Running Plan Review Hal Koerner Ultra: 50 Miles to 100K

Does it build you up smartly?

Only partly. Structure is this plan's weakest area.

A good plan changes as it goes. Early weeks build the base, later weeks shift the hard work toward what the race demands, and the plan eases off every few weeks so the training can sink in. Shifting the emphasis from base to build to peak to taper produces better race performance than keeping training the same.

The big arc is sound. Mileage and long runs climb steadily from week 1 to week 12, the biggest weekends arrive in the last third, and the plan tapers into race day.

But the hard sessions don't build toward anything. Runs with short surges and repeated hill climbs cluster in the first 3 weeks and return once in week 8. Tempo runs come every few weeks from week 4 on. The tempo Saturdays grow to 20 miles in week 9, but then they fade instead of building toward race day.

The sessions aren't written out either. The calendar says "6-mile fartlek" or "20-mile tempo run," and that's all it says, with no word on how much of the day is hard or why the session sits in that week.

The "rest" week is the scariest Saturday of the plan. Week 13 has fewer total miles than the week before it, but it also holds the longest run, 30 miles. It's one of only 2 lighter weeks in the 13 before the taper; the other is week 11. Lighter weeks every few weeks let tiredness clear so your body can absorb the work, and they lower your injury risk too. But with so few of them, and one carrying a 30-miler, the plan gives your body little chance to catch up.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. Mileage builds carefully, but the calendar leaves out two protections that matter on a plan this heavy.

Every gap here lands on the same body that's absorbing 25 miles and then 25 more in week 12. Strength is the biggest one. The book talks about strength, core work and cross-training, but none of it appears on the schedule, and when to fit it in is left to you. That's a real hole, since strength training substantially lowers sport-injury risk, more than stretching does.

The hard sessions have no warm-up on the calendar either. The book's advice is to warm up on the run to your hill, but nothing on the schedule reminds you, and the surge runs and tempo runs leave it entirely to you.

The build itself is the plan's best protection. Sharp jumps in weekly running raise injury risk, and this plan doesn't have them. Weekly mileage climbs from 54 to 76 over 12 weeks without a sudden spike, and new kinds of hard work never arrive in a big week. That's no small thing, because higher mileage, built up gradually, is linked to lower injury risk, not higher. The weekends get very big, but they get there a step at a time.

What happens when you miss a day?

Koerner's calendar has no paces, and that turns out to help when a week goes wrong. A missed week doesn't leave you with numbers that no longer fit, because there were never any numbers. You come back to miles and effort, the same as before.

The book backs that up well. It lets you split a day's miles into two runs, swap a hard day with an easy one, and run easy on some of the early rest days. After a setback, it suggests scaling each day's running to how recovered you feel, which is a sensible way back. It's also clear that you need a solid base before you start, and a plan should start at the mileage you already run.

But it doesn't say which runs to protect when you can't do them all. The weekend long runs are clearly the heart of the plan, and most runners would guess to keep those. Still, nothing tells you whether a short week should drop the Saturday tempo run, the Sunday long run or a weekday.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes. The long runs will prepare you well for the distance, but the hill work fades away well before race day.

Nothing gets you through 50 miles like time on your feet. Even at the marathon, long runs that grow week by week can't be replaced by shorter, harder sessions, and that only matters more over 50 miles or 100K. For runners who are already trained, more running tends to build durability and resistance to fatigue, the qualities that carry you through the last hours of a long race.

This plan builds those qualities well. The back-to-back weekends grow from 20 and 15 miles in week 5 to 25 and 20 in week 10, and then to 25 and 25 in week 12. That's 50 miles in a single weekend, 4 weeks before the race. A 30-mile Saturday follows in week 13. By race day, you'll know how your legs feel deep into a long effort. The last 3 weeks ease down, and easing off over the final 1 to 3 weeks improves how runners race.

But the hill work doesn't build toward the race. Koerner's own advice is to rehearse the race's climbs, yet the last hill session on the calendar comes in week 8, 8 weeks out. If your race is hilly, you'll need to add your own climbing to the long runs in the second half of the plan.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Mostly. The easy running is well balanced, but the hard work is thin.

Most of a distance runner's fitness comes from easy miles, which form the base that carries everything harder. About 83 percent of this plan's running is easy, which suits a race this long.

But there isn't much hard running, and it narrows as the plan goes on. There are 12 hard sessions in 16 weeks, of only 3 kinds. From week 4 on, most of them sit inside long Saturday tempo runs, and after week 9 the only hard session left is the occasional tempo run. A few more surge runs or hill climbs on weekdays in the second half would give the plan a sharper edge without taking anything from the weekends.

Short, fast running is also rare. Hill climbs show up in only 3 weeks, and there are no strides anywhere on the schedule. Brief, fast efforts like strides help you run more efficiently, and they take only a few minutes at the end of an easy run. Adding them twice a week costs little and leaves some spring in your legs for the long days.