Running Plan Review Buena Vida Run Club's 10-Week Sub-1:45 Half Marathon (6 days)
Plan at a Glance
Most half marathon plans give the runner a rest day. Six-day plans don't, and that single choice changes everything else about the training week. Recovery has to be earned through honest easy-day pacing instead of through a calendar gap. The legs never get a full reset, which means easy days have to actually stay easy and the runner has to know what easy actually feels like.
A sub-1:45 half marathon means holding 7:57 per mile for thirteen miles. The first six feel like a workout pace a strong runner has touched before. The real question gets asked between miles 8 and 11, when fatigue arrives and the finish is still a few miles away. Plans built for this time goal teach the legs to hold pace under that kind of fatigue, not just to reach it on rested legs.
This is Buena Vida's ten-week, six-day version, written for runners who already train six mornings a week and want the highest-volume swing at the time. Peak mileage sits at 62 a week. The signature move is a long run paired with a medium-long aerobic effort across eight non-deload weekends, the second run starting from already-tired legs. Weekly strength holds through the peak. The taper trims across two cutback weeks plus race week.
Below is Buena Vida's full review of this plan. We hold every plan to our detailed, 31-point benchmark, with each measure pulled from peer-reviewed sports-science research and proven coaching best practices.
Similar plans
Our Review
If you're chasing sub-1:45 and you can give six mornings a week to running, this plan is what those six days can do. Two harder running days plus a long-plus-medium-long stack on the weekend. Weekly strength, and easy aerobic miles to glue it together. The shape concentrates load without leaving room for filler.
The training lever this plan pulls hardest is the Saturday-Sunday back-to-back. You'll pair a long run with a medium-long aerobic effort every non-deload weekend, the second run leaving from already-tired legs. You're not training Sunday from a recovered state, and you won't race the closing 5K from one either. Eight back-to-back weekends across the plan are what teach the legs to hold 7:57 when fatigue is the deciding variable.
This is the version of the sub-1:45 build that asks for the most days and gives back the most volume. Peak sits at 62 miles a week (ten more than the 5-day version, fourteen more than the 4-day). You won't have a full rest day in any week; recovery happens through honest easy-day pacing instead of through a day off. The match is a runner who already trains six days, sleeps well, and treats easy miles like the foundation they are. If your base sits below 25 or your weekly rhythm runs closer to five days, the 5-day sub-1:45 plan will do more for you than this one will.
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Structure
Does the plan build you up smartly?
Volume and speed climb on separate clocks, and that is what keeps the build honest. Five named phases run base to race week, with a 3:1 mesocycle pattern that drops a deliberate cutback in week 4 before the second block stacks. Mileage peaks in week 7, the hardest interval session lands in week 8, so the two heaviest stresses never arrive together. A 2-week taper carries fresh legs to the start line.
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Prevention
Does the plan protect you from injury?
Mostly, with one tradeoff baked into the format. Strength sits on the calendar once a week, hard days are always split by easy or medium-long running, and the worst week's load stays under the line where injury risk climbs. Where it asks something of you: six running days a week means there is no rest day on the calendar, so recovery is earned through honest easy pacing rather than a day off. The week notes carry the sleep and fueling cues that a rest day would otherwise enforce.
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Flexibility
What happens when you miss a day?
Miss an easy day and the plan absorbs it without complaint. Every workout carries a priority, so when a week gets short you can see which intervals or long run to protect and which easy miles to drop first. The two pace anchors (a goal-pace number and an effort-tier tempo) mean a session still works if your watch dies. What the plan does not spell out is how to make up a long run you lost outright. That call stays with you.
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Readiness
Will the plan deliver race-day fitness?
Race-day fitness is rehearsed, not assumed. Goal-pace intervals build from short reps to 8 by 1 mile, and the peak long run buries 3 miles at 7:57 inside 16, so the legs practice goal pace on an already-tired engine. A race-week primer touches the pace one last time on fresh legs. The 2-week taper sheds the fatigue while keeping that sharpness intact.
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Variety
Are the workouts varied enough?
The interval sessions never repeat the same shape twice. Across the plan the reps move from 4 by half a mile to 8 by a full mile, and tempo runs stretch alongside them, so the work keeps asking something new of an experienced runner. Easy, medium-long, long, intervals, tempo, and race-week strides fill out the menu. Run formats this varied keep a six-day week from going stale.
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.
Day one of a ten-week build toward something hard, and the first job is just to settle into the rhythm of training six days a week. If that load is more than you have been doing recently, your body will tell you in the second half of the week, and that is fine. The first seven days are not about proving anything. They are about getting the calendar to feel ordinary, because everything we ask of you later assumes that part is already in place.
M 5.5mi Easy Run
The first run of the plan should feel almost too easy. Finish with energy left in the tank. That is week 1 done right. Miles like these are where the base quietly accumulates, one unremarkable run at a time.
Tu Intervals: 4x0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
Run a 2 mile warmup. Then 4 reps of 0.5 mile at half marathon goal pace with 400 meters recovery jog between reps. Close with a 2 mile cooldown. First harder session of the plan. 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
First tempo run of the plan. Run a 1.5 mile warmup. Then 3 miles at comfortably hard effort. Close with a 1.5 mile cooldown. 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 first few minutes rather than hitting it cold. The session landed if the final stretch held pace without the form unraveling.
F Strength Training
Sa 8mi Long Run
First long run of the plan. 8 miles, easy and aerobic. This run sets your starting point. The long run grows from here through week 7. The long run starts here and climbs from 8 to 16 miles by week 7. Today sets the rhythm that climb is built on. 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 quietly doing more than they feel like they are. Mitochondrial density, capillary growth, the small structural adaptations in tendon and bone, none of it announces itself in the moment. Keep the easy efforts honest and let them be boring. The hard days will give you something to feel; the easy ones will give you something to race on.
M 6mi Easy Run
Week 2 opens with another conversational day. The first tempo and first long run are behind you. This run should feel routine. Easy days exist to let the harder days land, and they only work if they stay easy.
Tu Intervals: 5x0.5mi @ ½ Marathon
Run a 2 mile warmup. Then 5 reps of 0.5 mile at half marathon goal pace with 400 meters recovery jog between reps. Close with a 2 mile cooldown. One more rep than last week 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 sharp from first to last. Use the recoveries fully. Slowing down between reps is part of doing the work.
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 while asking almost nothing in return.
Th 6.5mi Tempo Run with 3.5mi @ Tempo
Run a 1.5 mile warmup. Then 3.5 miles at threshold effort. Close with a 1.5 mile cooldown. Slightly longer than last week's tempo. The effort should still feel sustainable for the full block. This session teaches the body to clear effort while still working, which is what race pace leans on. 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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All 10 weeks in the app
Daily coaching notes, nutrition guidance, reschedule logic, and strength placement.
Plan Strengths
- Eight Saturday-Sunday back-to-backs sit across the plan. By race day, running long on tired legs is not a question; it is a habit your legs already know.
- The peak long run in week 7 sandwiches three miles at 7:57 between a 6.5-mile warmup and a 6.5-mile cooldown. It is the rehearsal for miles 8 to 11 on race day. Goal pace, on legs already two-thirds spent.
- Six running days means the weekend back-to-back never falls on rested legs. You learn to hold pace from a state of running-honest fatigue, which is the state race day arrives in.
- A real deload at week 4 and a separate step-down at week 8. Load stays under control across both build cycles and the body gets two distinct windows to absorb work before the taper.
- Interval reps grow from four half-mile efforts to eight mile repeats, so the hardest session keeps pace honest while the volume climbs.
- Two-week taper trims volume across two cutback weeks plus race week. Pace work stays on the calendar through race week so the memory holds.
Weaknesses & Gaps
- The 6-day schedule leaves no full rest day across ten weeks. Sleep, food, and easy-day discipline have to be in place before week one.
- Hill work and weekly strides are referenced but not built into every week as their own session.
- One week jumps about 71 percent coming out of the week-4 cutback, the steepest single step in the plan.
What's missing
The six-day schedule leaves no full rest day across the ten weeks, so sleep, food, and easy-day discipline have to be in good shape before week one; recovery here is something you earn through honest easy pacing rather than a day off. Stride work and hill work get mentioned but aren't built into every week as their own session, so a runner who wants those stimuli consistently has to fold them into the warmup of an existing easy day. The build is mostly controlled, but the jump out of the week-4 cutback is the steepest step in the plan, so treat that first week back as a ramp rather than a target to chase. None of these are dealbreakers, though they ask the runner to bring some self-direction.
What the science supports
Periodization beats constant-load training
Five phases organize the 10-week build. The first two establish aerobic base. Weeks 3–7 sharpen through climbing intervals and tempos; week 8 concentrates peak speed work; then a two-week taper steps volume down while keeping intensity alive. Each phase builds on the last. Base fitness enables hard sessions; hard sessions demand and shape the base; the taper allows it all to express on race day.
Bradbury et al. 2020; Tønnessen et al. 2014; Casado et al. 2022
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. Hard days land cleanly because easy days are genuinely easy. Easy days build aerobic base because hard days don't steal all their adaptation budget. Separation makes both work.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Casado et al. 2022; Kenneally et al. 2017
Varied intensity beats steady moderate pace
Three run formats rotate across the week. Half-marathon-pace intervals start at four reps and climb to eight. Threshold tempos run three miles extending to four. Easy or medium-long runs stay at conversational pace. No day sits in moderate middle ground. Intervals target VO2 max; tempos target threshold; easy runs target aerobic base. Running at one moderate effort all week leaves all three adaptations half-built. Mixing them delivers the full picture.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Rosenblat et al. 2019; Casado et al. 2022
Strength training improves running economy
Strength training sits on the calendar every week through the entire build, including the 62-mile peak. The plan doesn't name specific exercises, but the weekly anchor point signals the design decision: building leg and core strength to improve stride power and efficiency. Research consistently shows runners who add strength training get faster at the same oxygen cost. This plan treats strength as non-negotiable, not as optional add-on.
Blagrove et al. 2018; Balsalobre-Fernández et al. 2016; Šuc et al. 2022
Tapering improves race performance by 2-6%
Week 9 cuts volume about 13 percent; race week cuts another third. Intervals and tempos shrink but stay on the calendar. The point is staying sharp without fatigue. By race morning, you've built the fitness and cleared the accumulated load. That two-week taper is where the 10 weeks of training become executable on the day.
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