Your first trail race: a training plan from the hills to the finish line

Before you start: the paperwork, the base, the right race

€5. That is now the price of the paperwork for a first trail race in France, if you run without a federation licence. For unlicensed adults, the French Athletics Federation (FFA) has replaced the medical certificate with its Pass Prévention Santé, or Health Prevention Pass: an online health awareness course, provided for by a French law of 2 March 2022 [1]. Free at first, it has cost €5 since January 2026 and is valid for a year [2]. Under-18s, for their part, fill in a free health questionnaire with a parent before each race [1]. Racing in the UK or Ireland instead? The race’s own rules will tell you what you need to enter.

The pass is not a medical examination but an awareness course. A known health condition, ongoing treatment, a return after a long break: all good reasons to ask a doctor’s advice before you start a plan.

As for fitness, the starting point is simple: the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that every adult does at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week [3]. If you’re a long way from that, start there, before any trail plan. For the race itself, aim short and not too steep, and compare races in km-effort rather than kilometres: the climbing counts as much as the distance.

A four-phase plan over twelve weeks

A trail plan rests on three ideas: progress in small steps, train on ground that resembles the race, and give your body time to recover. The table below gives an example for a short first trail race, to adapt to your starting level.

A lighter week every three or four weeks stops fatigue from piling up: I recommend it even when everything is going well. As for the long run, it’s less about running far than learning to last: drinking, eating, managing your pace on the climbs, with or without heart rate zones.

Enlarge diagram

Train for the climbs, and for the descents too

Everyone thinks about the climbs: they’re what leave you breathless. And they hold a surprise for runners coming from the road: on steep slopes, walking isn’t cheating. A University of Colorado study measured the energy cost for fifteen runners climbing at the same vertical speed on ever steeper slopes: from 15.8°, a gradient of about 28%, walking cost less energy than running, by 8% on average [4].

So training to walk fast on the climbs (power hiking, in trail runners’ terms), with or without poles, is as much part of the plan as running. As for the benefits of hill running itself, the science is cautious: a meta-analysis published in 2026 notes gains in running economy and endurance in several trials, but finds no significant effect once the results are pooled, and rates the evidence as weak, as there are still too few trials [5]. In trail running, you train for the climbs first and foremost because they’re on the course.

A 2020 literature review by researchers from the University of Toulon and Liverpool John Moores University sums it up: running downhill makes your muscles work as brakes, which causes muscle damage and can reduce performance; and it is the runners least used to descending who suffer most [6].

Good news: the best defence known is to get your legs used to descending beforehand [6]. A University of Calgary study showed it in ten recreational runners: a second 30-minute downhill session, three weeks after the first, caused less muscle soreness and a smaller loss of strength [7]. In practice, short, controlled descents from the second month, gradually lengthened, are worth more than one long descent discovered on race day.

Recovery: the days without running count too

The fatigue from a descent doesn’t vanish overnight: in the Calgary study, the researchers tracked the runners’ strength for seven days after each session, and the loss of strength could still be measured in the days that followed [7]. So keep at least one day without running after a downhill session, and never put two hard sessions back to back.

The last two weeks: taper, don’t stop

The detail that changes everything comes at the very end. A 2007 meta-analysis, which brought together 27 studies of competitive athletes, looked for the best way to cut back training before a race. Its conclusion: a two-week taper, during which volume drops by 41 to 60%, without touching either intensity or the number of sessions [8].

In other words, you run for less time, but just as often and at the same paces. These results concern trained athletes: for a first trail race, remember the principle rather than the percentages, and above all, don’t stop dead in the final week.

The classic first trail race pitfalls

The first is your starting pace. On the road, you think in minutes per mile or per kilometre; on a trail, that number means nothing once the path rears up. Better to work from an estimated race time, in hours, and keep to a pace on the first climb at which you can still talk.

The second is believing that the race is decided on the climbs. Legs often give out on the last descent, the one you haven’t trained for: hence the descents in the plan, from the second month.

The third is new kit. Shoes taken out of the box the night before, a drink you’ve never tasted, a hydration pack never worn fully loaded: race day is not the time to discover them. The long runs in weeks 9 and 10 are there precisely to try everything out.

The last is trying to make up for missed sessions in the final week. The work is done: the taper is there to get you to the start fresh, not to catch up.

Race week: what to sort out before the start

• For a race in France, the Pass Prévention Santé, the participation pass required for running events there [1], or your licence.
• The race rules, read in full: mandatory kit, cut-off times, feed stations.
• The weather forecast the day before and on the morning itself, to adjust what you wear.
• Nothing new on race day: shoes, pack, drink and food already tested on your long runs.
• One last short, easy run two or three days before, to keep your legs awake.

And then comes the moment, at the top of the last climb, when the descent opens out in front of you: your legs will know it, and all that will be left is to enjoy it.

Worth watching

Coach Sage Canaday breaks technical downhill trail running into three form and technique tips, in just over five minutes: the skill the plan asks you to practise before race day.

The video is hosted by YouTube (Google): nothing loads until you play it, and Google may then set cookies.

Nolwenn Bastide

Trail running, snow, water, nature and destinations

Nolwenn covers trail running, snow, water, nature and destinations for Outfarer. Curious about everything, from meteor showers to night-train timetables, she has a knack for unearthing the one detail that changes everything, and putting it in a single sentence.

All their articles