Running Plan Review Hal Higdon Marathon: Advanced 1

Does it build you up smartly?

Partly. The load builds and eases in a sensible arc, but the speed sessions are barely written down, and the hard work never changes in kind.

Higdon asks for off-season speedwork before you start Advanced 1, so the plan expects you to arrive used to running fast. Yet the speed day is the one the printed schedule says least about. A Thursday reads as a count and little else: three hill repeats, or four 800-meter repeats, with an easy mile on either side. How long the hill is, how hard to run it and how much to rest are left to you, and the book leaves turning hills, tempo runs and repeats into real sessions to the runner. In effect, the plan trusts you to be your own coach on Thursdays. A runner who has built speed sessions before can do that. A runner who hasn't will be guessing on the plan's most important midweek day.

The plan's mileage, long runs and hard miles all grow through the build and then taper, which is the right shape. What doesn't move is the kind of hard work. Shifting the emphasis from one block of weeks to the next tends to produce better races than holding training the same throughout. Here, the same rotation of hills, tempo and track repeats runs from week 1 to week 17, and the goal-pace Saturdays start in week 1 too. The sessions get longer, from 3 hill repeats to 7 and from four 800-meter repeats to eight, but week 15 asks for the same kinds of effort as week 3. Higdon's thinking is that one faster session a week, on top of a deep base of easy miles, sharpens you without wearing you down. Some runners like that steadiness. But it never gives your body a few weeks to focus on one kind of fitness before moving to the next.

What the plan gets fully right is its lighter weeks. A lighter week comes in weeks 6, 9, 12, 14 and 16, and after week 6 you're never more than two weeks from the next one. Those lighter weeks are when the training of the weeks before turns into fitness, and late in the plan the long runs follow the same rhythm: 20 miles, then 12, then 20 again.

Does it protect you from injury?

In part. The plan protects you well in several ways, but it leaves out strength work and climbs steeply in a couple of places.

Start with strength. Strength training lowers the risk of sports injury, and does it better than stretching does. The book leaves the content of strength work to you and says first-time marathoners can skip it. This plan isn't for first-timers, but nothing on its schedule makes room for strength. With six days of running and only Friday free, fitting it in around Thursday's speed and the long weekend is something you'll have to work out yourself.

Then the climb. Most weeks build gradually, but a few steps are steep, and the steepest comes right after the half marathon in week 9. You race 13 miles on Sunday, and the very next week asks for nearly half again as much running, ending in a 19-miler. Week 11 then adds the first 20-miler. Sharp rises in weekly running raise the risk of injury, and many running injuries seem to start suddenly, often after a training error the week before. Your legs may still feel the race on Tuesday's 9 miles. If they do, keep the easy days truly easy and let Sunday's long run be slow.

The rest of the protection is good. Friday's rest always sits between them, so Thursday's speed and Saturday's goal-pace run never land on consecutive days. Every Thursday session opens and closes with an easy mile. The lighter weeks come often. And the book gives real space to staying healthy, including a chapter on running in a pool when you're hurt. Aches that hang around between runs seem to raise the odds of a full injury that stops you running, so read those pages before you need them.

What happens when you miss a day?

Eighteen weeks is long enough for something to go sideways: a missed 20-miler in week 11, or a Thursday with no hill within reach. When that happens, the useful question is which runs to keep.

This plan doesn't rank them. The book lets you swap days and miss a single day, though not two in a row, but there's no list saying which run to drop first when the week gets short. And if you lose a whole week, nothing tells you whether to go back and run it again or carry on from where the calendar says you are.

The shape of the week helps. Friday is free every week, so a missed easy run has somewhere to go without pushing Thursday's speed and Saturday's goal-pace run together. A lost long run is harder to place. With Sunday already taken and Saturday often at goal pace, moving one means rearranging the weekend, and that call is yours.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes. This is the plan's strongest area, and it's built around the long run.

Long runs are essential to marathon training, and shorter, faster sessions can't stand in for them. Advanced 1 builds Sunday from 10 miles to 20, then runs three 20-milers, with a 12-miler between each. By race week, 20 miles is a distance your legs know, and you'll have learned what the last few of them feel like.

The Saturday runs at goal pace add the race-specific part. They start at 5 miles and reach 10, and each one is a chance to settle into the rhythm you'll hold on race day until it stops feeling like something you have to think about. Thursday's tempo runs grow from 30 minutes to 45, building the steady, sustained effort a marathon draws on, and that kind of fitness comes from running at it.

The half marathon at the end of week 9 puts you on a real start line, with race nerves, and gives you a result that tells you whether your goal pace fits. There are nine weeks left to adjust it.

Then the plan eases off over three weeks. The long run drops to 12 miles, then 8, and race week is light: Thursday and Friday off, and an easy 2 miles on Saturday. Compared with holding training steady, a taper like this tends to make runners 2 to 6 percent faster on race day.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Marathon fitness is built mostly on easy miles, which carry the harder training and help your body adapt to it. On top of that base, clearly hard sessions build more endurance than steady, medium-effort running does.

Advanced 1 gets this right. About three quarters of your running is easy. The hard running comes in four kinds: hill repeats for strong legs, tempo runs for sustained effort, 800-meter repeats on the track for speed, and Saturday runs at goal pace. The Thursday rotation means you never do the same hard session two weeks in a row, and a tempo run and a goal-pace Saturday never land in the same week, so each hard week has its own character.

But hills come only one week in three, and the plan has no strides or other short, quick running on its easy days.