Three runs a week
Coach David Dack recommends a simple 3‑run weekly template — an easy run, a tempo/interval session, and a long run — for half‑marathon gains and lower injury risk. He says this structure has helped runners hit big PRs and cut injury rates in practice thread.
David Dack lays out the three‑run weekly template on Runner’s Blueprint runnersblueprint.com, presenting a compact structure of one easy run, one tempo/interval session and one long run as a repeatable weekly plan for half‑marathon preparation. His sample programs put beginners at about 12–15 miles per week and intermediate runners around 20–25 miles per week, with the long run and one quality session carrying most of the stimulus. runnersblueprint.com A recent 5,200‑runner cohort in the British Journal of Sports Medicine flagged single‑session “spikes” as the strongest acute predictor of overuse injury bjsm.bmj.com, and a lay summary quantified that a 10–30% jump in one run raised injury risk ~64% while doubling a longest recent run increased risk ~128%. runnersconnect.net Multiple reviews and cohort analyses link higher weekly training frequency with greater injury incidence; an umbrella review of running risk factors lists training characteristics (including frequency) among large‑effect contributors to running‑related injury. sciencedirect.com Coaching and plan writers who echo Dack’s template explicitly recommend cross‑training and strength work on non‑run days to preserve aerobic fitness and reduce pounding, a feature included in three‑day plans from Marathon Handbook and others. marathonhandbook.com ProjectRun21 and related half‑marathon cohorts report year‑long injury incidence above 30% for half‑marathoners, a statistic researchers cite to justify lower‑frequency, controlled progression models like Dack’s. academia.edu
