Running Plan Review Buena Vida Run Club's 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (4 days)
Who’s behind this review? Buena Vida is a running app made by David Cole, a Seattle runner & triathlete who led design and research for Amazon’s Halo fitness band. This is one of Buena Vida’s own plans, so we have an obvious interest in how it compares. It’s scored on the same 30 measures as every plan we review, each tied to published research, and its weaknesses are published below. AI does the first scoring and draft, then every claim is checked against its studies. No plan author pays to be reviewed, and we run no ads. See a mistake? Email David at corrections@buenavida.run · How we score →
Plan at a Glance
A sub-1:45 half is a goal for a runner who is already close. You've raced a half within a few minutes of it, you're running somewhere in the high 20s of miles a week, and what stands between you and the time isn't fitness you've never had. It's holding goal pace for 13 miles, through the stretch where it stops feeling smooth.
This plan works on that from three sides, each on its own day. Tuesday is goal pace in pieces: half-mile reps at first, then mile reps, until near the end you're running 8 of them in one morning and learning exactly what the pace feels like on rep six, when your legs start to argue. Thursday is a threshold run, the effort you could hold for about an hour, a notch quicker than goal pace and a different kind of work. The weekend is about staying power: a long run on Saturday and a medium-long run on Sunday, on legs that haven't recovered yet. Mondays and Wednesdays are strength.
Most weeks there's no easy weekday run. Every weekday run has a job, so your easy running lives on Sunday, and the Sunday that tells you the most comes right after the cutback: 8 miles the morning after 12.5. Run it slower than Saturday, slower than feels necessary, and you arrive on Tuesday ready for 7 mile reps. Let it creep toward the pace you'd like to be running, and you show up for those reps with nothing left, just as the biggest jump in the plan begins. The stretch before the cutback feels manageable. The stretch after it is where it gets real, with the longest threshold run and the longest long run arriving close together. Then the volume falls away, the goal-pace reps stay, and you reach the start line having run 8 miles at goal pace in a single session, twice.
What follows is Buena Vida's full review of the plan. Every plan is scored against our detailed, 30-point benchmark, drawn from peer-reviewed sports-science research and proven coaching best practices.
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Our Review
A lean 4-day week can be enough for this goal when you already have the base and a half or two behind you, maybe one where goal pace slipped away somewhere past mile 9. This sharp, well-built plan answers that directly. Goal pace gets Tuesday every week from the start, threshold gets Thursday with a strength day in between, and both sessions grow toward the race. The reasoning behind each hard day is written into the session itself, and the last three weeks ease the volume while the goal-pace reps hold. The gaps are small. They sit in how fast the build climbs, not in what it asks of you. Week 6 brings the biggest jump in training load in the plan, the rebound out of the cutback is steep, and the easy running is a little thin. Run it with confidence, and go into week 6 knowing it's the week to give a little back if your legs ask.
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Structure
Does the plan build you up smartly?
The build is sound and easy to follow. It runs two weeks to settle into the rhythm, a build in two stages, a peak near 49 miles, then three weeks of easing into the race. Each of the 17 hard sessions is set out in full, from warm-up through cool-down, and explains what it trains.
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Prevention
Does the plan protect you from injury?
The weekly layout does the protecting. Tuesday's reps and Thursday's threshold run sit a strength day apart, and both open with a warm-up. Recovery weeks land where they should, so you're never more than a few weeks from a lighter stretch. Week 3 jumps quickly. The rebound out of the cutback is sharp too, from about 26 miles to 39 in a single week, with the long run going from 8.5 to 12.5 miles. If your legs come back from the cutback slowly, run that first long run of the second build a mile or two shorter and let the following week bring you back up. Week 6 is the one to run with care. It brings the plan's biggest single jump in training load. In one week you go to 7 x 1 mile at goal pace, an 11-mile tempo with 6 miles at threshold, and a 14-mile long run, straight off the first big week after the cutback. Sharp jumps like that are where injury risk tends to rise. The easy running is also a little light across the plan, which puts real weight on the Sunday run: keep it truly conversational, slower than Saturday. If an ache lingers into week 6 or 7, treat it as an early warning rather than background noise. Drop a strength session first, then shorten or skip the Sunday run, and if it's still there, trim Thursday's tempo back to the shorter version you ran earlier in the plan.
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Flexibility
What happens when you miss a day?
With four running days and three days that have no run on them, there's room to absorb a lost morning. The sessions that matter most are Tuesday's goal-pace reps, Thursday's threshold run and Saturday's long run. Strength is the first thing to give way, then the Sunday medium-long. If you miss a Tuesday, let it go and run Thursday as written. The reps come back the next week, a little longer. Squeezing it in on Wednesday would put two hard days back to back. If a whole week goes sideways in the second build, repeat the previous week rather than jumping ahead to the bigger sessions. In the taper, a missed run is just a missed run. Let it go.
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Readiness
Will the plan deliver race-day fitness?
By going straight at the way a half like this usually slips away, somewhere past mile 9 when goal pace stops feeling smooth. The race practice lives on Tuesday. By the last hard weeks you're running 8 miles at goal pace in one session, in mile pieces, and that set comes back in the taper so you can compare it with the first time. The long run does a different job. It reaches 15 miles, past race distance, with 3 goal-pace miles tucked in the middle, and its real gift is that 13 miles stops feeling like a long way. Peak mileage near 49 a week suits the half. The last three weeks ease off steadily, and race week holds a little under 13 miles of running before the race itself, less than the 13.1 you'll run on Sunday. Easing down from the 49-mile peak with the goal-pace sets still in is the kind of taper that tends to help runners race better than holding the load steady would. One small note: the 15 comes 3 weeks out, at the far end of the usual window, so your last two long runs are 10.5 and 10 miles.
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Variety
Are the workouts varied enough?
There's a lot going on in these weeks. The fixed rhythm makes the plan easy to live with, but what happens inside it keeps changing. You'll run seven kinds of runs, from easy and medium-long to tempo, intervals, fartlek and the race itself. The hard sessions take nine shapes: seven different goal-pace rep sets, from 4 x 0.5 mile up to 8 x 1 mile, plus the threshold tempo and a progressive fartlek. That fartlek arrives in the first week after the cutback, in place of the tempo, with surges that build from short and quick to long and steady, a change of feel right as the second build starts. The peak long run adds a goal-pace block, and race week closes with strides on the shake-out to remind your legs what fast feels like.
Workouts
Every Buena Vida training plan comes with detailed coaching notes and live workout guidance. Tap any workout to preview the notes for that day.
Picking a time goal for your half marathon says something about where you intend to go, wherever you are starting from. The opening stretch will feel routine, almost too easy on paper, and that is by design. Settle into the rhythm before you ask it to deliver anything. The fitness that carries a half at this kind of pace takes shape over the whole arc, not in any single session at the front of it.
M Strength Training
Tu Intervals: 4×0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
2 mile warmup, then 4 x 0.5 mile at goal pace (7:57/mile) with 400 meters recovery jog, then 2 mile cooldown. First harder session of the plan. Reps should feel controlled, not maxed. If rep four still feels strong, the dose was right. Repeats break hard running into pieces the body can absorb, building speed without breaking form. Run the first rep like you plan to enjoy the last one. The workout was perfect if the last rep matched the first in pace and form.
W Strength Training
Th 7mi Tempo Run with 4mi @ Tempo
Warm up 1.5 miles, run 4 miles at threshold, and cool down 1.5 miles. First tempo of the plan. Comfortably hard, the effort you could hold for about an hour, not race pace. The right effort tells the truth in the final mile: still steady, breathing rhythmic. Runs like this raise the speed you can sustain before your breathing starts to set the limit. Comfortably hard means a few words at a time, never full sentences. The session was a success if the final stretch held pace without the form unraveling.
F Rest
Sa 8mi Long Run
8 miles easy and aerobic. First long run of the plan. This is the baseline the long runs build from, so the goal isn't to make it feel big, it's to make it feel readable. Conversational pace, breathing rhythmic. If you can't hold a sentence, slow down. Most runners want to push it. Resist that here. The long run climbs from 8 to 15 miles over the coming weeks.
Su 5.5mi Medium-Long Run
5.5 miles easy. Back-to-back of long plus medium-long. The pairing teaches the legs to run on residual fatigue. Pace should feel slower than yesterday, not the same. Start slower than feels necessary and let the pace find itself after a few miles.
The aerobic system does most of its real work without making any noise, and what you log this week is closer to that slow building than to anything spectacular. Capillaries, mitochondria, and the slow-twitch fibers you are about to lean on for the race distance all build up on a clock that runs slower than the calendar wants. Stay patient with the easy days. They are where the engine actually grows, even when the calendar makes them look like filler.
M Strength Training
Tu Intervals: 5×0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
2 mile warmup, then 5 x 0.5 mile at goal pace with 400 meters recovery jog, then 2 mile cooldown. 5 reps now, one more than the 4-rep set. The dose should still feel like work you can repeat next week, not a dig. Goal pace, not faster. The rest between reps is what lets the work stay fast from first to last. Aim for even efforts across the set rather than a fast opener. If form held to the final rep, the session did its work.
W Strength Training
Th 5.5mi Easy Run
5.5 miles at conversational effort. First true recovery day of the plan. The job is to land at the next hard session with the legs ready to spend, not still spending. Run by feel. The legs will tell you the right speed, and it will likely be slower than the watch wants.
F Rest
Sa 9mi Long Run
9 miles easy. Long run grows by 1 mile. Same conversational effort as the 8-mile long run. The distance is the only variable that changes. Endurance comes from staying out longer, not from going faster.
Su 6.5mi Medium-Long Run
6.5 miles easy. Legs may feel heavy at the start. That is the point. Settle in for the first mile, then let the rhythm come back. Hold a conversational effort the whole way, even when the legs invite more.
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All 10 weeks in the app
Daily coaching notes, nutrition guidance, reschedule logic, and strength placement.
Plan Strengths
- Two distinct quality sessions every week, goal pace on Tuesday and threshold on Thursday, never on back-to-back days.
- Goal-pace work grows steadily from 4 x 0.5 mile to 8 x 1 mile, then repeats in the taper so you can compare how the same session feels.
- The 15-mile peak long run takes you past race distance, with 3 goal-pace miles in the middle.
- All 17 hard sessions are written out from warm-up to cool-down, each with a note on what it's for.
- The last three weeks cut volume steadily while keeping goal-pace reps all the way into race week.
Weaknesses & Gaps
- Week 6 brings the biggest single jump in training load in the plan.
- The rebound out of the cutback is steep, and week 3 climbs quickly too.
- Outside the cutback, most weeks have no easy weekday run, so the easy running is a little thinner than ideal.
What's missing
Race-day rehearsal is left to you, since the calendar holds no tune-up race. You don't need one, since the Tuesday reps already do the pacing work, but if you want a race-day dress rehearsal, a 5K or 10K run at controlled effort in place of a Thursday session early in the second build works as a rehearsal for pacing and pre-race nerves. There's no hill work, so if your race course rolls, run your Saturday long runs on a route with similar terrain. And strides show up only in race week. Adding 4 to 6 short, relaxed strides after an easy run in the second build costs almost nothing and gives you regular practice at running fast without straining.
What the science supports
Threshold or race pace: neither proven better
Nine of the 10 Tuesdays carry goal-pace work, starting with half-mile reps and building to full miles. Week 7 brings a single rehearsal inside the long run: 3 miles at goal pace bracketed by 6 easy miles on either side. Thursday's threshold run is a different kind of training, and for recreational runners either kind is a reasonable way to prepare. No study shows one beats the other, so carrying both gives you each kind of work without betting on one.
Smyth & Muniz-Pumares 2020; Jones et al. 2021; Vickers & Vertosick 2016
Shifting training emphasis beats unchanging training
Four phases guide ten weeks. Base Building lets the rhythm settle. Sharpen carries the build from week 3 to week 8, with a cutback at week 4 and the heaviest load at week 7. Long runs climb from 8 miles to 15, intervals from 4x0.5 to 8x1 mile reps, tempos from 4 to 6 miles. A taper week and race week then pull volume down while goal-pace work stays. Shifting emphasis over time tends to beat one fixed load, though the gain in trials is small.
Filipas et al. 2021; Bradbury et al. 2020; Sandbakk et al. 2025
Longer long runs go with faster marathons
Long runs grow from 8 miles to 15 across the plan, with the peak hitting about 2 miles beyond race distance. You'll run them back-to-back with a medium-long run the next day almost every week, teaching the legs to carry you when they're already tired. Week 7's peak sits at 15 miles, with 3 miles at race pace in the middle. Longer long runs go with faster marathons, an association rather than proof. Many runners find a 15-miler makes the late miles of a half feel familiar.
Doherty et al. 2020; Fokkema et al. 2020; Toresdahl et al. 2022
Two strength sessions a week is enough
Monday and Wednesday carry strength training, two sessions a week from week 1 through the taper week, with race week left clear. Two sessions a week, kept up for a couple of months, is enough for most runners to get the performance benefit of strength work. In pooled trials, adding more sessions did not add more. Nine straight weeks of it covers that window.
Blagrove et al. 2018; Balsalobre-Fernández et al. 2016; Llanos-Lagos et al. 2024
A real taper sharpens you for race day
Weeks 9 and 10 pull volume down while keeping goal-pace work live. The long run drops from 15 to 10 miles. The interval session repeats its week 8 dose (8x1 mile) once more, this time with less mileage around it. By race week, mileage shrinks to just short runs and a shake-out. Trimming volume this way while the faster work stays in is the kind of taper that improves race performance over not tapering at all.
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