Running Plan Review Greg McMillan 10K: Intermediate-Advanced (Endurance Monster)

Does it build you up smartly?

A 10K asks for two things at once: enough endurance to hold a hard effort for most of an hour, and enough practice at that effort to know what it feels like. Training that changes its focus from block to block leads to better races than training that repeats the same load week after week.

McMillan's order makes sense for a runner coming at the 10K with endurance already in the bank. Hills come first, then threshold and race-pace Thursdays take turns, with the race-pace sets getting longer as the race gets closer. Every fourth week is lighter, and the last 2 weeks taper. Those lighter weeks do real work: a cutback every few weeks lets fatigue clear, so the training underneath can turn into fitness. Here they trim the minutes and keep the hard days. Week 8 is lighter on paper and still holds a fast-finish run, a tempo run and a time trial, so the time trial lands on fresher legs without the week going soft.

But the schedule doesn't tell you what any session is for. Each day gives the workout and its numbers, 6 to 8 hill repeats of 60 to 75 seconds, say, and stops there. The reasons sit in the book's chapter on workouts. The phases have no names either, so noticing when the plan turns from building to sharpening is up to you. For a runner who reads the book first, that's a small cost. For a runner who opens the schedule and starts running, it means doing sessions without knowing what each one is building.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan spaces its hard days well, but it leaves strength off the schedule and has one sharp jump.

McMillan's book includes a sample strength routine and points to a full program online, but no strength session appears on the schedule. When to fit it in, and how to keep it clear of the hard days, is left to you, and in several weeks Tuesday is a hard day as well as Thursday and Sunday. That's a real gap, because strength training lowers sports injury risk, and by more than stretching or balance work alone.

The jump comes in week 5. Week 4 is the first lighter week. Week 5 is the biggest week of the whole plan, and it brings the first race-pace session too: 6 single miles at the pace you plan to race. Sharp jumps in weekly running raise injury risk, and mileage alone undercounts how hard a week is, because faster running adds stress that distance misses. A runner who comes out of week 4 feeling fresh is the one most tempted to run the top of every range in week 5. That's the week to take the low end of every easy run instead.

Outside that week, the plan looks after you. No two hard days sit next to each other, the weekly running builds gradually, and the lighter weeks arrive on time. The book also teaches how to spot trouble early and what to do when you do. Read that part before week 1, because a low-grade ache that hangs around between runs appears to raise the odds of a full injury, the kind that stops training altogether.

What happens when you miss a day?

Take week 7. Tuesday is a run that finishes fast, Thursday is a race-pace set, and Sunday is 90 minutes with a fast finish. If 3 days drop out of the middle of that week, the plan doesn't say which of those three to keep.

That's the gap. The schedule doesn't rank the week's sessions in the order to cut them, and nothing on it says what to do after a missed week: run it again, drop it, or carry on with the calendar. The book has advice on easing off when stress piles up, but no rule for lost time. Most runners will guess that Thursday and Sunday matter most, and they'll be right, but the guess is yours to make.

What the plan does give you is room. With three flexible days a week, there's almost always an open day to slide a hard session into. And the book tells you to skip or move a key workout on a bad day rather than force it.

McMillan also teaches you to read your own effort. His four training zones put how a run feels ahead of the number it produces, so a runner who learns them from this book can make good calls on a messy week, even without a rule to follow.

Will it get you ready for race day?

A 10K is raced close to your threshold, and that's where the Endurance Monster's race usually comes apart: not in the last mile, but in the middle, when the effort has to stay hard and stops feeling sustainable. Fitness at that effort is specific to the pace you train it at, so it grows from running there, not near it.

This plan runs there every Thursday. Tempo runs, 2000 meter repeats and race-pace sets take turns, and the race-pace sets grow from 6 single miles in week 5 to three 2-mile repeats in week 11. By race day you've held race pace for long stretches several times, so the middle of the race is ground you've already covered.

Two Sundays become practice races: a short time trial at goal pace in weeks 8 and 10, or a 5K race in its place. Each one also tells you whether your goal still fits.

The long run reaches 90 to 105 minutes in weeks 3 and 6. After that, the Sundays in weeks 7 and 9 stay at 90 minutes and finish fast, which keeps the endurance and teaches you to push on tired legs. For a 10K, that's plenty. The last 2 weeks ease off into a taper, and a taper of 1 to 3 weeks improves race performance compared with training straight through.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. Week to week, the hard day changes shape, and the easy days around it stay easy.

Across the 12 weeks you'll meet 8 kinds of hard session: hill repeats, a steady run just under threshold, tempo runs, runs that finish fast, race-pace miles, 2000 meter repeats, time trials, and a fartlek in race week, which is short surges with easy jogging between. No two Thursdays in a row ask for the same thing, so each one reaches the race from a slightly different angle.

That mix only works because the rest of the week stays slow. Easy running with clearly hard sessions mixed in builds endurance better than long stretches of steady, moderately hard running, and most of this plan's minutes are easy. For a runner who loves long, steady miles, the temptation is to let Saturday's hour drift up toward Thursday's effort. The plan works best when it doesn't.

Strides turn up on some easy Tuesdays. They're over in a few minutes, and short, fast efforts like these make your running more efficient, which a stamina runner with little top gear can use.