Why I Built Year Round Running
Free, personalised running training plans for every runner, without a monthly subscription.
I built Year Round Running (YRR) with one goal: make high-quality, personalised training plans accessible to every runner, whether you are just starting out or chasing an ambitious goal. This page explains why the platform exists, how the plans are built, and why the core of it is free and always will be.
The Problem I Set Out to Solve
As a runner, I have watched the running world grow fast: new apps, coaches, and platforms appearing constantly. That is not inherently bad, but it comes with a real cost. It is now common to pay $20+ per month for a training app, with personalised coaching often costing considerably more.
Many runners turn to AI-generated plans or generic templates instead, but those have limits too. AI plans are only as good as the information you give them, and templates often do not reflect your actual fitness, your goals, or your schedule. You end up following a plan that was written for someone else.
That is the problem I set out to solve: a training plan that is genuinely built around you, available to anyone, without a recurring charge standing in the way.
How the Training Plan Generator Works
Rather than relying purely on AI, I built a rule-based algorithm designed to produce reliable plans across different runners and situations. The same inputs always produce a sound, structured plan, with sensible progression, recovery weeks, and a proper taper.
It can also flag when a goal or schedule is too ambitious and help you find a more realistic path, which is something a generic template will never do for you.
I spent over a year and a half building and refining every part of this algorithm. Today, YRR generates plans for 100+ runners every day, and I am still improving it.
Free by Design
Every complete training plan is free with an account. There is no paywall on the plan itself.
The same goes for the tools, calculators, guides, and blog. Everything you need to understand your training is there, free, and it is staying that way.
- Your full personalised plan, start to race day, at no cost
- Pace, heart rate, VO2 max and fuelling calculators, free to use
- Training guides and blog posts explaining every run type
If you want more, such as progress tracking, advanced editing, or exporting your plans, there are optional upgrades. But the core of training well never depends on a credit card.
No Subscriptions, Ever
YRR runs on one-time payments, not monthly ones. You can unlock a single plan, or all of your plans for a year, with no auto-renewal.
When that year ends, you keep access to the plans you have already unlocked (up to 9). Nothing gets taken away from you, and nothing quietly renews in the background.
One-Time Payments
Pay once for what you want to unlock. No recurring billing, ever.
No Auto-Renewal
Your access does not renew itself. You decide if and when you come back.
You Keep Your Plans
Plans you have unlocked stay yours, up to 9, even after the year ends.
A training plan shouldn't turn into another recurring charge.
Runners First
My goal is not to turn YRR into a business as fast as possible. It is to give runners real value and make good training more accessible. That is how I am building this, whether or not it is the "smart" business move.
I am grateful for the growth and support the platform has had so far. It is what keeps me improving it.
If you want to support YRR, the best thing you can do is share it with another runner. Together, we can make personalised, accessible training available to everyone.
Thanks for being here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Year Round Running really free?
Yes. Every complete training plan is free with an account, and so are the calculators, guides, and blog. Optional one-time upgrades exist for extras like progress tracking, advanced editing, and exporting, but the plan itself is never behind a paywall.
Does Year Round Running charge a monthly subscription?
No. YRR uses one-time payments only. You can unlock a single plan or all of your plans for a year, and nothing auto-renews. When the year ends you keep access to the plans you already unlocked, up to nine.
Are the training plans AI-generated?
No. Plans come from a rule-based algorithm built and refined over more than 18 months, not from a general-purpose AI model. That means the structure, progression, recovery weeks, and taper follow consistent training principles rather than depending on how well you happened to phrase a prompt.
How personalised are the plans?
Plans are built around your current fitness, your goal race and target time, your race date, and the days you can actually train. The generator also flags when a goal or schedule looks too ambitious and suggests a more realistic path instead of quietly setting you up to fail.
Which distances can I train for?
You can generate plans from 5K and 10K through to half marathon and marathon, for beginners as well as runners chasing a specific finish time. You can see all of them in the running plans section.
How can I support Year Round Running?
Share it with another runner. That is genuinely the most useful thing you can do. Optional one-time upgrades also help keep the platform running and improving.