How many rest days should runners take?

Updated August 26, 2026 · By the Runked team

Training plans do not treat rest days as one fixed number. Hal Higdon's own marathon programs cut the count as the level rises, and the coaches who write about rest for experienced or injury-prone runners give a range instead of a single rule. The table below lines up what four named sources actually schedule, level by level, and what each calls active recovery on the days a runner isn't running.

Rest days by level, and what counts as active recovery

This is Runked's own compilation, read directly from each plan's day-by-day schedule and the article above. No single published source lines these figures up as one table. Higdon's schedules are quoted from the current live version of each program page; check the links above if a plan has since been revised.

Why rest days shrink as training volume rises, according to these sources

Higdon explains the rest days built into his own Novice 1 plan on the program page itself: "Scientists suggest that it is during the rest period (the 24 to 72 hours between hard bouts of exercise) that the muscles actually regenerate and get stronger." He schedules that rest on Mondays and Fridays specifically so it falls both after and before the plan's weekend long runs. As weekly volume and running experience rise across his Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced plans, the built-in rest shrinks from 2 days to 1, and the cross-training day disappears entirely by Advanced 1.

David Roche's explanation for Trail Runner starts from a different angle: impact. "Impact forces are the reason rest days are important for most runners," he writes, arguing that running's repeated pounding is what separates it from lower-impact endurance sports, to the point that he says top runners cap training at around 14 hours a week while top cyclists and swimmers train roughly twice that. In his account, impact-related injuries build up gradually and often become obvious only once they cross a threshold, and a rest day is what interrupts that buildup before it gets there. Roche is describing his own coaching rule of thumb here. He does not cite a specific study on injury rates by rest-day frequency.

How to apply it to your own week

Start from whichever row in the table above is closest to your current training, rather than a level you have not reached yet. If you are newer to running or have a history of injury, Roche writes that 2 rest days a week might be needed. If you are following a structured marathon plan, Higdon's own placement is worth copying along with the number: rest or cross-train the day after a hard effort, and again the day before a long run or key workout, so neither one starts on tired legs.

Roche adds one more rule worth applying regardless of level: avoid two hard efforts back to back unless you are an experienced runner working from a specific plan that calls for it. A rest day or an easy day between harder sessions does that job; a recovery run at true recovery effort can substitute for some of those days, though Roche cautions that recovery runs still involve impact forces to stressed bones, joints, tendons and ligaments and that even the slowest recovery pace can exacerbate a stress fracture; Runked's recovery run pace guide covers how slow that needs to be to count.

Common mistakes with rest-day scheduling

• Copying an advanced runner's 1-rest-day week as a beginner. Higdon's own plans double the built-in rest in Novice 1 compared with Advanced 1 for exactly this reason: less training history means less rest built into the schedule around it.
• Turning an optional aerobic swap into a harder session than the run it stands in for. In Advanced 1, where Higdon offers that swap on Mondays or Wednesdays, his instruction is to go for about the same length of time as the running workout scheduled for that day and to cross train at about the same stress level as on a running day.
• Stacking two hard days back to back without the base to support it. Roche's rule is to avoid that unless you are an experienced runner working from a plan built for it.
• Taking more than 2 full rest days a week and assuming it's automatically the safer choice. Per Roche, that's generally not advisable unless you are new to running, a multi-sport athlete, or over 50, since packing too much mileage into too few runs can increase injury risk, in his account.

None of this is a diagnosis. See a doctor if pain is sharp, one-sided, or doesn't ease with a few days off.

What to do next

The table above is a starting point, and the exact schedule is yours to adjust. If a rest day keeps feeling like it isn't doing its job, that overlaps with signs of overtraining worth ruling out. And if the real question is how often to run in the first place before rest days even matter, how often should a beginner run covers the starting frequency this page builds on.

How many rest days you personally need is worth checking against your own pattern, not somebody else's plan; in Runked the rank starts everyone at Bronze and only moves on your own runs. See how the rank works.

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