Running Plan Review Pete Pfitzinger Advanced Marathoning 12 Week, 55-70 mi/wk

Does it build you up smartly?

Pfitzinger orders the work the way a careful coach would, and he tells you why.

The blocks are named on the calendar, and the three that build each shift what the week is for: long runs with marathon pace, then threshold, then fast repeats and shorter races. Endurance comes first and the race-specific sharpening last, which is the order most top coaches follow as a race gets closer. Triple Olympic champion Peter Snell summed up that order as "a relatively simple formula": "Develop endurance as early as possible." Training that moves through phases like this tends to produce slightly better races than training at one constant load.

The key sessions come fully specified, with the warm-up, the work and, for most, a line on what they're for. You always know what a given Friday is supposed to do to you.

Does it protect you from injury?

Mostly. Hard days stay apart and the weekly running climbs at a fair rate, but the plan has a hard start, one crowded week, and few lighter weeks.

Many running injuries start suddenly, often right after one run that goes well past your recent longest. Sudden rises in running load tend to raise injury risk, which is why the safest builds start where the runner already is and bring in new kinds of hard work one at a time.

Week 6 is the crowded one. Mileage climbs from 54 to 67, about a quarter more, and three things land at once: the first set of fast repeats on Wednesday, a 14-to-15-mile run the next day, and on Sunday the longest marathon-pace run in the plan, 12 miles at goal pace. If something is going to flare up, week 6 is the likeliest place.

Lighter weeks are scarce too. Weeks 1 to 10 all sit between 54 and 67 miles. Week 5 and week 8 each ease off by 7 to 9 miles, but week 8 carries fast repeats and a race, so it isn't much of a break. Mileage doesn't drop properly until week 10. When training piles up with no relief, the risk of injury and illness tends to rise, and a fixed plan is where that relief has to be written in. Distance coach Pete Rea, whose runners ease off every third week, says they often feel flat that week. "Nonetheless I find the level of workouts is elevated thereafter," he says, "that workouts are more effective and staleness prevented." In 12 weeks there isn't much space for it, which is why the plan asks you to arrive already fit for the load. "The minimum length of time to specifically and successfully prepare for a marathon is about 12 weeks," says Pfitzinger's own coaching site.

The start is the other edge. Most coaches would start a plan at the mileage you already run, though that's expert guidance rather than a tested rule. Week 1 here is about 55 miles. If you arrive at the book's 45-mile floor, your first week is already a jump of more than 20 percent, with marathon-pace running on Sunday.

Strength is missing from the calendar. The book has a detailed program in its own chapter, but none of it is scheduled, so fitting sessions around 60-mile weeks is up to you. That's a real gap, because strength training cuts sport injuries substantially, more than stretching or balance work does.

The plan does protect you in other ways. No hard session is followed by another the next day, and every hard session opens with a warm-up. The book gives recovery runs a heart-rate ceiling and the energy test from the sample week, and it covers how to recognize overtraining and illness. It doesn't give a return plan for a specific injury. A niggle that hangs on from run to run may be the early stage of one that stops you. The evidence is early and comes from football, but at this mileage it's worth backing off at the first sign rather than the third.

What happens when you miss a day?

The book's best help comes after a longer gap. A table in the 4th edition sets the rule by how many days you missed and how many weeks are left, and the answer is unambiguous: pick up the schedule, or revise your goal. After missed fast repeats, it tells you to run the next few a little slower.

A short week is harder. The book ranks the work, endurance first, then threshold, then fast repeats, then speed, and says the long run comes first. But it doesn't give you a list of what to cut, so when a busy week leaves room for four runs, choosing which four is your call.

Beyond the ranges on each day, the book allows a little more give. A threshold run can be split into shorter pieces, and a recovery run can become cross-training. And because each run type is defined with its purpose, you can make these trades knowing what you're giving up.

Will it get you ready for race day?

It builds a real marathon engine. But marathon-pace running ends in week 6, and the plan carries more mileage than the race itself needs.

The marathon-pace work is front-loaded. Long runs carry 8, 10 and then 12 miles at goal pace in weeks 1, 3 and 6. These runs are race rehearsals. Pfitzinger recalls that coach Bill Squires said one word more than any other: "simulation." Looking at how training has changed since, Pfitzinger says "it's simulating what the challenge is that you've put in front of you." After that, goal pace doesn't come back until 2 short miles in race week. Threshold runs don't fill the gap: for most recreational marathoners, marathon pace sits below threshold, so Friday's threshold effort is a different feel from race day. The last month gives you fast repeats and two shorter races instead. Coaches widely recommend tune-up races, though no study has tested whether they improve marathon time, and their real value may be as pacing practice. You'll have rehearsed goal pace well, but 6 weeks before you need it.

Then there's the mileage. A 67-mile peak is more than a marathon strictly asks for. That's the cost of the ticket for this tier, and it can pay off: higher mileage, built up gradually, tends to go with fewer injuries, not more. Built up gradually is the condition. If you already run close to this, you're holding a load you know. If you don't, you're climbing to it inside a hard plan.

The long runs are excellent. Every Sunday from week 1 to week 10 is 15 miles or more, two reach about 20, and the second of those lands 3 weeks before race week. There are early signs that marathoners who train with longer long runs finish faster, though nobody has tested whether shorter, faster sessions could do the same. You'll have plenty of them behind you. The taper is clean: 43 miles in week 11, then about 24 in race week before the race. A planned drop in training like this improves race performance. It can feel wrong while it's happening. "The first marathon I had to taper, I felt like I was losing fitness," Canadian Olympic marathoner Reid Coolsaet once told a reporter. "But the way I felt in the first part of that marathon, I realized that it worked."

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes. Most of the week is easy, and the hard days vary.

About 85 percent of the running is easy, and easy miles are the base of the week, with the hard sessions built on top. The hard days rotate across the 12 weeks: long runs with miles at goal pace, steady threshold runs, fast repeats at your 5K effort, and two races. That mix of mostly easy running with clearly hard sessions tends to build endurance a little better than a steady diet of medium-hard running.

Strides and short hill sprints turn up in 7 of the 11 weeks before race week, tacked onto easy days. They take only a few minutes, and short, explosive work can make your running more efficient, though strides themselves haven't been tested on their own.

The midweek second long run is what most runners remember. In most weeks of the build, you run 11 to 15 miles on a weekday at a comfortable effort. It teaches your legs to keep going when they're tired, the way a marathon asks them to, without adding another hard day. Running writer Kevin Beck wrote that Pfitzinger's approach "remains unique for its emphasis on the midweek medium-long run." A run of 90 minutes to two hours, he explained, is long enough to change your body in ways shorter runs can't, "yet not so long as to prolong recovery."