Running Plan Review Runner's World 20-Week Beginner Half Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

A plan should change as you do. Early weeks lay down easy running, harder work follows once the body can take it, and the final weeks back off before race day. Planned shifts in emphasis like this tend to beat training that stays the same week after week, though the gain looks small.

This plan has that arc. Run/walk gives way to continuous running, speed work stays from early on to near the end, and the last block before the taper turns toward the race, with the plan's only long run without walk breaks in week 17. Each session is written out clearly, from the warm-up to the repeats to the cool-down.

But the plan never names its stages or says what each one is for, and the hard sessions come without a word on why you're running them, so you move through the plan without knowing which stage you're in. The early order is crowded, too. After 2 weeks of run/walk, Thursday of week 3 asks for 6 fast repeats of 400 meters, about a week before your first easy run without a walk break. That's a lot of newness at once for legs that are still learning to run.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan gets the habits right, but the build has some rough spots.

The habits are real. No two hard days sit side by side. Every speed workout starts and ends with easy running. Every week has a day for stretching, mobility and foam rolling, and strength days sit on the calendar every week until race week. That last part counts for a lot, because strength training lowers injury risk in sport more than stretching or balance work alone. "A lot of people think about running as a way to get in shape, but you should be in shape to run," says Pamela Geisel, an exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. "Running is a series of single-leg hops. That takes a certain amount of strength and stability." This plan sets aside the days to build it.

But the strength days are labels with nothing inside. The plan names the day and leaves the exercises to you, and for a new runner, that's a lot to work out alone.

The lighter weeks are well placed. Weeks 7, 12, 15 and 19 each drop the load, and a plan you follow on your own needs that relief built in, since load that piles up without it tends to raise the risk of injury and illness.

The concern is how the mileage climbs. Week 2 has nearly twice the running of week 1, week 6 rises by more than a third, and week 11 by about a quarter. The long run also steps well past your recent longest twice. Sudden jumps like these tend to raise the risk of injury, and weekly rises above about 30% are a warning sign for newer runners in particular. Blood and the energy systems in your muscles tend to improve within the first few weeks, while tendons need weeks to a few months, and bone is slower still, with one full rebuilding cycle taking roughly 3 to 4 months. A new runner can feel ready for more well before their legs are. Lorraine Moller, an Olympic marathon medalist from the Lydiard school, calls this her golden rule: "you can never progress faster than your slowest part will allow." On this plan, your slowest part is your legs, so let them, not your breathing, decide when you're ready for the next big week.

Nothing in the plan tells you what to watch for, either. A niggle is the low, nagging ache that's still there when the next run starts, and early evidence, from footballers rather than runners, suggests it may raise the risk of a real injury. Easing off for a few days when one shows up costs little, and this plan never suggests it. Four-time Olympian Shalane Flanagan puts the call plainly: "If running is too much of a stress, if something's hurting or you're not going to have a better day because of it, the answer is, Today's not the day to run." On this plan, that call is yours to make, so make it early.

What happens when you miss a day?

Very little, and for a first timer, that matters.

Two things are in its favor. Runs are set by time, distance and effort, not by a pace on your watch, so a slow day isn't a failed day. And race day can fall on the Saturday or the Sunday of the last week.

Beyond that, you're on your own. When illness or a trip takes a week, nothing says whether to pick up where you left off, go back, or press on. Bill Pierce, a founder of the FIRST training program, gave runners one firm rule. "You can't make up what you missed," he once said, "and you certainly shouldn't double up on your workouts to catch up with your program." If a week goes missing here, let it go rather than squeezing it into the next one. Nothing says which runs matter most, so when life squeezes a week, every workout looks equally important. And the plan names no running base you need before week 1. Coaches usually start a plan from the running you already do, but someone who has never run and someone already running a few miles a week begin on the same day here, with no advice on adjusting.

A first timer is the runner with the least practice at making these calls, and the plan leaves every one of them to you.

Will it get you ready for race day?

A first half marathon asks two things of you: enough fitness to hold a steady effort for a long time, and legs that are used to being out there. This plan builds most of the first and some of the second.

The weekly mileage at its peak suits a first half marathon well. Harder running shows up in nearly every week of the build, in repeats from a lap of the track to 2 miles. For a first half marathon, race pace usually sits below threshold, the hardest effort you could hold for about an hour. Threshold work and race-pace work are then different kinds of training, and either is a reasonable way to prepare. The final 2 weeks drop the load, and a taper of up to 3 weeks, cutting volume while keeping some intensity, improves race performance compared with not tapering.

The long run is where it comes up short. Its walk breaks are a sound beginner method: they let you spend more time on your feet with less pounding, and they keep a 68-minute run within reach in week 9. When researchers led by Kuno Hottenrott split 42 everyday runners into two groups for a marathon, one running all the way and one taking walk breaks, they found that run/walk "allows non-elite runners to achieve similar finish times with less (muscle) discomfort." The walk breaks in your long runs work on the same idea. But the long run grows unevenly, and in week 15 its slot goes to speed repeats instead. The longest run is 10 miles, in week 16, with walk breaks. Week 17 brings 8 miles, the only long run in the plan with no walking at all. So race day is the first time you'll cover the last 3 miles. Plenty of first timers finish that way. Knowing it in advance helps, and so does starting the race slower than feels necessary.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Yes, mostly. Most of your running stays easy, and the hard days come in many lengths.

About 80 percent of the running is easy, which is where it belongs. Most coaches build a new runner's plan on easy running, with the harder days kept few and clearly hard. "The pace should be one you could maintain for what should feel like forever," running coach Meg Takacs, whose name is on this plan, says of long, slow runs. Hold this plan's easy days and long runs to that feel, and the hard days stay clearly hard. The repeats change a lot from week to week: 400 meters, 800, 1200, a mile, 2 miles, and mixed sessions with walking between harder stretches.

But every hard day is the same kind of workout: hard running, a short recovery, repeat. There are no hills, and no change in the kind of hard work from one stage of the plan to the next.

Strides are rarer than they could be. Sets of quick, relaxed 15-second pickups appear in only 4 weeks of the plan. Ten of them add a few minutes to a run, and they're a low-cost way to practice running fast.