Running Plan Review Runner's World 20-Week Advanced Run/Walk Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

A marathon build usually changes what it asks of you as race day nears, moving from a base of general running toward work that looks more like the race. Plans that change their emphasis from one block of weeks to the next tend to beat plans built on a single kind of load, though the gain measured in runners is a small one.

Here the distance grows well, but the kind of work stays put. The long run climbs from 12 to 14 miles to 26 to 29, and the mile repeats from 4 to 14. The method has a reason for keeping the rest the same. It treats race pace as a skill, so you rehearse it every Wednesday until it feels familiar. But race pace on a Wednesday in week 1 is still race pace on a Wednesday in week 19, and the grid never names its phases or says what each stretch of weeks is for.

The sessions themselves are laid out clearly, with a warm-up mile before each hard one. And while the workout page explains how to run each session, it doesn't say what each one is building, so the reason behind a Saturday of mile repeats is yours to work out.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan never puts runs on back-to-back days, and every hard session starts with an easy mile. But its biggest Saturdays arrive in big steps, and it leaves strength and warning signs to you.

Lighter weeks are not the problem. Nearly every other week is lighter, 9 of them in 20 weeks. A fixed plan needs that kind of relief built in, since load that piles up without a break tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and this one has plenty.

The method has a reason for its big Saturdays: with walk breaks built in, a long run is meant to cost less than the same distance run straight through. But the weeks around them still swing hard. Lighter weeks and big Saturdays take turns, so nearly every long run lands right after a small week. The sharpest climb comes in week 8, with about 70% more running than week 7 and a long run of 20 to 23 miles. Sudden jumps in running load tend to raise the risk of injury, most clearly when a single run goes well past your longest of the past month, and each new long run here reaches about 3 miles past the one before. A study of more than 5,000 adult runners put a number on it. Its authors advise against "running a distance in their current session that exceeds 10% of the longest distance covered in the previous 30 days." Every long run in this plan after week 1 goes past that line. In practice, the plan can feel fine for weeks and then hand you a run of Saturdays that ask a lot at once. Weeks 16 to 18 bring the 26 to 29 mile run, a race-pace Saturday and then 14 mile repeats, back to back to back.

Strength has room on this calendar. Tuesday and Sunday are open, yet the plan fills them with rest or cross-training and no strength session at all, and the PDF never brings strength up. That's a real gap, because strength training substantially lowers the risk of injury in sport. Dan White, a physical therapist in Eugene, Oregon, puts that in race terms: "If strength training buys you consistency and health, that buys you seconds." On this plan, an open Tuesday or Sunday is where that session would go.

The plan also says nothing about pain, or when to skip a run. The Monday check is a good habit to build on. A niggle, the low-grade ache that's still there two days after a hard Saturday, may raise the odds of a full injury that stops you running, though the evidence so far comes from footballers rather than runners. Treat it as the signal to rest, not something to run through.

What happens when you miss a day?

Not much. When a week goes sideways, the plan leaves the decisions to you.

The schedule treats every run as equal. A Monday run/walk and a 26-mile Saturday sit side by side on the grid, and nothing says which one to protect when you only have time for one. That matters here, because from week 8 on, the long runs come every 4 weeks. Miss the 20 to 23 miler in week 8 and your next long run is 23 to 26 miles, with nothing longer than 20 behind you.

There's one rule for a gap in your training, a footnote in week 1: if your last long run was shorter than 10 miles, walk the difference before you start run/walking. It's a smart, kind rule. But it's the only one. Nothing covers a missed week or a few days sick.

Two things do help. The open Tuesdays and Sundays give you somewhere to move a run. And the plan lets you adjust your run/walk ratio as you go, while the timed mile keeps your race pace matched to the runner you are now. But when the chart's numbers and the day you're having don't agree, the plan offers no other guide, such as effort or heart rate. Twiggs has covered one such day elsewhere. When a reader ran the timed mile in 84-degree heat, he warned in a post on Galloway's site that guessing how fast you would have run in cooler weather can leave you with a pace that "has you training too fast, and that could lead to injury." So if your timed mile falls on a hot day, keep the slower time, let the chart set your paces from it, and test again when it cools off.

Will it get you ready for race day?

A marathon asks one big question: can your legs keep going after 20 miles? Most coaches answer it with long runs that grow over the months, and marathoners who train with longer long runs tend to race better, though no study has tested whether shorter, harder sessions could do the same job.

This plan answers it with room to spare. Over six long runs, the distance climbs to 26 to 29 miles in week 16, four weeks before the race and past the race distance itself. That's the method's own advice. "I like to recommend that runners exceed the race distance in training," Galloway's website told runners, because going the extra mile "builds physical and mental confidence." The run/walk method Twiggs teaches holds that walk breaks lower the toll of each mile, which is how it can ask for that much in training and still expect you to recover. Marc Burget, a competitive marathoner, found that out the first time he raced a marathon with walk breaks. "My legs felt heavy but I had no pain or stiffness that usually follows the marathon," he wrote in a post on Galloway's website. This plan counts on the same effect, Saturday after Saturday. You'll reach the start having already covered the distance.

The race-specific work is strong too. Every Wednesday you practice race pace, and three Saturdays carry 4 miles of it. For most runners, marathon pace sits below threshold, the strongest effort you could sustain in an hour-long race, so race-pace miles and harder running are different kinds of training. Both are reasonable for a recreational marathoner, and no study shows one beats the other. This plan gives you both, with the race-pace miles on one side and the mile repeats, growing from 4 to 14 and run hard, on the other.

But the last few weeks are out of order. The final long run lands at a good time, yet week 18 brings 14 mile repeats, the most hard miles of any session in the plan, two weeks before the race. A step down of up to 3 weeks, cutting the miles while keeping some faster running, improves race performance compared with holding training steady. Here the step down really begins in week 19. Race week is light, so the step down does come, only later than it could.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Mostly, yes. For a plan with three runs a week, it covers a lot of ground.

Saturday never repeats itself two weeks running. It moves between long runs, mile repeats, race-pace runs and the timed mile, so your hard work comes in four kinds across the 20 weeks. Each one tests something different: how long you can keep going, how hard you can hold a mile, how race pace feels, and how fit you are today. The schedule itself is simple to follow, one line per day.

But short, fast running barely appears. Apart from a few quick pickups in the warm-up before each of the four timed miles, there are no strides on easy days and no hill work at any point. Short, explosive work can make each stride cost less energy, though strides themselves haven't been tested directly, and strides take only a few minutes at the end of an easy Monday. Running coach Jason Fitzgerald calls hill sprints his favorite sprint workout, saying they "can make you less prone to injury, increase your power, and improve your running efficiency." For a runner chasing a faster marathon, moving more efficiently is a gain this plan doesn't go after.