Running Plan Review Greg McMillan 5K: Novice-Intermediate

Does it build you up smartly?

A good plan moves in blocks, and each block gives the hard days a different job. Training that shifts its emphasis from block to block tends to race better than training that stays the same week after week.

This plan has those blocks, but it doesn't tell you about them. Goal-pace repeats lead the first 3 weeks, hills take week 5, threshold running leads weeks 6 to 9, and the last 2 build weeks mix goal pace with threshold work. Nothing on the schedule says which block you're in or what it's for. Each session is a single line, such as 4 repeats of 800 meters at goal pace with a jog between, and no note on why it's there. The book explains the workouts in a chapter of their own, so the reasons exist. They just aren't on the page you run from, and a runner new to racing is the one who most needs them.

The order is unusual, too. The very first hard session is 8 to 10 repeats of 400 meters at 5K goal pace, before any hills or threshold work. For a runner who already has a base, those are short enough to handle, and it means you meet your goal on the first Thursday.

What the plan does well is ease off. Weeks 4 and 8 are clearly lighter, with Wednesday and Friday given over to cross-training or rest, and race week is lighter again. Those lighter weeks are when recent training turns into fitness, and here they come every fourth week, matching the down week the book itself allows.

Does it protect you from injury?

Only partly. The weekly build is careful, but 2 gaps matter before you start.

The first is strength training. The book includes a sample routine and points to a fuller program online, but the schedule never gives it a day. Finding the days, and deciding how many, falls to you. It's a real gap, since strength training substantially lowers the risk of sport injuries. Monday is always a day off, which gives you an obvious place to start.

The second is weeks 5 and 6. Hills arrive in week 5, the same week the running climbs back up after the lighter week 4. Then week 6 brings the first threshold repeats and the first fast-finish Sunday together, in the biggest week of the plan. The mileage rise in week 6 is modest, but weekly mileage alone undercounts how hard you're training. Faster running is harder on legs than the same distance run easy, and in week 6 both new sessions land on legs that haven't met them before. If you're coming back from an injury, these are the weeks to run the low end of every range.

The rest of the protection is solid. Week to week, the running grows gradually, the lighter weeks come on time, and the hard days always have easier days between them. The book also has chapters on warning signs and recovery. Read them early. A low-grade ache that hangs around for days often comes before a bigger injury, the kind that stops you running, and easing off when one appears costs far less than pushing through.

What happens when you miss a day?

Sooner or later, a week won't go to plan. What helps then is a schedule with some give in it, and clear advice on what to keep.

This schedule has give built in. Monday is always free, and Wednesday and Friday can be a run, cross-training or rest, so a busy week can lose 2 runs and still keep all 4 set runs, the hard ones included. In weeks 4 and 8, those open days turn to cross-training or rest anyway, so a bad week that lands there costs you almost nothing. From week 5, most easy runs are a range of minutes, and the book tells you to take the low end when you're tired. It also lets you skip or move a key workout on a bad day.

But the advice stops at the single bad day. A lost week gets no rule of its own, so whether you repeat it or carry on is up to you. And while the book implies which days matter most, it never puts them in order, so when you only have room for one hard day, deciding which one stays is your call too.

Training by effort helps here. As you get fitter, the same pace starts to feel easier, and effort-based easy days keep up with that change on their own. The goal pace is different. It stays where the calculator set it until you check it again, which is what the time trials are for.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes, with one soft spot at the very end.

A 5K is short enough to run close to your ceiling the whole way, which makes it a race where practicing race pace pays off. Race-pace work earns its keep when race pace sits near one of the body's physiological thresholds, and 5K pace sits near the top of what your aerobic system can sustain. This plan has you running at goal pace from week 1 to week 11, and the pieces get longer as you get fitter: 400 meters first, then 600s, 800s and 1000s. By week 10's time trial, you hold goal pace for up to 2 miles, well over half the race, and the final mile on race day stops being a stranger.

The threshold work from week 6 builds the other half, the ability to hold a hard effort longer. That ability improves most when you train at that effort, and the plan does, in several forms: a tempo run, 1000-meter repeats, and two 10-minute efforts. The time trials in weeks 8 and 10 let you feel race effort before the race, and check your goal against it while there's still time to change it.

The soft spot is the taper. Week 11 still carries 2 hard sessions, threshold efforts on Thursday and goal-pace repeats on Sunday, so the freshening happens only in race week. That week is about half the running of the weeks before, and a planned taper improves race performance. But with a single week of it, you may reach the start line a little less rested than you'd like.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. The running is mostly easy, and the hard days keep changing.

There are 12 Thursdays in this plan, and no 2 are alike. The first is 400-meter repeats at goal pace. Later Thursdays bring a steady run, hills, threshold repeats, a tempo run and short sprints, and race week ends the run of them with a fartlek. Each one asks your body for something a little different, so you arrive at most Thursdays curious about what's coming rather than dreading a repeat of last week.

Around them, about 84 percent of the running is easy. That mix of mostly easy running with clearly hard days builds endurance better than long stretches of steady, moderately hard running. It also suits a runner short on time: short, hard sessions added to easy running can meaningfully improve race times for runners with little time to train, and here you get 1 or 2 of them a week, with easier days on either side.