Running Plan Review Greg McMillan 10K: Intermediate (Speedster)

Does it build you up smartly?

A good training block works as a sequence. Each kind of hard running prepares you for the next, and every few weeks the load drops so the new fitness can settle in. Plans built this way tend to produce better races than plans that keep the load constant.

McMillan's order is sound, with each run of Thursdays building on the one before, but the plan rarely eases off. From week 4 to week 7 the weekly running grows every week, by about 40 percent in all, and the only lighter week inside the build is week 8. Lighter weeks are when built up tiredness clears and your body absorbs the recent training, so a single one, this late, asks a lot of your legs in the weeks before it. The book allows a down week every fourth week, so you're free to take one around week 4 or 5. The schedule just doesn't put it there for you.

Even week 8 is lighter in miles only. Wednesday and Friday become cross-training or rest, and Sunday is a plain 75 minutes, but Thursday brings the most repeats you'll run all block: 20 of them, each 400 meters.

The schedule also says what to run but not why. A Thursday reads as 20 minutes of steady running, with nothing about what that run is building. The reasons are in the book's chapter on workouts, and you'll want to read it before week 1.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan keeps hard days well apart, but it leaves three gaps: strength, the way new workouts arrive, and warmups.

Strength never gets a day. The book recommends it and includes a sample routine, with the full program online, but the schedule leaves it out, so placing it around Thursday and Sunday falls to you. It's an easy thing to let slide when the running is going well, but strength training substantially lowers the risk of sport injuries, and it's the protection this plan most clearly leaves out.

New workouts are the other problem. Most of them land in weeks when the running is already growing. Week 5 brings your first 1,000 meter repeats in a week about a quarter bigger than the one before. Week 6 adds your first 400s and your first progression run of up to 90 minutes, all at once. The weekly miles barely change that week, but mileage alone misses the stress that faster running adds, so week 6 asks more of your legs than its total suggests. If quick running is what you enjoy, this is where to be careful. The runner who loves 400s is the one most likely to run them too hard, and here they arrive in the middle of the climb.

The warmup gap is smaller. The book asks for a warmup before hard sessions, but the schedule doesn't print one, so add it yourself before each Thursday workout and the week 10 5K.

The rest of the week protects you well. Thursday and Sunday are the only hard days, and they never sit back to back. Monday is always a day off after the long run, and Wednesday and Friday can be rest whenever you need it. The book also has a chapter on warning signs and how to respond to them. Read it early, because small, lingering aches appear to raise the risk of an injury that interrupts training. Backing off at the first one costs far less than pushing through it into week 7.

What happens when you miss a day?

Day to day, the plan bends easily, but a lost week leaves you to work out the rest.

When a whole week goes, the schedule is silent. It doesn't say whether to repeat the week, move on, or carry the key sessions forward. The book also doesn't rank the workouts in an order to cut them. It's clear enough that Thursday and Sunday carry the week, but when only one of them fits, you're choosing alone.

Within a normal week, though, there's room to move. Nearly every run is a range, 30 to 40 minutes or 6 to 8 repeats, and the book tells you to take the low end on days you're tired. Wednesday and Friday are open, so they can absorb a long day at work or a run you'd rather skip. The book also lets you move or skip a key workout on a bad day.

McMillan teaches you to train by feel, too. Workouts are set by effort in four zones, adapted from his mentor David Martin, and the book shows you how to check how you're feeling before a run and adjust. It also lists what you should already be doing before you start, so you know up front whether you're ready.

Will it get you ready for race day?

A 10K asks for two things: enough aerobic running to carry you 6 miles strongly, and enough hard running that race effort feels familiar by the start line. This plan gets both right.

The volume fits the race. Your biggest week comes in week 7, and it sits squarely in the range a 10K calls for. The Sunday runs grow to 75 or 90 minutes, longer than the race itself, and from week 6 three of them finish fast, so you practice running hard on tired legs.

The race work grows too. From week 2 to race week, nearly every Thursday trains something a 10K demands: hills, then repeats near your threshold, then 400s and long repeats at goal pace, with the amount of hard running rising as the weeks pass. That matters, because threshold fitness improves most at the pace and in the activity you train. By week 11, you're running three 2 mile repeats at the pace you plan to race.

Week 10 tests it. The 5K at goal pace, or a 5K race, gives you a fresh result partway through, so you can recheck your goal and your paces rather than training the whole 12 weeks off one old race.

Then the plan lets you freshen up. Race week cuts your running by about half, with only a short fartlek of 1 minute surges to keep your legs awake. A taper like that improves race performance by a few percent.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. You'll run many kinds of hard sessions across the 12 weeks, and most of your running stays easy.

Steady runs just below your threshold, hill repeats, 1,000 meter repeats, sets of 400s, long repeats at goal pace, progression runs, a 5K time trial and a short fartlek in race week: that's a wide range for a 12 week plan, and each one works a different part of your speed.

The easy running carries its weight too. About 4 of every 5 miles are easy, and easy miles are the base that lets your body absorb the hard work. With only Thursday and Sunday hard, each of those days gets your best, and keeping easy days easy and hard days clearly hard works better for most runners than a steady diet of medium efforts.

The trade off between 400s and goal pace work is especially good if speed is your strength. The 400s keep the quickness you already have. The goal pace days ask you to spend it slowly. Week to week, you're never doing the same Thursday twice in a row.