Running Plan Review Greg McMillan Marathon: Intermediate (Combo)

Does it build you up smartly?

Mostly, yes, for the runner it was written for. It's a 12-week race block that assumes your base is already built.

A marathon build works in stages. Easy volume comes first, because it lets the body absorb what follows. Harder sessions arrive next, then race-specific running, then a few lighter weeks so you start fresh. Training in stages like this produces better races than holding one load throughout, and regular lighter weeks are when the body locks in the work.

McMillan's order is sound. Short, fast repeats lead off, threshold repeats arrive in week 3, and from there the hard days lean steadily toward goal pace. Week 4 is light, and from week 6 on, nearly every other week eases off, a generous rhythm for a 12-week plan. Every key session gives the number of repeats, their length, and the jog between them.

But the schedule only tells you what to run. Thursday in week 1 is 8 to 12 repeats of 400 meters with a 200-meter jog, and nothing on the page says what those repeats are building. The reasons sit in a separate chapter. The stages aren't named, either, so the turn from speed toward goal pace only shows if you read ahead.

The starting point is the larger question. McMillan designs this as a block for runners who are already training, and the book offers 4 to 12 weeks of preparation for anyone who isn't. That's a fair design, and it's why the plan can spend all 12 weeks on marathon work. But it makes week 1 a full week: 400-meter repeats on Thursday, then a long run of 12 to 16 miles on Sunday, the last 3 to 5 of them at goal pace. By week 3, the long run is 16 to 20. A plan should begin at the load you already carry. If your longest run lately is 8 or 10 miles, that first Sunday asks you to add several miles and race pace on the same morning.

Does it protect you from injury?

Injuries tend to arrive with change. A sharp rise in weekly running raises the risk, and so does a new kind of hard session landing in a week that has already grown. Research suggests many injuries begin abruptly, within days of a change like that.

Most of this plan keeps change gentle. The weekly build is gradual, and lighter weeks come often. The book also teaches you what to watch for, with chapters on warning signs and on recovery. That teaching earns its place, since a niggle that lingers between runs appears to raise the odds of a real injury, and the runner who eases off at the first one gives it less room to grow.

But two weeks need care. In week 3, threshold repeats appear for the first time, in a week with about 12 percent more running than week 2, so your legs meet a new kind of effort and more miles at once. Week 5 is the bigger test. You come out of week 4, the lightest of the plan, and go straight into one of the biggest, with a long run of 18 to 22 miles. If week 4 left you feeling fresh, the 22 will be tempting. Choosing 18 keeps the jump smaller.

The other gap is off the run. The book recommends strength work, with a sample routine and a full program online, but no strength session appears on the schedule, and neither do the strides it asks for before hard sessions. Placing them in your week and deciding what goes in them falls to you. Strength training cuts sports-injury risk more than stretching does, so it's the one addition most runners on this plan should make.

What happens when you miss a day?

Day to day, it bends easily. For a lost week, it has no rule.

Nearly everything comes as a range: 8 to 12 repeats, 18 to 22 miles, 30 to 45 minutes. The book tells you to take the low end when you're tired, and to skip or move a key workout on a bad day. Monday is always off, and until the last 2 weeks, Wednesday and Friday can be rest. Effort leads. The book's four training zones, adapted from David Martin, ask you to judge a session by how you feel that day, not by the number on the page.

The open days matter most in weeks 6 and 10. Those weeks carry fewer miles but three hard days: a fartlek or a run that speeds up at the end on Tuesday, a tempo run on Thursday, and a long run with 6 to 8 miles at goal pace on Sunday. Resting on Wednesday and Friday lets those weeks do their job.

But once you lose more than a day or two, the plan has little to say. It never ranks the week's runs, though the long run and Thursday plainly carry the most, so in a short week you choose what to keep. It gives no rule for coming back from a missed week. And 12 weeks leaves little slack. One lost week is a twelfth of the build, and the weeks after it are among the hardest.

Will it get you ready for race day?

The marathon is decided late. The last hour asks you to hold a pace your legs have carried for hours, and no shorter session can stand in for long runs as preparation for it. For most runners, goal marathon pace sits a little below threshold, roughly the effort you could race at for an hour. So the training has two tasks: lift that threshold, which improves mainly by running at it, and practice holding goal pace once you're tired.

This plan does both. Goal pace comes in two forms. On Thursdays you run it on its own, for 6 to 8 miles in week 4, 8 to 10 in week 7, and 10 to 12 in week 9. On Sundays in weeks 6, 8 and 10, you run it at the end of a long run, the last 6 to 8 miles, after an hour or more of easy running. That second form is the closest you'll come in training to the marathon's final hour. Around them sit three long runs of 18 to 22 miles, the last one 3 weeks out, and threshold work in tempo runs and 1,000-meter repeats. Weeks 5 and 8 bring a long-standing check on marathon fitness: 8 to 10 repeats of 800 meters, each followed by a jog as long as the repeat. Then 2 lighter weeks let you arrive rested, and a taper of 1 to 3 weeks improves race performance.

In weeks 6, 8 and 10, you can also swap the long run for a 10K to half marathon race. The race won't reliably speed up your marathon, though it may sharpen your sense of pace. Its main use here is practical. It re-checks your goal, and your training paces update with it, so you aren't spending 12 weeks on paces from a race you ran before you started.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. Few weeks in this plan look alike.

Mixing easy running with clearly hard intervals builds endurance better than long stretches at a steady, moderately hard effort, and runners improve more when easy days stay truly easy.

Here the hard days change shape every week or two. Thursdays move from 400-meter repeats to 1,000-meter repeats, then to tempo runs and long goal-pace runs. Tuesdays now and then bring a fartlek with 1-minute surges, or a run that speeds up over its last 10 to 20 minutes. The long runs vary too, and week 4's is the most distinctive: 90 minutes in thirds, easy, then steady, then goal pace, a lighter week's way of keeping your legs in touch with race effort.

About 80 percent of your running stays easy, and there's always at least one easy day or day off between hard ones.