute running "hard" / 1 minute running "easy", 5 min cool-down

Week total: 1h10

Cycle 5: the calm before the storm

At this stage, you can line up on a "10K" — there are such races all over France, in every season.

The "trick" is to rest in the week before the race. So for a beginner: just one training session is enough. Better too rested than not enough.

So for example:

Week 17

session 1: 5 min warm-up, 20 minutes alternating 30 seconds running / 30 seconds walking, 5 min cool-down. Don't do this session the day before the race; let your carcass rest two or three days beforehand.
session 2: 10K race! Count an hour or a bit more depending on your form. The final time doesn't matter — the important thing is to finish. You'll have plenty of opportunity later to improve your mark. Depending on how you feel in training, you can try "I run the whole time" but personally I recommend something like "run 9 minutes and walk 1". You won't lose much time, maybe you'll even gain some toward the end. It's also up to you to choose, and to write your own story.

Week total: 1h30

When do we start?

Right now. Don't wait — if you think you need a check-up with the doctor, pick up your phone now. If you're already equipped, lace up your shoes right now, don't wait for losing weight and/or quitting smoking to get going. That'll come in due time, the essential is to be on the ground, moving.

In summary

if you haven't run in... a long time, drop by the doctor
no fuss about gear, but don't neglect the shoes
you're allowed to walk, it's even recommended
3 times a week, non-negotiable
vary the sessions, don't kill yourself
don't push if it hurts; when in doubt, slow down. I repeat: when in doubt, slow down.

I don't pretend to know everything about running, far from it, but I've still knocked around a bit, so if these few tips can be useful to you, my day's well spent.

Have fun!