---
title: "Training Plan Builder – Free 5K to Marathon Plans | TrainPace"
description: "Build a free periodized running plan for 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon. Week-by-week base, development, sharpening, and taper phases sized to your fitness and run days."
url: https://trainpace.com/plan
---

# Training Plan Builder – 5K to Marathon

Build a free periodized running plan for 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon. Plans follow a four-phase model: base building for aerobic foundation, development for tempo work, sharpening for race-pace intervals and tune-up races, then a taper into race week.

## Plan length and phase structure

**Plan length and phase split by race and fitness level (weeks)**

| Race | Level | Total | Base | Development | Sharpening | Taper |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 5K | Beginner | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 5K | Intermediate | 10 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| 5K | Advanced | 12 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 10K | Beginner | 10 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| 10K | Intermediate | 12 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 10K | Advanced | 14 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| Half Marathon | Beginner | 12 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Half Marathon | Intermediate | 14 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Half Marathon | Advanced | 16 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Marathon | Beginner | 16 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Marathon | Intermediate | 18 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| Marathon | Advanced | 20 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 2 |

Every plan ends with a race week in addition to the taper weeks shown. Weekly volume starts from your current fitness level and builds with down weeks for recovery; workout paces come from the same VDOT zones as the pace calculator.

## Other TrainPace tools

- [Pace Calculator](https://trainpace.com/calculator) — training paces from a recent race result
- [VDOT Calculator](https://trainpace.com/vdot) — fitness score and equivalent race times
- [Race Fuel Planner](https://trainpace.com/fuel) — carbs per hour and gel counts
- [Elevation Finder](https://trainpace.com/elevation-finder) — GPX route and climb analysis

## For AI agents

Every page on this site has a Markdown mirror at the same path with a .md suffix (for example /calculator.md), and honors an Accept: text/markdown request header on the HTML URL. The calculations here are also available as callable tools through a free public MCP server — no account or API key.

- [llms.txt](https://trainpace.com/llms.txt) — site index for agents
- [llms-full.txt](https://trainpace.com/llms-full.txt) — every page's Markdown in one file
- [MCP server docs](https://trainpace.com/mcp) — endpoint, tools, and client setup