Running Plan Review Andrew Kastor Running Your First Marathon

Does it build you up smartly?

The order is right. What the schedule leaves out is the reason behind each hard day, and sometimes how to run it.

This is the schedule Kastor gave the LA Road Runners group, and it builds the way a coach builds a group of first-timers. Six weeks of nothing but easy running come first. Then one goal-pace session a week arrives, growing a step at a time, next to a long run that keeps climbing. Weeks 6, 9 and 12 are lighter, and a lighter week lets fatigue clear so your body can absorb the work before it. A 3-week taper finishes it. Training that shifts its emphasis in stages, from base to build to taper, produces better races than training that holds one load throughout. Nothing in Kastor's version is unusual, and that's a strength. It's a proven shape for a first marathon, laid out plainly.

But read the schedule on its own and you'll find mostly distances, with a pace on the hard days. Only 4 of its 14 hard sessions say what they're for, and some leave out how to run them. The 800-meter repeats are the clearest case. Between each one you walk for as long as the repeat took, and that walk is what makes them a gentle rehearsal of goal pace rather than a hard interval session. It's explained in another part of the book, not on the day. Swap it for a short jog, as most interval sessions would have you do, and the session gets a lot harder than Kastor intended.

Does it protect you from injury?

Mostly. But two things leave you more exposed than you need to be: a crowded week 7, and strength work that never reaches the schedule.

There's growing evidence that many injuries that look like slow wear and tear actually start suddenly, set off by a training error in the week before. A sharp rise in weekly running is one such error. Several new, harder sessions arriving at once is another.

Week 7 has both. Week 6 is a lighter week. Week 7 adds back about 10 miles of running, and the plan's first two hard sessions arrive in the same week: 800-meter repeats at goal pace on Thursday, then on Sunday the first marathon simulation, an 11-mile run with 4 miles at goal pace near the end. The next Thursday brings a third new session, 4 miles straight at goal pace. After six weeks of nothing but easy running, that's three new demands in eight days. If something is going to start aching in this plan, weeks 7 and 8 are the likely time, so run them gently. And take any ache that hangs on from one run to the next seriously, because a niggle like that appears to raise the risk of an injury that stops you running.

The second gap is strength. Kastor's book has a chapter of strength and stretching work and asks for 2 to 3 sessions a week. The schedule fills five days with runs and one with cross-training, and leaves strength off entirely. That matters, because strength training substantially lowers the risk of injury in sport. Two sessions a week, on days apart, is also enough for most runners to get its running benefit. Where they go is your call.

Elsewhere, the plan looks after you. There's at least one day of easy running between any two hard sessions. From week 2, Monday is always a day off. Each hard Thursday session has an easy mile at either end. And the book's injury chapter covers 15 common injuries, how to avoid each one, and how to come back.

What happens when you miss a day?

The book gives you clear rules for the weeks that don't go to plan, and the first one is about what to protect.

Kastor calls Saturday and Sunday the two most critical days of every week. So when a week gets crowded, you keep the weekend and let a weekday run go. If you miss a workout, the book says not to make it up. Just get the week's miles in where you can. You're free to move workouts around, and if you catch a cold, you take the time off.

Coming back from an injury has its own rule: wait until almost all of the soreness is gone, restart at about 30 percent of the running you were doing, and add about 10 percent a week, building back your miles before you worry about pace.

The starting bar is clear as well. The book asks for 25 to 35 miles a week before you begin. Week 1 itself is lighter than that, about 13 miles over 4 runs, so a runner with the base will find the first weeks easy. A runner without it will feel the gap by week 7.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes, and this is where the plan is strongest.

On race day, the miles after 20 are the ones you can't fake, and long runs are the only real preparation for them. Kastor gets you to 18 to 20 miles in week 17, three weeks before the race, stepping back in each lighter week on the way. That's also the biggest week of the plan, about 45 miles of running, plenty for a first marathon.

By race morning, you'll have run your goal pace more than a dozen times. The 800-meter repeats grow from 4 to 10, the steady goal-pace runs from 4 miles to 8. The marathon simulations put 4 miles of it near the end of a long run, when your legs have already done some work, which is the closest you'll come in training to how the race's second half feels.

Then, in week 14, the half-marathon time trial sets your goal. The book's rule is to double your half-marathon time and add 10 to 15 minutes, so your target rests on a real result rather than a hope. A time trial doesn't seem to make you any fitter for the marathon. There's some sign it helps you learn to pace a long effort, though that evidence is thin. Its real value here is the number it gives you.

The last 3 weeks taper. The running comes down, the long runs shrink to two shorter marathon simulations, and race week is easy. A taper of 1 to 3 weeks is worth 2 to 6 percent on race day.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes, for a first marathon, and the narrow range is a deliberate choice.

Kastor's rules show what he values. Don't make up a missed workout, just get the week's miles. Protect the weekend. He's a coach who trusts steady weeks more than any single session, and he builds his hard days the same way: as rehearsals of the race, repeated until the pace feels familiar. The shapes change, from 800-meter repeats to mile repeats, steady runs, long runs that finish at goal pace, and a half-marathon test.

But nearly all of that faster running happens at one speed: your goal marathon pace. A shape isn't an effort. Plans that mix clearly hard sessions into mostly easy running build endurance better than plans that settle at one moderate effort. For most first-time marathoners, goal pace sits below threshold, the effort where steady breathing starts to turn labored, and threshold fitness comes from running at threshold. So these sessions teach the race well without raising your ceiling much. Apart from the half-marathon test, the only running faster than goal pace is strides.

The easy running is in good proportion. Close to 9 of every 10 miles are easy, and those easy miles are the base that carries the harder work. Strides show up every week from week 3, and short, fast efforts like these improve running economy, the energy each stride costs you. Friday's cross-training adds aerobic work with less pounding.

If finishing well is the goal, one well-rehearsed pace is a fair trade. If you also want to come out of this a faster runner, you'll want harder running than this plan has.