Running Plan Review Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2
By Hal Higdon's Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide — Hal Higdon Requires purchase Visit plan website
Plan at a Glance
I like to think of Intermediate 1 as an endurance-based program. Nothing fast or fancy. Just go out and run some more miles than you did in the novice programs. Intermediate 2 features speedwork on Wednesdays, alternating between interval running at the track and tempo runs, possibly in the woods. (A tempo run is where you start slow, gradually accelerate to near 10K pace, hold, then decelerate to the slow pace at which you began.)
Below is Buena Vida's full review of the plan. We score every plan against our detailed, 31-point benchmark. Each measure is drawn from peer-reviewed sports-science research and proven coaching best practices.
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Our Review
Two fast gears, not one, is the reason to pick this plan. You have finished a half marathon or two, you hold an hour on your feet most weekends, and a next one sits twelve weeks out that you want faster. This is the only half-marathon build in Hal Higdon's lineup that puts real speed on the calendar.
The Wednesday slot is what sets this plan apart. You alternate two kinds of fast running week to week. One week is track work, short and sharp: 5 by 400 meters at 5K pace, adding a rep at a time until you hit 10 by 400 in week ten. The next is a humpbacked tempo, drifting up to near 10K pace, holding, then easing down. The two teach your legs different things. Run the 400s honestly fast and your easy days honestly slow, because the gap between them is where your gain hides.
Three tune-up races sit in the build, a 5K in week three, a 10K in week six, and a 15K in week nine, each on a lighter step-back week. The long run climbs to 12 miles in week eleven, then a single taper week leads into race day. This fits an intermediate runner with a half or two behind them, near 30 miles a week, who wants two fast gears rather than one. The calendar pairs with Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide, which holds the parts the grid keeps terse: the humpbacked-tempo recipe, the talk-test pacing, two injury chapters. If you only want to finish a first half, start with a novice plan; chasing a sub-1:30 on 50-plus miles, this build will feel light.
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Structure
Does the plan build you up smartly?
This 12-week build moves in waves. Most weeks add about a mile to the long run and a rep to the track session, then every third week steps back for a tune-up race. You get a recognizable climb toward race fitness rather than a flat repeat. The plan layers more miles and more speed in the same stretches, though, instead of splitting them into named blocks.
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Prevention
Does the plan protect you from injury?
Your week is built so hard efforts never stack. The midweek speed day and the Sunday long run sit far apart, the step-back weeks drop your load, and no single jump runs away from your recent average. What it does not give you is strength work on any day, which is the one durability piece you will have to schedule yourself.
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Flexibility
What happens when you miss a day?
The plan reads as a clean grid of distances, which is easy to follow but quiet on the why. If you miss days or want to swap a session, the rules for that live in Higdon's book rather than on the calendar. Day-to-day judgment falls to you and whatever you remember from the chapters.
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Readiness
Will the plan deliver race-day fitness?
Race readiness is the strong side here. Your half-marathon-pace runs grow from 3 to 5 miles, and three tune-up races teach you how to start and hold an effort. The long run reaches 12 miles one week out. The only soft spot is the wind-down: a single taper week is short if your legs carry fatigue into race week.
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Variety
Are the workouts varied enough?
Variety is the reason to pick this plan over the gentler half-marathon builds in this family. You run easy days, a long run, half-marathon-pace runs, track intervals, humpbacked tempo runs, and three tune-up races. That is six or more distinct kinds of running, and the two fast formats trade off week to week so no hard session feels like last week's.
Plan Strengths
- Your Wednesday fast day never repeats the same shape two weeks running. You alternate 5K-pace 400s on the track with a rising-then-falling tempo run, so you build a quick gear and a sustained-hard gear at once.
- The track reps grow one at a time, from 5 by 400 in week one to 10 by 400 by week ten. You add fast work in doses small enough that your legs absorb each step before the next.
- Every third weekend is a real tune-up race, a 5K then a 10K then a 15K, and each lands on a lighter week. You get to practice pacing and starting under a bib while your training miles back off.
- Your half-marathon-pace runs stretch from 3 miles up to 5 across the build, so goal effort sits in your legs well before the start line.
- Hard days and easy days stay apart all week, with the track or tempo midweek and the long run on Sunday. Your fast efforts land on rested legs every time.
- You reach a 12-mile peak long run on legs already sharpened by two fast formats. Race day then asks for barely a mile more than you have covered, at an effort your track and tempo work has rehearsed.
Weaknesses & gaps
- No strength session ever appears on a training day. Higdon's book argues for light weights and high reps, but the routine, the days, and the load are left entirely to you.
- Your speed days and tune-up races all start cold. The grid puts a one-mile warmup on the track sessions but never spells out the leg swings or easy strides that should come first.
- Only seven days separate the 12-mile peak in week eleven from the start line. That single wind-down week runs tight if you tend to arrive at races with fatigue still in your legs.
- Miss the Wednesday speed day to a cold or a deadline and the grid prints no way back in. Higdon's rule, never go two days without running, sits in a book chapter rather than beside the week you lost.
- The tempo run is described only as a humpbacked effort, with no pace numbers on the page. You are left to judge how fast near-10K pace should feel before you ever run it.
- Why a given session sits where it does is left unspoken. The grid prints a distance and a workout name but no purpose, so the logic of the build is something you infer rather than read off the page.
What this plan does not give you
The gap unique to this faster build is the tempo run, which the grid calls humpbacked without printing a single pace number. The recipe lives in the book: drift up to near 10K effort, hold there, then ease back to your starting jog. Read that page before your first Wednesday tempo lands. Strength work is the next blank spot, since no session ever reaches the grid even though light weights and high reps are advised. Two short sessions a week, kept clear of your track day, is a sound default. Warm-ups are thin too, with only a one-mile jog before the 400s and no leg swings or strides on the page. Add a few minutes of easy movement before every fast effort. And if illness or a busy stretch costs you days, the calendar offers no catch-up rule, so repeat the prior week rather than cram the lost miles back in.
What the science supports
Varied intensity beats steady moderate pace
This plan runs two different fast formats instead of one. The Wednesday slot alternates 5K-pace 400-meter repeats on the track with a tempo run that rises to near 10K effort and falls back. Mixing interval and tempo-style fast running builds the engine better than steady moderate miles alone. That is why the alternating speed day is the plan's strongest design choice for an intermediate runner.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Rosenblat et al. 2019; Casado et al. 2022
Easy aerobic volume is the foundation
Most of the week is easy running, three to five relaxed miles on several days around the one hard session. That easy base, climbing to about 30 miles a week by week ten, is the foundation the fast work sits on. The gentle days are not filler. They are the volume that lets your track reps and tempo runs actually do their job without breaking you down.
Haugen et al. 2022; Casado et al. 2022; Tønnessen et al. 2014
Long runs are essential for marathon
The Sunday long run grows about a mile most weeks, from 5 miles up to 12 by week eleven. That steady climb teaches your legs to keep going for the time a half marathon takes. Short, faster sessions cannot stand in for it. The plan therefore keeps a long run on the calendar nearly every week and lets it peak just before the taper.
Toresdahl et al. 2021; Jones & Kirby 2025; Casado et al. 2019
Keep easy days easy, hard days hard
The plan keeps a clear line between hard and easy. The one fast midweek session, a track or tempo day, sits well away from the Sunday long run, with relaxed three-mile days in between. Keeping easy days truly easy and hard days truly hard works better than a steady diet of medium efforts, and this schedule's spacing is built to protect exactly that separation.
Stöggl & Sperlich 2014; Casado et al. 2022; Kenneally et al. 2017
Tapering improves race performance by 2-6%
After the 12-mile long run in week eleven, the final week winds down into the half marathon. Mileage drops while a short tempo stays in to keep the legs sharp. Cutting training load for a week or so before a goal race lets the body arrive fresh and can lift performance by a few percent. The plan's one-week taper for the half follows that pattern, if briefly.
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Frequently asked questions
- Is Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2 good for beginners?
- No. Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2 is built for intermediate-level runners. A true beginner should start with a lower-mileage plan.
- How many days per week does Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2 require?
- The plan runs on a schedule of multiple weekly runs. See the at-a-glance strip for the exact count.
- Does Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2 include a taper?
- Yes, the plan includes a taper into race week.
- What is the rubric grade for Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2?
- Higdon Half Marathon: Intermediate 2 grades C on the Buena Vida rubric.