how many days a week should you run?

irishdancer23

i am just starting out running (and working out in general) consistently. i've been aiming to run about 3 days a week, but I'm wondering if I should be doing more. I don't want to overexert myself, but at the same time, I'm afraid that if I only run 3 days a week I won't be able to build my endurance and I won't see any progress.

LadyOfOceanBreeze

C25K Program is 3 X's per week so I am just gonna go with that:glasses:
and best wishes for your success!!!

omma_to_3

3 days a week is plenty for a new runner, IMO. That's what I did, and still do. Some run every day, or 6 days a week, but that's for more experienced runners. I completed C25K in about 13 weeks instead of 8. I repeated weeks when I needed to.

My schedule while doing C25K was run a day, walk a day, rest a day. Now, I don't have a set schedule, but I run, walk, and cycle. I still only work out about 5 days a week.

scottb81

If you are just starting out you will see improvement on 3 days a week. Add a 4th day if you want to but keep it real easy and short and if you feel any injury pains or extreme tiredness coming on then drop back to 3 days until you feel normal again.

runfatmanrun

As many as you want. I usually run 3 times a week and my endurance is fine. I am up to 12 miles and can go pretty quick. If you want to run more have at it, just listen to your body. If it starts to hurt scale it back.

michellekicks

You want to start with maybe 3 times per week. Once you're doing maybe 3 x 5k/3mi and recovery is fine, try adding a consecutive day. The rule of thumb, though, is that you shouldn't be adding more than about 10% to your weekly mileage... so if you start with 2 miles, 3 times per week, increase one run per week by maybe 1 mile at most, so you run 2, 2, 3... and the next week 2, 3, 3 or 2, 2, 4... does that make sense? It does take quite a long time to build up a good running base injury-free.

almostatgoalweight

When I was running, I found it easier in terms of motivation to run almost every day. I started off slowly, the first day I ran 1 minute and increased it by 1 minute each day, up until 30 minutes a month later.