Run Like a Pro (Even If You're Slow) pairs Matt Fitzgerald with Ben Rosario, who founded the Northern Arizona Elite team in Flagstaff with his wife Jen in 2014 and coached it until 2022. His athletes won five international medals and 12 national titles, and he coached Aliphine Tuliamuk to the win at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. The book's idea is in its title: borrow the way professionals train and fit it to your own speed and life. Every plan from it that we review is here, 15 in all, from a 5K to a 50K at 3 levels each.
Each plan is graded on the same 31 measures we use for every plan, Buena Vida's own included, with the research behind each measure linked. The ladder is strict. A C is a decent plan with gaps worth knowing about. Open any plan to see what it does well, where it falls short, and who it suits.
- Plans reviewed
- 15
- Goals
- 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Marathon, Ultramarathon
- Length
- 8–19 weeks
- Run days
- 6–7 a week
- Peak mileage
- 27–99 miles a week
5K plans
If you can run 40 minutes easy, you're ready for your first 5K.
BeginnerRequires purchaseRun every day. Sharpen the way the pros sharpen.
IntermediateRequires purchaseSome 60-mile peaks because the engine matters as much as the pace.
AdvancedRequires purchase10K plans
Train like a pro for a 10K, at beginner-friendly volume.
BeginnerRequires purchaseAlready running daily? Sharpen what you've got toward a faster 10K.
IntermediateRequires purchaseTrain like the pros: high mileage and sharp intervals together.
AdvancedRequires purchaseHalf Marathon plans
Get to 13.1 by letting the long run pass two hours.
BeginnerRequires purchaseRun every day, mostly slow. Goal pace, dialed in.
IntermediateRequires purchaseSeven runs a week, training the way the pros train.
AdvancedRequires purchaseMarathon plans
Pro-style training scaled gently for runners new to the distance.
BeginnerRequires purchaseAlready running most days? Train marathon pace the way pros do.
IntermediateRequires purchasePeak weeks near 60 miles, with marathon pace baked into the long run.
AdvancedRequires purchaseUltramarathon plans
Pro-style ultra training, scaled gently for a first 50K.
BeginnerRequires purchaseBack-to-back weekend long runs, the way pros build for the distance.
IntermediateRequires purchaseTrain the way the pros do, every day of the week.
AdvancedRequires purchaseTraining with Run Like a Pro
In this book, the pros run mostly easy, run nearly every day, and mix many kinds of hard session. Fitzgerald has lived that week from the inside: in his mid-forties he spent a summer training with Northern Arizona Elite for the Chicago Marathon. Rosario's coaching shows on the page too. Of the 15 plans, 12 include his favorite workout for the distance, and at NAZ Elite he had his marathoners practice marathon pace over and over. The Level 2 marathon plan builds to 15 miles at goal pace on a Sunday 4 weeks before the race.
There's no pace table. Easy means an effort of 4 out of 10 or less, and you find its ceiling with a six-minute time trial, a heart-rate test or the talk test. Faster efforts are named by how long you could hold them, from about 2 hours down to 6 minutes, or by race pace. The schedule is written in minutes, so your weekly miles depend on how fast you move.
The levels follow how much you run now. Level 1 asks for a comfortable easy run of 40 minutes for the 5K, an hour for the 10K to the marathon, or 80 minutes for the ultra. It keeps Monday off and lets you skip or cross-train through two easy runs a week, so a week can hold 4 runs or 6. At Levels 2 and 3 most weeks have a run every day, with a Monday off every third week. In several upper-level plans, Thursday's easy run ends with drills, strides and jumping exercises, and jumping drills help runners use less energy at the same pace and race faster.
All 15 plans earn a C. Every one scores full marks for variety, and getting you ready for race day is close behind. The weak spot is the shape of the build. Some plans keep the same mix of hard work from start to finish, and several climb in big steps, sometimes straight out of a lighter week. Strength work isn't on any schedule, and the book gives general advice but no program.
These plans suit a runner who already runs most days, gets bored repeating a workout, and would rather train by feel than by a chart. If you need a day off every week, or you've been hurt in the past year, read the reviews closely.
Get more out of your running with Buena Vida
Buena Vida was built by a runner to bring the whole job of training into one place: a plan that fits your schedule and your fitness, coaching on every run, and food targets that keep up with the work you do. Members get personal training & nutrition plans, plus full access to the catalog of pre-written plans for every running goal.
In research studies, runners on plans fit to them improved as much as or more than runners on fixed plans, and fewer of them stalled.
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