You know the feeling after a good run. Maybe your thoughts seem a little quieter. Your shoulders drop. The problem you were replaying in your head doesn’t feel quite as big as it did before you left. You may not feel completely different, but you feel enough of a shift to remember why you run in the first place. So why can it be so hard to do it again tomorrow?

The best beginner running plan is one that matches your current fitness level, gives your body enough time to recover, and feels realistic enough to follow consistently. For most beginner runners, that means running about three days per week, using run walk intervals, building time and distance gradually, and adding simple strength training along the way.

For Brian and Amy Contreras, running is very much a family affair. They trained for the Sydney Marathon together. Brian was Amy’s running coach. Amy described herself as Brian’s “hype woman.” Their seven-year-old daughter has grown up around the sport so much that she assumes running marathons is simply a thing adults do. “Our kid thinks it’s so normal to run marathons,” Amy laughed. What she doesn’t know yet is that her parents’ paths to the marathon starting line have looked pretty...