Running Plan Review Pete Pfitzinger Advanced Marathoning Multiple Marathoning, 12 Week

Does it build you up smartly?

Most marathon plans start from regular training. This one starts from a finish line. After 3 weeks of easy running, it climbs in clear steps: longer runs and the first hard sessions in weeks 4 to 6, then the toughest block in weeks 7 to 9, with two runs of 19 to 20 miles, then the taper. Training that moves through distinct blocks like this tends to produce better races than a steady, unchanging load, and this plan's blocks come in a sensible order.

Each session is spelled out, too. The schedule names every run, how far it goes and what the hard part is, and chapter 8 of the book explains what each kind of run is for.

But the last block before the taper sits a long way from race effort. Weeks 7 to 9 hold the two longest runs, yet their hard sessions are 5K-effort repeats and a tune-up race, with no marathon-pace running at all. And apart from the recovery weeks at the start, the schedule doesn't name its blocks or say what each one is for, so piecing that together from the book is up to you.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan spaces its hard days well, but the climb out of the easy weeks is steep.

The first 3 weeks are gentle, about 21 miles, then 32, then 41. Week 4 still sits in the phase the schedule calls recovery, but it jumps to about 55 miles. It also brings the plan's first threshold run, a steady, hard effort you could hold for about an hour in a race, and its first long run over 15 miles. Weeks 5 and 6 each add a new kind of hard session as the mileage keeps rising. Sudden jumps in running load tend to raise injury risk, and weekly jumps above about 30% are a warning sign. Week 4 is a jump of about a third.

This matters more after a marathon. The fitness from your first race is the base this whole plan stands on, and three weeks later most of it is still there. Week 4 may feel fine on your breathing. But the body tends to adapt on a staggered clock: blood and muscle energy systems within a few weeks, tendons over weeks to a few months, and bone over months. Your legs may still be repairing from 26 miles of racing. When one week adds miles, a new workout and a longer long run all at once, it's the week to watch, because many injuries seem to begin suddenly, often right after a run that goes well past your recent longest. If something starts to hurt that week, take it seriously. "Don't let the two-week injury become the two-month injury," Pfitzinger advises. With your second race on a fixed date, a few easy days cost far less than two months on the sidelines.

After that, there's no lighter week until the taper begins in week 10. Week 8 is a little shorter, but it holds a race and a long run of 16 to 17 miles, so your legs don't get a rest. The opening weeks of easy running are a long lighter stretch in their own right, and 12 weeks leaves little room for another. Still, load that builds without relief tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, which is why a fixed plan needs a lighter week written in.

Your hard days are better protected. The repeat sessions, the threshold run and the races never land on consecutive days, Monday is always free, and every hard workout opens with a warm-up. The book also teaches you how to spot overtraining and illness, and it sets a heart-rate ceiling for recovery runs so that easy days stay easy.

Strength is missing from the schedule too. Chapter 4 of the book lays out a full strength program, but the schedule never says when to do it, and in a week of 6 runs, it's easy to let it slide. Finding the time is worth it: strength training cuts sport injuries substantially, more than stretching does. For a runner racing two marathons in 12 weeks, that protection counts for more than usual. Running coach Jason Fitzgerald boils it down: "there are essentially only two ways to reduce your risk of injury: run less or get stronger." This plan already sets your miles, so getting stronger is the part left to you: give the chapter 4 program a regular place in your week.

What happens when you miss a day?

Your second marathon's date is fixed, so a setback has nowhere to go. There's no spare week to absorb it.

The book's rule for missed time is clear, but this calendar leaves it little slack. A few lost days don't matter: under 10, you pick up where you left off. Just don't try to win them back. "You can't make up what you missed," said Furman University exercise scientist Bill Pierce, "and you certainly shouldn't double up on your workouts to catch up with your program." On a calendar this tight, the urge to catch up is strong. Let the missed days go and run the week in front of you. But from week 5 on, you're within 8 weeks of the race, and there the book says a setback of 10 to 20 days means revising your goal. The book also ranks the kinds of training, with endurance first, then threshold runs, then the fast repeats, then speed work. But it never turns that ranking into a list of what to cut in a short week, and the advice is split across two chapters.

Day to day, there's more give. Every run comes with a range of miles, so on a tired day you can take the low end without falling behind. Mondays are rest or cross-training, and the book lets you swap a recovery run for cross-training too. After missed repeat sessions, it tells you to run the next few a little slower. And because the book explains what every kind of run is for, you'll know which ones are doing which job when you have to shuffle a week.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes. This plan gives a fit marathoner what they need for a second race.

The long runs are the backbone. They reach 19 to 20 miles twice, in weeks 7 and 9, with the second one 3 weeks before race day, and the plan's biggest week lands alongside it. Early evidence links longer long runs to faster marathon finishes, though no study has tested whether shorter, faster sessions could do the same job. Pfitzinger calls the long run "the cornerstone of marathon training," because you want to finish the distance "without having the last few miles be a very tough experience where you're really slowing down." Two runs that long, with a full week of running around each, teach your legs to keep working deep into a run.

Marathon pace shows up twice. The week 6 long run carries 9 miles at marathon pace, and race week includes a short run with 2 miles at marathon pace. Separately, the tune-up races in weeks 8 and 10 let you race hard on a day that doesn't count, and while no study has tested what they do for marathon time, they may help as pacing practice. Coach Matt Fitzgerald, author of On Pace, puts it plainly: "Like any other skill, pacing requires repetition. No runner gets their pacing right the first time." Two tune-up races give you two more chances to practice before the race that counts.

Then it eases off. The last 3 weeks step down, and race week is about 24 miles before the marathon itself. A taper of up to 3 weeks improves race performance compared with training straight through.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Easy running carries most of a marathon build. It's the base the rest of the week stands on. The hard days need to be clearly hard, too, since mixing easy running with clearly hard efforts may build endurance a little better than sitting at one medium pace.

This plan does both. Around 87 percent of the running is easy, and the hard running comes in many forms. From week 5 to week 11, six sessions of repeats at 5K race effort rotate between 600, 800 and 1,000 meters. Around them come a threshold run, a long marathon-pace run, two tune-up races and a race-week rehearsal.

Runners who know the book will notice one thing. It ranks threshold running second only to endurance, yet this plan has a single threshold run, in week 4. The hard days go mostly to short, fast repeats and races, so the block leans on fast running rather than threshold work.

Strides appear on easy days in most weeks, and week 5 adds a set of 10-second hill sprints. Both take only a few minutes. Strides themselves haven't been tested, but short, explosive work can make your running more economical, so the same pace costs less energy. Mike Caldwell, coach of the ASICS Greenville Track Club-Elite, keeps fast running in his marathon training too. "We believe in 'touching speed' throughout our training cycles," he says. In this plan, the strides are how you touch speed.