On rest days, you want to give your body a total break, essential for avoiding injury. These can include stretching sessions, foam-rolling sessions, gentle yoga or light walking.

On active rest days, you want to engage in activities that move your muscles without interfering with the recovery process.

Recovery time, with rest days and active rest days built into the plan.

Cross-training, which typically includes strength training and endurance training.

A variety of landscapes, from flat ground to uneven terrain.

A variety of running speeds, from faster tempo runs to easy runs at a comfortable pace.

Warmup before the run, cooldown and stretching after the run.

While there’s a massive range of options when it comes to training for a 5k or 10k trail run, most training schedules include several standard elements:

To get to that point, you need a training plan. But when you ace the trail race and cross the finish line, all the sweat, swears and tears will be worth it. Running in general tends to do that to people. Make you wish you had never taken up running in the first place.Make you drop the F-bomb more than once.Your goal is to work up to the point where a 5k or 10k trail run is doable. The best way to ensure your trail running is successful is to properly prep for the adventure. We’re talking about a bonafide 5K or 10K run through the ups, downs and sideways paths of Mother Nature.

And we’re not talking about that 5-second run chasing your kid or dog if they start heading off into the trees. If you think hiking on trails is a blast, just wait until you start running on them.

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