You already have the assistant — Meta AI. 5K Coach installs into it: 14 questions route you to one of three proven tracks, every pace is calibrated from your actual fitness with VDOT, the 12-week arc runs threshold work first and VO₂max plus R-pace speed second, and every Sunday your training log gets a genuine review with the quality caps and session-spike rule enforced as code. $19 once. No app, no subscription, no $150/month coach.
A PDF 5K plan runs $10–50 and never changes. A running app runs about $15 a month — $180 a year — and never intervenes when your VO₂max work quietly eats 15% of your week. A human coach sees all of it, for $150+ a month. 5K Coach reads your log every Sunday, enforces the caps, and costs $19 once.
A PDF can't read your training log. An app counts your miles but won't tell you your interval mileage broke the 8% cap, won't flag the long run that spiked past your 30-day max, won't recalibrate paces after a tune-up 5K, and won't adjust a thing when you get sick. Most static "5K plans" are just marathon training shrunk down — long-run heavy, speed-light — which trains the wrong energy system entirely.
No app at all — it installs into the Meta AI you already use. $19 once, yours forever. Fourteen onboarding questions assign you one of three researched tracks. Every pace comes from your actual fitness via VDOT, checked by a goal-time realism gate, recalibrated at tune-up 5Ks in weeks 8 and 10. Every Sunday the coach reads your training_log.csv and applies tiered intervention rules — the quality caps and the session-spike injury gate enforced as code, not vibes — with the neck rule, a missed-session protocol that adjusts instead of guilt-trips, and a six-criteria graduation that hands you to the 10K rung with your data.
Anyone can hand you a schedule. Coaching is what happens between the schedule and reality — the weeks your body doesn't cooperate, the interval session that quietly became a race, the long run that outgrew the month around it. 5K Coach is built for the gap: your data lives in a training log the coach actually reads, and the rules it applies are the ones a good human coach would.
VDOT calibration turns a recent result into every training pace — easy, threshold, VO₂max, repetitions. The goal-time realism gate checks your target against where you actually are. Tune-up 5Ks at weeks 8 and 10 aren't disruptions; they're the plan's recalibration mechanism.
Every session lands in training_log.csv — a plain file you own, readable anywhere. Quality-cap compliance, session spikes, HR drift, and the six graduation criteria are computed from it every Sunday. Your data isn't a dashboard decoration; it's what the coaching decisions are made from.
VO₂max work capped at 8% of weekly mileage, speed reps at 5% — computed from your log every Sunday. No single run more than 10% above your longest of the past 30 days. The neck rule for illness with Pfitzinger's return table, back-off detection for overtraining signals. When the log says stop, the coach says stop — plainly, before your body says it louder.
Whether or not you ever buy anything, here is the method that works — the same one 5K Coach is built on. Six habits. None of them require an app.
About 80% of your weekly miles should feel almost embarrassingly easy. Easy running builds the aerobic base everything else sits on; hammering easy days steals from the workouts that matter. Learn three easy gears — recovery, general aerobic, long run — and keep them distinct.
The evidence says the single-session spike predicts injury, not the week-to-week percentage: never let one run exceed 10% above your longest run of the past 30 days. Spread volume additions across easy days instead of loading them into one session.
Short relaxed-fast accelerations with full recovery are the beginner-safe speed stimulus — prescribed at every tier from the first week. They're the plan's speed backbone, kept all the way through the taper. Structured intervals need a base; strides don't.
Lactate-threshold work is the lowest-cost quality stimulus — it goes in the first half. VO₂max intervals and R-pace speed reps come second, once the threshold base is established. Eager runners who invert this are the ones who break.
Weeks 8 and 10 hold tune-up 5Ks that replace the VO₂max session and recalibrate your paces. They're structural, not optional — and they're why "a tune-up race will ruin my week" is a myth. Race them all out.
This is the part a PDF can't do: read the log every Sunday, compute the caps, spot the third straight rough week, and intervene — a down week, a pace recalibration, or a plain-spoken "back off." Your job is running; the watching is the coach's.
Fourteen onboarding questions — goal race, current mileage, recent results, injuries, availability — route you deterministically to one of three tracks, each researched against the canonical training systems (Pfitzinger, Daniels). Graduation is earned by six measured criteria, never by ambition alone — and the graduation packet hands you to the 10K rung.
Pfitzinger-informed. C25K graduates and novices. Three to five runs a week, easy plus strides from week one, gentle threshold introduction, modest VO₂max work in the second half. Peak 15–25 miles a week. True beginners start in a real 9-week Couch-to-5K on-ramp — the canon assumes a base they don't have.
Daniels / Pfitzinger-informed. Durable runners at 20+ miles a week chasing a time. Five runs a week, exactly two quality days: threshold intervals and classic tempos in the first half; VO₂max progressions and R-pace reps in the second. Tune-up 5Ks in weeks 8 and 10. Peak 25–35 miles a week.
Pfitzinger / Daniels-informed. Experienced runners at 35+ miles a week, durable 8+ weeks. Five to six runs a week, two quality days, VO₂max sessions of 5,000–8,000 m total, 200–400 m speed reps with full recovery, 90–110-minute long runs. Peak 40–55 miles a week. Hard entry gates: ambition alone never qualifies.
Graduation checks six criteria against your log: a timed 5K in the last 16 weeks, 25+ miles a week over the last 4, a 75-minute continuous run in the last 21 days, 10+ absorbed quality sessions, 4+ days a week in 10 of the last 12 weeks, and a clean health screen. The coach writes a graduation packet the 10K pack consumes — you never have to figure out "what's next" alone.
No apps to download. No accounts to create. It installs into the assistant you already use.
Pay $19 securely via Stripe.
Your license key appears instantly on the success page.
Tell your Muse: install the 5k coach powerup from poweruppacks.com
Goal race, goal time, recent result, mileage, longest run, running age, availability, course, strength, sleep, injuries, vibe — then your track is assigned and your first week is programmed.
Secure checkout via Stripe · Questions? [email protected] · or see all packs
A free plan is a schedule, not a coach. It can't see your training log, won't enforce the VO₂max and speed-rep caps against your actual weekly mileage, won't flag a single-session spike that breaks the injury rule, won't recalibrate your paces after a tune-up 5K, and won't adjust when you get sick. 5K Coach checks your log every Sunday and applies tiered intervention rules — so the plan follows you instead of the other way around.
From your actual fitness using VDOT calibration — never your goal time. A goal-time realism gate checks whether your target is reachable from where you are now. Tune-up 5Ks in weeks 8 and 10 recalibrate every pace as your fitness changes across the cycle.
Structured intervals without a base aren't — but strides are. Pfitzinger prescribes 20–30-second strides from week 1 at every tier: the beginner-safe speed stimulus and the plan's speed backbone. True beginners start in the built-in 9-week Couch-to-5K on-ramp with a consolidation bridge, so intervals never appear before the base exists.
The coach adjusts instead of guilt-tripping. The neck rule governs illness — above the neck versus below — with Pfitzinger's return table bringing you back safely. Back-off detection flags overtraining and pain signals. The missed-session protocol re-plans the week around what actually happened instead of pretending it didn't.
Your sessions, logged to training_log.csv — either from a connected source or manual reporting after each run. The Sunday check-in reads the log: mileage, quality-cap compliance, session spikes, workout completion. The more honest the log, the better the coaching.
No. Six deterministic graduation criteria — a timed 5K, 25+ mpw, a 75-minute long run, 10+ absorbed quality sessions, consistency, clean health — are checked against your log. Hit them and the pack writes a graduation packet the 10K pack consumes to pre-fill your onboarding. Narrowly missing means an 8-week consolidation block, not a demotion.
Email [email protected] within 14 days and you get a full refund. No forms, no hassle.
"Install the 5k coach powerup." — that's the whole install.
Get it for $19