Running Plan Review Buena Vida Run Club's 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (6 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
This plan is for the runner who already runs six days a week, already covers about 37 miles in them, and wants a sub-1:45 half marathon badly enough to give it a proper block of training. It rests on one idea. A half marathon is rarely lost in the first few miles. It's lost in the back half, when goal pace stops feeling like a choice and the finish is still a long way off. So the plan spends its effort teaching your legs to hold goal pace when they're tired.
It does that in two places. Most weeks open with a goal-pace session that starts as a few half-mile repeats and grows into a long set of mile repeats, the reps getting longer and more numerous as you go. The pace never changes. Then, at the end of the week, a long run is followed the next morning by a medium-long run that starts on legs still carrying the day before. By the biggest pair, the long run alone is longer than the race, and the two together cover more than twice the distance.
Around those, a tempo run midweek works your threshold, the day before the long run is for strength instead of running, and everything else is easy. Easy means a pace you can talk at, probably slower than you'd choose on your own. That slowness is what keeps the hard days clean.
Two stretches ask for restraint. The week after the first cutback is the sharpest jump in the plan, and it arrives on fresh legs that will want to celebrate. Let them wait. And in the last stretch, as the miles fall away and the legs get restless, trust what you've built. The work is done by then. Your job is to arrive with it intact.
Below is Buena Vida's full review of this plan. We hold every plan to our detailed, 30-point benchmark, with each measure pulled from peer-reviewed sports-science research and proven coaching best practices.
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Our Review
Your week already holds 6 runs, and now you want them pointed at one fast half marathon 10 weeks out. For a competitive runner in that spot, this serious plan earns a confident yes. It does the things that keep a hard build healthy: a clear shape from base to taper, lighter weeks on a schedule, most of the running easy, and hard days that never touch. Where it shines is the race-specific work, and it may surprise you. If you grew up on the idea that you train faster than you race, this plan asks for something different. Run goal pace, not faster, and keep running it for longer, until the last rep matches the first. On your watch, a goal-pace split looks like nothing happened. Over these weeks, it's the race being built. The gaps are small. The peak week asks for a little more mileage than this goal needs, the longest run goes a little long too, and the week after the first cutback is the sharpest jump in load. Run that week's easy days slowly and the plan holds together beautifully.
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Structure
Does the plan build you up smartly?
In well-spaced blocks. The plan moves through four distinct phases (base, sharpen, taper, race week), and the long sharpening block in the middle is where the fitness gets made. Volume builds in two blocks rather than one long climb, three weeks up from 37.5 miles and then three more up to the peak before the taper. Every hard session arrives fully written, with its warm-up, main set and cool-down and a note on why it's there.
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Prevention
Does the plan protect you from injury?
The care shows in the easy miles. About four of every five miles are easy, which is the balance that lets hard sessions do their job without grinding you down. Tuesday's reps and Thursday's tempo each start with a proper warm-up, and strength holds its Friday slot every week until race week. The main hard sessions also show up in the first week, so a new kind of workout never lands on top of a mileage jump. The week 4 cutback drops to about 32 miles and the week 8 cutback to about 53, so the load gets regular relief before the next push. This plan puts those weeks on the calendar instead of leaving them to you. The one soft spot is the week after the first cutback. Fresh from the lighter week, you go straight into your first full-mile repeats, a 4-mile tempo, a 13.5-mile long run and a 9.5-mile run the next morning. Going from about 32 miles to about 55 in one week is the kind of jump that raises injury risk. Run that week's easy days truly easy, run the 13.5 slower than any long run so far, and if something starts to nag, shorten the medium-long first.
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Flexibility
What happens when you miss a day?
Tuesday's goal-pace session, Thursday's tempo and Saturday's long run come first each week. The easy runs and the medium-long come next, and strength after that. So if you miss an easy run, let it go. There's no debt to repay. If you miss the goal-pace session, run it the next day and turn that week's tempo into an easy run. If you miss the tempo, let it go. The week still holds its goal-pace session and its long run. If you miss the long run, run it the next day in place of the medium-long. Keep the day before the long run free of running, since it's the only break your legs get all week, and never double up to catch up. And if a day only has 20 minutes in it, run 20 minutes. That counts.
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Readiness
Will the plan deliver race-day fitness?
The reps get you there. The goal-pace work grows almost every week: 4 × 0.5 mile at the start, then longer reps and more of them, up to 8 × 1 mile in the last big session before the taper. Here's the number that surprises people. The 16-mile peak long run carries just 3 miles at goal pace, tucked into its middle behind 6.5 easy ones as a rehearsal of the late-race stretch. The goal-pace session early the next week carries 8. Race pace gets built in the reps. The long run builds the legs that have to carry it. Then the taper steps volume down over the last three weeks and keeps a short goal-pace primer in race week. A structured taper like this improves race performance compared with holding your training load steady.
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Variety
Are the workouts varied enough?
Broad enough to keep 6 days a week from blurring together. You'll run seven kinds of runs (easy, medium-long, long, tempo, goal-pace intervals, a race-week pace run and the race itself) plus a shake-out, and the goal-pace session changes shape as it grows, from half-mile reps to three-quarter miles to full miles. Pairing those repeats with a separate tempo run gives you two kinds of faster running instead of one. Goal-pace reps and threshold running (the effort you could race for about an hour) are different kinds of training. For recreational runners, neither has been shown to beat the other. The reps rehearse the race while the tempo works the threshold directly, so you get both kinds of work.
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.
The build toward something hard starts here, and the job right now is to settle into the rhythm of running nearly every day. If that is more running than you have been doing recently, your body will tell you in the second half of the week, and that is fine. These opening days are not about proving anything. They are about getting the calendar to feel ordinary, because everything that comes later assumes that part is already in place.
M 5.5mi Easy Run
5.5 miles easy. The first run of the plan should feel almost too easy. Finish with energy left in the tank, which is the whole assignment today. Runs like this are where the base gets built, one easy day at a time.
Tu Intervals: 4×0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
Warm up 2 miles, run 4 × 0.5 mile at goal pace (7:57/mile) with 400 m of easy jogging between, and cool down 2 miles. This is the plan's first harder session. The reps should feel controlled and not all-out. The session succeeds when the last rep matches the first. 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.
W 5.5mi Easy Run
The day after intervals. Run by feel and let the legs settle. Pace does not matter today. The job today is gentle repetition, the kind of running that adds up without ever feeling like work.
Th 6mi Tempo Run with 3mi @ Tempo
Warm up 1.5 miles, run 3 miles at tempo, and cool down 1.5 miles. This is the first tempo run of the plan. Tempo means comfortably hard. Find the ceiling that still feels controlled. The breath should be steady and not ragged. Sustained efforts like this raise the pace you can hold before breathing becomes the limiter. Ease into the effort over the opening minutes instead of starting at full pressure. The session was a success if the final stretch held pace without the form unraveling.
F Strength Training
Sa 8mi Long Run
8 miles easy. This is the first long run of the plan, and it sets your starting point. Keep it conversational from start to finish. Most runners find the back half feels longer than the front, even at the same easy effort. The long run climbs from 8 to 16 miles by week 7. Note how the late miles feel. That information shapes the weeks ahead.
Su 5.5mi Medium-Long Run
5.5 miles the day after the long run. The point is running on tired legs without piling on intensity. Keep the pace conversational. If you cannot speak in full sentences, slow down.
The aerobic system runs on a slower clock than you do, so the easy days this week are doing more than they feel like they are. Mitochondria multiply, new capillaries grow, and tendon and bone slowly toughen. None of it announces itself in the moment. Keep the easy efforts easy, even when the legs offer more. The hard days will give you something to feel. The easy ones will give you something to race on.
M 6mi Easy Run
6 miles easy, at a conversational pace. With a tempo and a long run already behind you, this run should feel routine. Keep it easy enough that tomorrow's intervals get fresh legs.
Tu Intervals: 5×0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
Warm up 2 miles, run 5 × 0.5 mile at goal pace (7:57/mile) with 400 m jogs between, and cool down 2 miles. One more rep than the 4 × 0.5 mile session, at the same pace. The work succeeds when the final rep is as clean as the first. The rest between reps is what lets the work stay fast from first to last. Use the recoveries fully. Jogging slowly between reps is part of the session, not time off from it.
W 6mi Easy Run
Recovery between harder days is what makes the speed work possible. Pace true and breathing relaxed. This run keeps the rhythm of training alive without over-taxing your legs.
Th 6.5mi Tempo Run with 3.5mi @ Tempo
Warm up 1.5 miles, run 3.5 miles at tempo, and cool down 1.5 miles. Slightly longer than the 3-mile tempo before it. The effort should still feel sustainable for the full block. This session is steady, comfortably hard running, held without surging. If the pace feels heroic in the first mile, it will feel impossible in the last. If you finished able to imagine one more mile, the effort was judged right.
F Strength Training
Sa 9.5mi Long Run
9.5 miles at easy aerobic effort. Long runs build the endurance to hold pace through the second half of the half. Keep the pace conversational the whole way. Negative splits if anything.
Su 6.5mi Medium-Long Run
6.5 miles the day after the long run. This is the back-to-back that teaches the legs to keep going when tired. Take it slow. There is no time goal today.
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Daily coaching notes, nutrition guidance, reschedule logic, and strength placement.
Plan Strengths
- Goal pace is held, never pushed: the reps get longer and more numerous while the pace stays put, so race pace becomes familiar rather than frantic.
- A long run followed the next morning by a medium-long teaches your legs to run on fatigue without adding hard work.
- Lighter weeks on a schedule and a three-week taper, so you build in cycles and come down off the peak before race day.
- Monday and Wednesday stay easy on either side of Tuesday's reps, and no hard day in the plan follows another.
Weaknesses & Gaps
- The peak week (week 7, about 63 miles) asks for a bit more mileage than a sub-1:45 half needs.
- The week after the first cutback (week 5) is the sharpest jump in load, going straight into full-mile repeats, a 13.5-mile long run and a 9.5-mile run the next day.
- At 16 miles, the longest run reaches a little past what this goal calls for, so keep that run relaxed.
What's missing
More strides, hill work, a tune-up race, and a slightly lighter peak week are all small changes you can make yourself. Strides show up only the day before the race, and they are a cheap, low-risk way to practice running fast. Add 4 to 6 of about 20 seconds after two easy runs a week, starting in week 2. There's no hill work, so if your race has climbs, run one of the easy runs each week on rolling ground and keep the effort conversational on the way up. There's no tune-up race either. You don't need one, but if you want to practice pacing, swap a short race for one Thursday tempo in the sharpen block and hold it to goal half marathon effort. It will tell you more about your pacing than about your fitness, which is the right way to treat it. And the peak week runs a little heavy for this goal. If it feels like too much, trim a mile or two from the easy runs early in that week and leave the key sessions alone.
What the science supports
Shifting training emphasis beats unchanging training
Four phases organize the 10-week build. Weeks 1 and 2 establish aerobic base. Sharpen runs from week 3 through week 8, with a cutback in week 4, climbing intervals and tempos, peak volume in week 7 and the biggest interval set, 8 x 1 mile, in week 8. A taper week and race week then step volume down while keeping intensity alive. Changing the emphasis across a build usually beats repeating the same weeks, though the measured gain is modest.
Filipas et al. 2021; Bradbury et al. 2020; Sandbakk et al. 2025
Keep easy days easy, hard days hard
Six running days a week: two are genuinely hard. One is an interval session at half-marathon pace. The other is a threshold tempo. The remaining four run easy or medium-long at conversational effort. Trained runners who work this way tend to improve more than those who run most days at a medium effort. The easy days leave room for the hard ones to be hard.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Casado et al. 2022; Kenneally et al. 2018
Mix easy and hard instead of steady medium
Three run formats rotate across the week. Half-marathon-pace intervals start at 4 reps and climb to 8. Threshold tempos run 3 miles extending to 4. Easy or medium-long runs stay at conversational pace. Intervals rehearse goal pace, tempos target threshold, and easy runs build aerobic base. Mixing easy running with clearly hard sessions may build endurance better than long stretches at one steady, moderate-hard effort, though recent reviews find the edge is small. This week never settles into that single effort.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Rosenblat et al. 2019; Casado et al. 2022
Strength training makes running more efficient
Strength training sits on the calendar every Friday from week 1 through the taper week, the week 7 peak included, and drops out only in race week. The slot holds even when the running around it is at its heaviest. For trained runners, strength work usually improves running economy by 2 to 8 percent, trimming the energy cost of a given pace while VO2 max barely moves.
Blagrove et al. 2018; Balsalobre-Fernández et al. 2016; Šuc et al. 2022
A real taper sharpens you for race day
Week 9 cuts volume about 14 percent, and race week cuts roughly another third. The interval set drops to 5 x 1 mile and a 3-mile tempo holds in week 9, then race week keeps only 3 x 1 mile at goal pace. The point is staying sharp without fatigue. Cutting volume while keeping some speed improves race performance compared with not tapering, which is where 10 weeks of training become usable.
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