Running Plan Review Greg McMillan Marathon: Intermediate-Advanced (Speedster)

Does it build you up smartly?

A marathon build moves on two clocks. Over the whole plan, the work shifts from general to specific: first the fitness that lets you run fast, then the fitness that lets you hold race pace for hours. Plans that change their emphasis from block to block race better than plans that keep the same load from start to finish. Over a span of a few weeks, the load should also rise and fall, because lighter weeks are when the built up tiredness clears and the training takes hold.

McMillan gets both clocks right. The shorter one is the plan's best feature. After the first 3 weeks, no 2 big weeks ever come in a row. The long run drops back in each lighter week, and the next big week starts fresh. That's a surprising rhythm for a plan this heavy, and it's what makes the load possible to carry. The longer clock is there too. The first 3 weeks build speed and threshold. Goal pace then spreads from the long run into the midweek sessions, and weeks 7 to 9 hold the biggest long runs and the most race pace. Each block leans on the one before it.

But the schedule doesn't tell you any of this. The blocks have no names, and each session says what to run, not why. Week 3's Thursday is 8 to 10 repeats of 1000 meters with short jogs between, and nothing on the day says what they're for. The reasons are in the book's chapter on workouts, and they're good ones, but you have to carry them out the door yourself. A runner who knows why a session is there tends to run it at the right effort. A runner reading a grid tends to run it at whatever effort feels like progress.

Does it protect you from injury?

Mostly yes, once you're into the plan. The hard part is getting in.

The plan's protection comes from its rhythm. From week 4 on, every big week is followed by a lighter one, and there's always an easy day between hard sessions.

But week 1 has no settling in. It holds a 70 to 90 minute progression run, 12 to 16 fast 400 meter repeats, and a long run of 14 to 18 miles with the last 4 to 6 at goal race pace. At the middle of each range, that's around 50 miles of running. A plan's first week should match the running you already do, not the peak it's building toward. So check yourself against week 1 before you start, not against the word "Advanced" in the title. If week 1 is well beyond your last month of running, the book's Intermediate level, whose entry line is a long run of 60 to 75 minutes, is a better place to begin.

The biggest weeks also bring the hardest new work. Week 7, the biggest of the plan, holds the longest goal pace repeats yet. Week 9 brings the longest unbroken stretch of goal pace in the plan, 8 to 10 miles on a Thursday, as the running climbs back up after a lighter week and 3 days before a 20 to 24 mile long run. That timing matters, because many injuries that look like slow wear appear to start suddenly, set off by a training error in the week before. These are the 2 weeks where a hard Thursday costs Sunday the most. If something aches going into either one, take the low end of every range.

Strength work is the other gap. The book includes a sample routine and points to a full program online, but neither shows up on a single day of the schedule. That matters, because strength training substantially lowers injury risk in sport. With a hard Thursday and a Sunday long run in every week before race week, finding a safe slot for it falls to you.

The book is more help on warning signs. It teaches you to read early aches and to back off before they grow. That's worth taking seriously, because a niggle that lingers between runs appears to raise the risk of an injury that stops you running.

What happens when you miss a day?

Twelve weeks leaves little slack. Lose one in the middle and you've lost a twelfth of the build, so what a short plan says about missed time matters more than it would in a longer one.

Across a lost week, this plan offers almost no guidance. The schedule is silent on whether to repeat the week, move on, or rescue a key session or two. The long run and the hard days plainly matter most, but the book never ranks them. So a short week leaves you to decide alone whether Thursday's repeats or Sunday's long run is the one to keep. For a Speedster, the long run is usually the answer, since the late miles of a marathon are the fitness this plan exists to build.

Day to day, though, the plan bends well. Nearly every run is a range of minutes or miles, and the book lets you take the low end when you're tired. It also lets you skip or move a key workout on a bad day. With Monday and Friday open to rest, there's usually a free day nearby to move it into. And the book teaches you to run by effort, through 4 training zones adapted from the work of David Martin, one of McMillan's mentors. That way the right effort for a session moves with how you feel that day, not with a number set weeks earlier.

That's a lot of trust in the runner. For an experienced runner who knows their body, it's freedom. For a runner who wants to be told what to do after a bad week, the plan goes silent at the moment they need it most.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes, if you arrive with the miles the plan assumes. That's the real question this plan puts to you.

But the plan is sized above its level. At the middle of each range, its biggest week, week 7, passes 60 miles, and the plan expects you to bring most of that load with you rather than build up to it. A runner who stretched to reach the Advanced label will spend these 12 weeks catching up to the volume, and meet the hardest sessions already tired.

The long runs are what will carry you through race day. They start at 14 to 18 miles and reach 20 to 24 miles in weeks 7 and 9, the last of those 3 weeks before race week. Long runs that build like this are essential for the marathon, and shorter, faster sessions can't stand in for them. Several of them finish with miles at goal pace, so you learn what race pace feels like on tired legs, the exact skill a Speedster tends to lack late in a marathon.

The last 2 weeks ease off, and race week cuts deepest. A taper of 1 to 3 weeks improves race performance compared with training straight through, and this one gives the big weeks time to settle before the start.

In weeks 6, 8 and 10, the book offers a 10K to half marathon race in place of the long run. Its job is to recheck your goal, so your paces keep up with your fitness. Don't ask more of it than that. Shorter races during a marathon build don't reliably improve marathon times, though they may help you practice pacing.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes, and this is where the Speedster version shows. The sessions a fast runner likes best stay in the plan from start to finish.

Fast 400 and 800 meter repeats and 1 minute surges keep turning up through the build. Even the long runs change shape. Some stay steady, some carry surges or changes of pace, and some finish with miles at goal pace.

The design fits a principle Arthur Lydiard, one of McMillan's mentors, is known for: speed and endurance sit on a seesaw, and leaning too hard on one for too long lets the other slip. This version reads like that principle at work. A Speedster's speed is the thing they already have, so the plan keeps it in use every week or two while the long runs do the work the runner lacks. You build the endurance without trading away the speed.

The mix is also well balanced. Easy running paired with clearly hard sessions builds endurance better than long stretches of steady, moderately hard running, and this plan keeps that line clear. About 83 percent of the running is easy, so the hard days get your full effort.