Running Plan Review Runner's World 26-Week Beginner Run/Walk Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

Not well. For 26 weeks, this plan grows one thing: the Saturday long run. The rest of the plan exists to carry you from one long Saturday to the next.

The 3 phases are named and explained, but they are names more than changes. Apart from the timed mile, 7 times in 26 weeks, the plan never adds a new kind of running, and nothing in the build shifts toward the work race day will ask for. Training that changes its focus in stages tends to produce better races than training that holds one load throughout. For a runner whose goal is simply to finish, building only the long run is a reasonable choice, but it leaves the long Saturday carrying the whole build.

The sessions are easy to read and say little about why. Each weekday gives you a time window and the mix your last timed mile set, and the calendar rarely tells you what a given run is for.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The walk breaks protect you on every run, but the plan's biggest Saturdays arrive in leaps.

The plan's best protection is a simple rule. If you're huffing and puffing, aching, or struggling in any way, it tells you to walk more and run less in each minute. That matters, because a small ache that lingers between runs may be the first sign of an injury that stops you. The rule earns its keep on the Monday after a big Saturday, when an ache from the weekend is still there and the easy answer is to run through it.

The plan also pauses well. From week 8 on, every long Saturday is followed by at least one short one, and near the peak the longest runs come 3 weeks apart. A body new to running needs those pauses. Training that piles up without relief tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and a plan you follow on your own needs that relief written in. For a first marathoner, that rhythm of a big weekend, then a small one, is a sound part of the plan's design.

The method has its own logic for long Saturdays: a walk break gives your legs a short rest inside every mile, so each mile costs less. "Running the entire thing is going to be very difficult and taxing from a muscular endurance perspective," says exercise physiologist Todd Buckingham of marathoners out on the course for four to six hours. "That’s why the walk [intervals] can be helpful because they decrease the impact on the legs." That's the bet this plan makes on every long Saturday, though walk breaks don't make anyone injury-proof. But the late long runs still climb too steeply. Very large jumps in a week's running are a warning sign, especially for newer runners, and a new runner's body adapts unevenly. Heart and lungs catch up in weeks, but bone usually takes months, and stress injuries are thought to start when impact climbs faster than it can rebuild. In week 20, after 2 short Saturdays, the long run jumps to 23 miles. In week 23, after 2 more, it jumps to 26. Each time, nearly all of the week's running lands on that one morning. In a study that tracked more than 5,000 adult runners, injuries climbed "when the distance of a single running session exceeded 10% of the longest run undertaken in the last 30 days." This plan's 23-miler is about 15 percent longer than the 20 before it, and its 26-miler is about 13 percent longer than the 23, so both go past that line.

The rest of the week never grows to meet those Saturdays. The weekday run/walks are the same 30 to 45 minutes at the end as at the start, and runners who build a bigger regular week, gradually, tend to get hurt less, not more, though that comes from watching runners rather than from trials. Here, the long run climbs on top of a week that stays small.

Strength is missing too. The plan never puts a strength session on the calendar, and strength training substantially lowers the risk of sports injury. The 2 rest or cross-training days each week have room for it, but strength isn't among the options the plan offers for them.

What happens when you miss a day?

Every plan meets an interruption sooner or later, and a long one makes it likelier. This one adjusts to your fitness well, but does much less when life breaks into the calendar.

The run/walk chart is the plan's best tool. You start where the plan tells true beginners to start, with a few seconds of running in each minute, and it tells you when to step up. Every few weeks, the timed mile checks your fitness again and resets your mix. Chris Twiggs, who put his name on this plan, has written that "the pace you decide to run should determine the ratio you decide to use," not the other way around. So let each timed mile set your mix, even when you'd hoped for more running. That fits how new runners improve: within about 8 weeks of steady training, the same pace starts to feel easier. This plan has a built-in way to notice that and give you more running when you're ready for it.

But the dates on the grid are fixed, and the plan gives no guidance for a lost week or a long run that falls apart halfway. That matters more here than in most plans, because late in the build the long runs come 3 weeks apart. Miss the 23-mile Saturday and the next long run on the schedule is 26 miles, and the plan doesn't say whether to try it anyway.

The week itself has room. Tuesday, Friday and Sunday hold nothing you have to do, so a missed Monday or Wednesday has somewhere to go. Which run moves, and which one you let go, is a judgment the plan leaves with you.

Will it get you ready for race day?

For distance, yes. Training takes you the full 26 miles once before race day. The last 3 weeks are where the plan falls short.

Among marathoners, longer long runs go with faster finishes, and in one group of first-timers with fewer race-day injuries, though nobody has tested whether something shorter could stand in for them. This plan's longest run comes 3 weeks before the race, and it is 26 miles. With walk breaks all the way, you reach the start line having already covered the distance once, which is a powerful thing for a first marathoner to carry. Walk breaks change how those last miles feel, too. "For my first marathon in 2013, I trained just by running a lot and working on my distance, and I hit the wall at mile 19," runner Sharon Rosenblatt said in a review of Galloway's own plan. Run/walking a later marathon, she found "it was the first marathon where I wasn't totally physically wrecked after the finish." A small trial backs her up. When researchers led by Kuno Hottenrott split 42 everyday runners into two groups for a marathon, the run/walkers finished in about the same time as those who ran all the way (about 7 minutes slower on average, a gap small enough to be chance), and they "reported less muscle pain and fatigue." This plan builds the same habit, so take every walk break from the first mile on race day, the way you did on your long Saturdays.

The taper is the weak part. A taper trims the running so tiredness drains away while fitness stays, and a taper of 1 to 3 weeks improves race performance compared with training straight through. Most tapers ease the running down in steps. This one drops in a single step. The week after the 26-miler is one of the plan's smallest, and so is the week after that. Race week holds just 2 short run/walks and a walk before the race. You go from your biggest week to one of your smallest overnight and stay there, which is a sudden change for a body that has only recently learned to go long.

Race effort is missing too. Outside the 7 timed miles, every step of training is easy, but no long run includes a stretch at the effort you plan to race at. Race day is the first time you'll hold that effort for long.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Week 22 looks just like week 2, apart from Saturday. Some runners will find that comforting, and for a first marathon with walk breaks it's partly the right call. But it never makes room for short, quick running.

Most of what carries a runner to a marathon is easy running. Easy miles are the base that harder training rests on, and they help the body adapt to it. About 85 percent of this plan's running is easy, and the walk breaks make it hard to drift into running too hard on days meant to be gentle. "There really is no need to go fast," Barry Smyth tells new runners. He's a professor who studies data from thousands of marathoners, and he was surprised at "quite how much of my running is done at a very gentle pace." This plan makes that gentle pace the rule for nearly every step. The schedule is clear, too, so you always know what's next.

But that's nearly all there is. Apart from the 7 timed miles, there are no strides, no hills and no drills anywhere in 26 weeks. Strides are a handful of quick, relaxed efforts of 15 or 20 seconds at the end of an easy run, and they take only minutes. They're a low-cost way to practice running quick and smooth, and this plan never asks for any.