Running Plan Review Greg McMillan Marathon: Novice

Does it build you up smartly?

A first marathon build has one main job: grow the time you can stay on your feet, a little at a time, and give your body regular chances to absorb it. Lighter weeks do much of that work. They're when recent training turns into fitness, and runners who take them every few weeks tend to stay healthier than runners who add load every single week.

McMillan builds that rhythm in well. Weeks 4 and 8 ease off on every day, and the last 3 weeks step down to the race. Every session is spelled out: how long to go, and how many minutes to walk and run in each cycle. And the plan grows in two ways at once. Between week 1 and week 7, a Tuesday session roughly doubles in length, but the running inside it roughly quadruples, because the walk breaks shrink as the session grows.

But the plan doesn't move through distinct stages. Most marathon plans change what the training is for as the weeks go by, from building a base, to harder work, to running that looks like the race. In trained runners, training that changes its emphasis from block to block tends to produce better races than one steady load. Here, every week is the same kind of easy run/walk, only longer. For a first-timer whose aim is to finish, that's a reasonable trade, since the race asks you to keep moving for hours, not to move fast.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan is gentle in the ways that are easy to see, but it climbs steeply in two places, and it leaves strength work to you.

The gentle parts are real. Nothing on the schedule is hard. There are at least 2 days a week with nothing on them, and for most of the plan, 2 more where cross-training or rest is your choice. The book also gives a whole chapter to reading warning signs and what to do about them.

But the plan is only 12 weeks long, and it starts from runs of around 15 minutes. Your breathing will catch up fast: within about 8 weeks, the same effort starts to feel easier. Your legs work on a slower clock. Bone is the slowest tissue to adapt, with one full rebuilding cycle taking 3 to 4 months, longer than this whole plan. So there will be weeks when your lungs say you're ready for more than your shins are.

That's why the two steep steps matter. In week 3, all 3 sessions grow at once, and Sunday's walk breaks get shorter in the same week. In week 7, Tuesday and Thursday both grow to 50 to 60 minutes, and Sunday grows to 150 to 180, again all in one week. Sharp jumps like these are when injury risk rises. If a spot on your shin or foot is still sore the morning after either of those Sundays, take it as a reason to shorten the next session, not to push through.

Strength training is the other gap. The book includes a sample routine and points you to a full program online, but the calendar never sets a day for it. Across sport, strength training substantially lowers injury risk. The evidence in runners alone is more mixed, but for legs meeting hours of impact for the first time, it's a gap a plan should fill. With 4 days a week free of running, there's room. Deciding where it goes is left to you.

What happens when you miss a day?

Twelve weeks leaves little slack. Lose one, and you've lost a twelfth of the plan, with no spare weeks behind it to soak that up.

But the schedule doesn't say what to do when that happens: whether to repeat the week, skip ahead, or fold the missed sessions into the ones left. Nothing ranks the sessions for a short week, either. The Sunday long outing carries the most, so it's the one to protect, but the rest of the call is yours.

What the plan does well is give you room. Only 3 days carry a session, so a Thursday session can slide to Friday without crowding anything. Sessions are set in minutes, and through week 10 they come as ranges, so the book lets you take the low end when you're tired, or skip or move a session on a bad day. Nothing asks you to hit a pace. You train by effort, and the book teaches its effort zones well enough that by race week, you're judging each day by how your body feels rather than by a number on a page.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes, for the goal it's built for: getting to the finish.

For a first marathon, the long run is the training that matters most, and shorter, harder sessions can't stand in for it. By week 9, a Sunday here can mean 4 hours out the door, most of a morning on your feet. That longest outing comes 3 weeks before the race, which leaves time to absorb it, and then the running steps down to a race week of just 2 short sessions. In trained runners, a taper of 1 to 3 weeks improves race performance. For a first-timer, its plainest gift is a start line on fresh legs.

But nothing on the schedule practices race effort. Every long outing is the same easy run/walk, so the plan never asks you to try the effort you mean to hold for 26.2 miles before the day itself. That gap is smaller than it sounds. For recreational marathoners, race pace usually falls below lactate threshold. That suggests your race effort will sit close to the easy effort you've practiced for hours. Still, race day will be the first time you hold it from the start line on.

Are the workouts varied enough?

No, and for a first marathon that's mostly fine, but one thing is missing.

Every session in the plan is the same kind of outing: easy run/walk. What changes is how long it lasts and how much of it is running, and for a newer runner, that change is variety enough to keep the weeks from feeling the same. Moving for hours is the skill this race asks for, and this plan spends nearly all its time on it.

But nothing on the calendar ever asks your legs to move quickly. There are no strides, no short hills and no drills, and the book doesn't add them. Strides are 15 to 20 seconds of quick, relaxed running. For runners with some months of running behind them, short, fast efforts like these improve efficiency, so for a true beginner they're a next step once the legs are used to the work, rather than something to add in week 1. The optional cross-training on Wednesdays and Saturdays adds a change of scene if you take it, but it doesn't do that job.