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This 10K plan from Greg McMillan is the top tier of his 10K book, in the version he writes for Speedsters: runners with a sharp finishing kick who tend to fade once a race stretches out. McMillan holds a master's degree in exercise physiology, built a free online pace calculator out of that research, and counts Arthur Lydiard among his mentors. His own site quotes Amby Burfoot of Runner's World ranking him among America's best distance coaches. Most of the runners he coaches have jobs and families, and his plans are built to fit around them.
What makes this version a Speedster plan is where it puts the work. A plan with that name might be expected to lean on fast repeats. This one holds them back. For 7 weeks, apart from strides, nothing is shorter than a 60 second hill, and the hardest sessions are long sets of miles at goal pace. It trains a fast runner on the side they're weak, stamina, and keeps the speed they already own alive with hills and strides.
The plan is built with real care, and it eases off often enough for the work to sink in. But it leaves strength training off the calendar, and its biggest week arrives straight after the first lighter week, with three new kinds of work landing at once. For an experienced runner who is healthy and already training at this level, it can make a fast 10K faster. For a runner coming back from injury, week 5 is a real risk.
Rank
| Structure | 4 | |
| Prevention | 3 | |
| Flexibility | 3 | |
| Readiness | 4 | |
| Variety | 5 |
The plan runs for 12 weeks with no named phases, but it moves in a clear order. The first half leans on stamina: hill repeats, sustained efforts at a comfortably hard pace, and long sets of mile repeats at goal pace. From week 8, short and fast running joins in, with 200 meter sprints, 400s and 800s. Two Sundays in the back half are time trials at goal pace, or a 5K tune up race in their place. Weeks 4, 8, 10 and 12 are lighter, and the last of them ends with the race.
Easy runs and long runs are ranges in minutes, and no pace is printed anywhere. You find your paces through McMillan's online calculator, from a recent race. Mondays and Fridays are printed as easy runs, but the book lets you swap either one for cross training or a day off, so a week holds 5 to 7 runs.
It's written for runners who already train 5 to 7 days a week and have a 2 hour long run behind them.
A week with McMillan
Here is week 9, from the back half of the plan.
MONDAY is 45 to 60 minutes easy, or cross training, or a day off.
TUESDAY is a strides day: 10 to 12 strides of 30 seconds each, with a minute of jogging after each one. A stride is a short, fast stretch run smoothly, well short of a sprint.
WEDNESDAY is 40 to 60 minutes easy.
THURSDAY is the hard day. You run 2 miles at goal pace, jog for 5 minutes, run another 2 miles, then finish with 2 single miles at the same pace, jogging 3 minutes between them.
FRIDAY is 40 to 60 minutes easy, or cross training, or a day off.
SATURDAY is 50 to 60 minutes easy.
SUNDAY is a 105 minute run, with the last 10 to 20 minutes fast.
That's up to 7 runs, with 2 hard days and plenty of easy running around them.
Thursday is the session that tells you where you stand. Six miles at the pace you hope to race, in pieces, with short jogs between. The first 2 miles feel controlled. The last mile is where a Speedster usually comes apart in a race, and here you meet it on a Thursday, with a jog to recover and nobody watching. If the last mile holds, you're on track. If it falls apart, the plan has done its job by showing you.
Sunday asks for patience first and speed last. By the time the fast finish comes, you've been running for well over an hour, so the speed has to come from tired legs, the way it does in the last 2 kilometers of a 10K.
Friday is the day that decides how Sunday goes. After Thursday's miles, you're free to run the full hour, cross train or rest. A Speedster who feels fine will usually run the hour. The one who takes the rest when the legs are heavy is the one who reaches Sunday's finish with something left to give it.
Does it build you up smartly?
Yes, mostly. The order of the work is sound, and the running eases off often.
A plan should ask for different things at different times: stamina and strength first, then running closer to race pace, then sharpening and a taper. Plans built in stages like this tend to outperform plans that keep the same load from start to finish. And every few weeks, the running should drop back, because a lighter week is when the training of the weeks before turns into fitness.
McMillan gets both right. The phases aren't labelled, but you can feel them: hills in the first weeks, long goal pace work in the middle, short fast running near the end. The lighter weeks come regularly, so you never go long without a chance to absorb the work. For a Speedster the sequence is the whole design. It echoes Lydiard, one of his mentors, scaled down to 12 weeks: tip the training toward endurance while you build, and bring the sharp, fast work back late, when there's no time left to lose it.
But the schedule itself says little about each session. A hill day reads as 8 to 10 climbs of 60 to 75 seconds with a jog back down, and that's all. There's no warm up written into the day and no line on what the session is for. The book explains its workouts in a chapter of their own, so the answers exist. You just have to carry them with you.
Does it protect you from injury?
Partly. The plan guards you well week to week, but it leaves two gaps.
The first is week 5. Sharp jumps in weekly running raise the risk of injury, and many injuries start suddenly, often set off by a training error the week before, rather than building slowly over months. Week 5 is the biggest week of the plan, and it comes straight after the first lighter week, with roughly half again as much running. Three new kinds of work arrive in it at once: an 80 to 90 minute steady Tuesday, the first long set of mile repeats at goal pace, and the first Sunday run with a fast finish. Each one is reasonable. But stacked together in a week that has already jumped, they ask a lot of legs coming out of a lighter week.
The second gap is strength. McMillan asks for it, includes a sample in the book and puts a full program online, but none of it is on the schedule. Fitting it around the hard days is left to you, and strength training substantially lowers injury risk, more than stretching or balance work does.
The rest of the build is careful. The weekly running grows in small steps, and no hard day is ever followed by another. The book also lists the warning signs to watch for and what to do when one shows up. A small ache that lingers from one run to the next is worth taking seriously, because it can grow into an injury that interrupts your training.
What happens when you miss a day?
A schedule earns its keep in the weeks that go wrong. This one bends easily from day to day, but it doesn't help much with a lost week.
There's no rule for what to do after a missed week, and no ranking of which sessions to keep when time runs short. The book makes it clear the long runs and key days matter most, but it doesn't put them in order for you.
What it does give you is room. The easy runs are ranges in minutes, and the book tells you to take the low end when you're tired. Mondays and Fridays can be easy runs, cross training or rest, which leaves open slots for moving a workout when a day goes wrong. And the book allows skipping or moving a key session on a bad day, rather than forcing it.
The plan also teaches you to read your own effort. Goal pace sessions come from the calculator, but the book pairs its paces with how each effort should feel, through McMillan's 4 training zones, and asks you to check how you feel on the day before you start. Over 12 weeks you learn what comfortably hard feels like, and when an easy day needs to be easier. That's what makes the missing rules easier to live with: you'll usually be able to work out the answer yourself.
Will it get you ready for race day?
Yes. The plan builds what a fast 10K asks for, with two gaps in the second half.
A 10K is a short race, run close to your limit the whole way, and holding that pace takes practice at it. This plan gives you plenty. The goal pace sessions grow from 6 or 7 single miles in week 5 to longer 2 mile pieces, and to 3 repeats of 2 miles in week 11. Two time trials at goal pace, in weeks 8 and 10, let you test the race effort on your own before the day itself. The race specific work never goes missing: every week of the plan holds some of it. And the last 3 weeks shrink in turn, so the tiredness has time to clear. A taper like this reliably makes runners faster on race day.
But the steadier threshold work fades early. That's the comfortably hard running you could keep up for roughly an hour, the effort that props up your 10K pace from below. It appears in weeks 2, 4 and 6, as long repeats, a sustained run and shorter repeats, and then stops. From week 7 on, the fast finishes on Sundays carry some of that load, but no session is there to build it. Since threshold rises through running at it, a little more of it in the second half would help hold the gains from the first.
The longest easy runs also come early, in weeks 3 and 6, at up to 2 hours. After that, Sunday becomes a fast finish run or a time trial. For a 10K that's less of a worry than it would be for a marathon, but it means your longest easy run is well behind you by race week.
Are the workouts varied enough?
Yes. Variety is the plan's strongest suit, and it's laid out to suit a fast runner.
Mixing easy running with clearly hard sessions of different kinds builds endurance better than a steady diet of medium effort. This plan keeps about 86 percent of its running easy, and the hard days range from hill climbs and mile repeats at goal pace to 200 meter sprints.
What stands out is the order. The fast work a Speedster enjoys waits until week 8. Before then, the hard days are long and steady, aimed at the stamina that lets a quick runner hold on through the last 2 kilometers. Speed doesn't disappear while that happens. The hills ask for power from the first week, and the strides grow through the plan, from 10 to 12 short ones to 20, then to 30 seconds each. Short, fast running like this makes each stride cost less energy, and it keeps your legs used to moving quickly while the rest of the week goes long.
So when the 400s and 800s finally arrive, they're sharpening speed you never lost, on top of stamina you didn't have in week 1.
The good & bad of training from a book
McMillan's 10K book is one of 4 in his Run Faster Races Series, one per race distance, published in 2022 and 2023 as ebooks and mostly in paperback too. It teaches as much as it schedules. You come away knowing what each effort is for and how to judge it on the day.
But you'll do some setup before the first run. You pick your tier and your runner type yourself, which means deciding whether you really are a Speedster. The schedule is written in shorthand, with the codes explained in a different chapter, and the strength work lives partly in the book and partly online. Expect to keep the codes chapter bookmarked for the first few weeks.
A printed grid also stays fixed. When a week goes sideways, the page can't rearrange the rest of the plan around it. That work is yours.
Is it right for you?
Run it. That's the base the advanced tier assumes, so the plan builds on it instead of starting over.
Run it. The plan aims its hardest work at the stamina you're missing and keeps your speed alive with hills and strides.
Look elsewhere. Week 5 is the biggest week of the plan, straight after a lighter one, with three new kinds of work at once.
Think it over. The book asks for it, but none of it is on the schedule.
Think it over. Your paces come from McMillan's calculator, read off a recent race.
Look elsewhere. The schedule gives the workout only, and the reasons live in other chapters.
A good alternative with an app
If McMillan's approach makes sense to you, Buena Vida offers its members a plan with the same shape: hills first, then goal pace repeats on flat ground, most of the running easy, the hard days kept apart and strides on easy days. It's built for a sub 45 goal on 6 days a week, with fewer miles than McMillan's advanced tier.
Closest matchWhy this plan scores higher
- Strength sessions on the calendar most weeks, so you don't have to fit them in yourself
- A warm up, a cool down and a note on what each hard session is for, written into the day itself
- Threshold running every week up to the taper, where McMillan's stops after week 6
- Your longest run 3 weeks before the race, so your endurance peaks closer to race day
- Paces set for you from your goal, with no calculator or tables to look up
What the app adds
- No complicated lookup tables. Each day's workout is clear and easy to follow
- Paces worked out from your own fitness, and adjusted automatically as you get stronger
- Miss a run, move a run, and the plan carries on
- Voice coaching through every workout, and runs recorded from your iPhone, Apple Watch, or Garmin
Get more out of your running with Buena Vida
Buena Vida was built by a runner to bring the whole job of training into one place: a plan that fits your schedule and your fitness, coaching on every run, and food targets that keep up with the work you do. Members get personal training & nutrition plans, plus full access to the catalog of pre-written plans for every running goal.
In research studies, runners on plans fit to them improved as much as or more than runners on fixed plans, and fewer of them stalled.
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More plans like this
Each of these plans takes its own route to race day. Effort-based plans set your hard sessions by feel, so you learn what 10K effort and tempo feel like, and your training paces grow with you as you get stronger. Time-goal plans set every pace from the finish time you're aiming for. Others trade days, weeks, or mileage to fit your life.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need the book to run the McMillan 10K Advanced Speedster plan?
- Yes. The schedule is written in shorthand codes, and what each code means, along with how each effort should feel, is explained in the book. Your paces come from McMillan's online calculator, read off a recent race.
- What is a Speedster in McMillan's plans?
- McMillan sorts runners into 3 types: Speedster, Endurance Monster and Combo, with Combo the default. A Speedster is a runner with natural speed who tends to fade as races get longer. From the intermediate tier up, each plan comes in a version for each type.
- What do LS, GP, TI and the other codes mean?
- LS is leg speed strides. GP is running at your goal race pace. TI is tempo repeats, and CI is short threshold repeats. TR is a tempo run, PR a progression run that finishes faster than it starts, SP speed intervals and SW sprints. FR is a fartlek, TT a time trial and LR the long run.
- How many days a week does the plan run?
- 5 to 7. Five days each week always have a run. Mondays and Fridays are printed as easy runs, but either can be cross training or a day off.
- Does the McMillan 10K plan include strength training?
- The book asks for it and includes a sample, with a full program on McMillan's website. None of it appears on the schedule, so when to fit it in is up to you.
- Does the plan have recovery weeks and a taper?
- Yes. Weeks 4, 8, 10 and 12 are lighter, and the last 3 weeks shrink in turn toward the race.
- Is the McMillan 10K Advanced plan good for beginners?
- No. It's written for runners already training 5 to 7 days a week with a 2 hour long run. The book suggests 4 to 12 weeks of preparation for anyone not already training, and it has lower tiers for runners who aren't at this level yet.
Research notes
- Training in phases beats holding one load
- Recovery weeks turn training into fitness
- Rapid volume jumps raise injury risk
- Many running injuries start suddenly
- Strength training lowers injury risk
- Niggles often warn of a bigger injury
- A taper makes you 2-6% faster on race day
- Threshold speed is built by running
- Varied intensity beats a steady moderate pace
- Strides and sprints make you more efficient