Running Plan Review Greg McMillan Half Marathon: Novice-Intermediate

Does it build you up smartly?

Partly. The hard work comes in a sound order, but the plan eases off too rarely and says too little about each session.

Training works best when its emphasis shifts as the race gets closer. Plans that move through phases like this tend to race better than plans that hold one load throughout. They also need lighter weeks along the way, because a cutback every few weeks lets fatigue clear so the body can absorb the work.

McMillan's order makes sense. The first 3 Thursdays are hill repeats, 60 to 75 seconds uphill with a jog back down, growing from 6 repeats to as many as 12. After that, Thursday turns toward the race. The plan never names its phases, but the order is there. What it doesn't have is an easy opening stretch. Faster running starts in week 1, with hills on Thursday and a fast last 10 to 15 minutes on Sunday's long run, and every week after that has a workout. You need to be ready for both from the first weekend.

But it eases off only twice, in weeks 4 and 10, with 5 weeks of growth between them. The book itself allows a down week every 4th week, so if your legs are heavy when week 8 arrives, taking it easier is in keeping with the method.

The schedule is also bare. Each session gets one line: how many repeats, how long each one is, how much jogging between them. It doesn't print a warmup or a cooldown, and it doesn't say what the session is for. The book explains both in its teaching chapters, but carrying that to each run is up to you.

Does it protect you from injury?

Plenty of running injuries begin the same way, with a week that asks more than the weeks before it. Sharp jumps in weekly running raise injury risk, and mileage alone can hide one, because harder running loads your legs more than the same miles run easy.

This plan does a lot right. The Thursday workout and the Sunday long run never sit back to back, and Monday is always off. On Friday, and on Wednesday and Saturday most weeks, you can cross-train or rest instead of running. The book also teaches the early warning signs of injury and what to do about each one, which is useful, because a niggle that lingers between runs appears to raise the risk of a full injury. Easing off for a day or two at the first one is a good habit.

But new kinds of hard running tend to arrive in weeks that are already growing. The first goal-pace run comes in week 5, a week about a third bigger than the one before, and the first tempo run comes in week 6, alongside the longest long run so far. Week 8 is the sharpest jump. McMillan does trim its weekdays: Tuesday drops back to 30 to 45 minutes and Wednesday's run option goes, so the weekly miles barely change. But Thursday brings 3 two-mile repeats at goal pace, and Sunday brings 105 to 120 minutes, the longest run yet. The mileage looks flat. Your legs will tell you the week isn't.

Strength is the other gap. The book includes a sample routine and points to a full program online, but none of it is on the calendar, so finding the days for it falls to you. Strength training cuts sports injury risk by more than stretching does, which makes it a costly thing to leave off the schedule.

What happens when you miss a day?

Well on a normal week, because nearly every key run comes as a range and 2 days most weeks are yours to fill. On a bad week, it leaves the hard calls to you.

The everyday give is built in. Only 3 runs a week carry the plan: Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Wednesday and Saturday can usually be a run, cross-training or rest, and the book lets you shrink a session on a tired day. Runs are set by effort, using 4 training zones McMillan adapted from his mentor David Martin, and the research favors setting intensity with a handful of effort zones like these. If you race a 5K or 10K on one of the tune-up Sundays, you can check your goal against it and update your paces.

But when a week is lost to illness or travel, the book has less to offer. It implies the long run and the Thursday session matter most, but it never ranks the week's runs, so you can't be sure what to drop first. Nor does it say whether to repeat a missed week or carry on from wherever the calendar says you are. With Monday and Friday free of running, there's room to shift a session. Which one, and to where, is your call.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes. Race preparation is where this plan is at its best.

A half marathon is run just under your threshold, the effort beyond which hard running can only last a short while. Lift that ceiling and the race effort beneath it lifts too, and the way to lift it is to run at and near it.

From week 5, the plan does that in several forms: goal-pace runs and 2-mile repeats at goal pace, tempo runs at a comfortably hard effort, and in week 11 a 6-mile steady run just under threshold. The goal-pace finishes on the long runs add what Thursdays can't: holding race effort deep into a run, after the easy miles have taken their toll. The long run tops out at 10 to 12 miles in week 9, 3 weeks before the race, which leaves time to absorb it.

In race week the running shrinks to a few short runs, with a handful of 1-minute pickups on Wednesday to keep your legs awake. A lighter final stretch like this tends to make runners faster on race day.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Easy running is most of the work. Easy miles make up the base that lets the body absorb harder training, and runners tend to improve more when easy days stay easy and hard days are clearly hard than when every run drifts toward a middling effort.

This plan keeps that line clear. More than 4 of every 5 miles are easy. The hard sessions range widely: hill repeats, fartlek in 3 shapes (1-minute, 3-minute and 6-minute efforts), goal-pace runs and repeats, tempo runs and a steady 6-miler. Across 12 weeks, only 2 Thursday sessions come around a second time.

Each kind asks something different of you. The hills build strength for climbing and for holding your form late in a race. The fartleks teach you to shift gears and recover while still moving. The goal-pace work grooves the rhythm of race day, and the tempo runs raise the effort you can hold.