Running Plan Review Jack Daniels 18-Week Marathon for Novices

Does it build you up smartly?

A marathon build should start with what you can do and add one kind of work at a time, so each new demand lands on a body that has settled into the last one. Plans that change emphasis in stages like this tend to work better than plans that hold one kind of training all the way through. A good build also tells you exactly what each day asks.

Daniels gets the order right, and the walk-run start is the best of it. A minute of jogging counts here, and the minutes grow from there: 1, then 2, then 4, then 15 to 20 without stopping. Through week 9, each phase lasts 2 or 3 weeks and adds one thing. Then the long runs and marathon-effort runs arrive, the work a marathon needs. Most sessions say what they're for, so you always know why you're out there.

But the later weeks are written more loosely. From week 10, the schedule names 2 sessions a week and calls the other days easy without saying how long they are, so how much you run between the key sessions is left to you. A runner this new to the sport has little to go on in making that call.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. Of everything in this plan, protecting a new runner from injury is where it falls furthest short.

Daniels' reason for early comfortably hard running is sound on its own terms. Holding that effort, he explains, teaches your body to clear the byproducts of hard running, and that's what lets you hold a strong pace for longer. The question is timing. Your heart, lungs and blood tend to adapt within the first few weeks of running, while tendons usually take weeks to a few months, and bone is likely slower still, with changes that take months to show. So a runner who could jog 20 minutes in week 1 can start week 6 with lungs that feel ready and bones that haven't caught up.

Week 6 is where that matters most. If you run 3 days, your runs go from all easy to all hard in a single week, so the week asks far more of your legs than the ones before it, even though the weekly miles grow only modestly. In week 8 the hard part grows from a few minutes to 20 without a break. Five times in the plan, a hard day follows a hard day, most often Sunday into Monday. Over the whole plan, about 3 of every 10 miles are at comfortably hard or marathon effort. Most coaches want easy running to be most of a runner's mileage, the base that carries the harder work, and hard days do their job best when the days around them stay truly easy. For a 3-day runner in weeks 6 and 7, there are no easy days to speak of.

The weekly running also climbs in two big steps, in week 4 and again in week 12, each adding more than a third to the week before, and weekly jumps that large tend to be a warning sign, especially for newer runners. Relief is scarce, too. In 17 weeks of building, there's one lighter week, in week 10. Daniels repeats each early week 2 or 3 times before raising the demand, which holds the load level for a while. But a repeat isn't a break, and training load that builds without relief tends to raise the risk of injury and illness.

Strength is also left to you. The book gives a detailed strength program, but none of it appears on the schedule, so when to fit it in and what each session includes is up to you. For a new runner, that's a real loss: strength training substantially lowers injury risk in sport.

The plan does some things right. Through week 9 there are 2 days off every week, and the comfortably hard sessions open with easy jogging and walking. The book has tables for coming back after time off. But nothing on the schedule tells you what to watch for before you need them. Many runners find that a lingering ache from one run to the next comes before a full injury, though the research on it is early. If your shin or Achilles is still talking to you on the next run, that's the moment to back off.

What happens when you miss a day?

The plan tells you which runs to keep. Three sessions each week are the core, and the other 2 are optional extras. So if you can only fit 3 runs into a week, you already know which 3, and dropping the extras costs you little. From week 10, the week centers on 2 named sessions, which makes the priorities even clearer: protect those two, and run easy around them.

But nothing on the schedule covers a missed week or two. You won't find whether to repeat the week, move on, or fit the missing sessions into the days ahead. The book has tables for easing back after a longer break, and they're useful. But they sit in another chapter, and for a shorter gap, working out the change is up to you.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Race day is a test of endurance more than speed. Many runners find that long runs that grow toward the distance prepare them best, and marathoners who run longer ones tend to finish faster, though no study has tested whether shorter sessions could do the same. For most first-time marathoners, race effort and the comfortably hard effort you could hold for about an hour are different kinds of running, and training at either one is a reasonable way to prepare.

This plan does the comfortably hard part well. From week 6 to race week, nearly every week has some, in many forms and growing longer. It also gives you 2 long stretches at marathon effort, 1 hour 45 minutes in week 12 and 2 hours 15 minutes in week 16. For someone who began with 1-minute jogs, that second one is a remarkable thing to have done: more than 2 hours at the exact effort you'll race at, a few weeks before you race.

The long run falls short. It peaks at 2 and a half hours in week 15, and nothing in the plan goes further. For a first-timer, race day will last a good deal longer than that, and the last part of the marathon will be the longest you've ever kept moving.

The taper falls short too. Most coaches ease off for 1 to 3 weeks before a marathon, running less as the race gets close. Here it goes the other way. Race week puts 6 runs before the marathon, starting with 90 minutes and including a comfortably hard session 4 days before the race. If you've been running 3 days a week, race week is the most running you'll have done in a while, in the week most coaches keep lightest.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. You'll train in many different ways, and each one has its own job.

Most coaches build endurance from a mix of easy running and clearly hard sessions of different kinds, rather than everything at one steady medium effort. Each kind of run asks something different of your body, and together they cover more ground than any one could alone.

This plan uses the whole set. Walk-run, easy running, short and long comfortably hard pieces, long runs, and long stretches at marathon effort all appear, and the hard sessions change shape almost every week: 5 short pieces with walks in one phase, 20 unbroken minutes in the next, then blocks of 6, 10, 12 and 16 minutes in the weeks before the race. In week 14, one session even puts an hour of easy running between two sets of comfortably hard pieces. Strides, short relaxed bursts of speed, appear in weeks 8 and 9. For a runner who likes knowing what each day is for, this is engaging training to follow.