Running Plan Review Runner's World Break 3:00 Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

Yes, in two clear stretches, though the plan never explains them. Marathon training tends to work best in chapters. Easy running builds the base, harder work arrives on top of it, and the kind of hard work changes as race day gets closer, moving from raw speed toward the long, steady effort a marathon demands. Plans that shift their emphasis like this tend to beat training that stays the same week after week, though the gain measured in runners was small. Peter Snell, a triple Olympic gold medalist coached by Arthur Lydiard, put the classic order simply: "Develop endurance as early as possible." Building speed, he said, "is a relatively short process." This plan assumes you've done that work already, since it asks for about 31 miles a week from week 1.

Here, the first 5 weeks put the hard running on the track. From week 6, tempo blocks join the long run and get longer, and so do the long runs, so a second kind of hard work leads you toward the race. The plan calls its 4 phases base, build, peak and taper, but never says what each one is for. The hill days on some Fridays are thin too, with no set work beyond the hilliest route you can find.

The plan has a rhythm as well. From week 5 to week 13, a long, easy Sunday alternates with a shorter one that has tempo in the middle, so the biggest efforts don't stack up week after week. And every hard session comes with a few lines on what it's for, with the key workouts underlined on the calendar. You can see each week's priorities at a glance.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The plan's build is careful in places, but it leaves out the guidance that keeps a runner healthy through 16 weeks.

The biggest gap is warning signs. The plan never says what to watch for: a sharp pain, a sore spot that's still there on the next run, a session that feels wrong from the first mile. A niggle that hangs around may raise the odds of an injury that stops you running, though the evidence is still early, and many runners describe steps between feeling fine and having to stop. Marathoner Nigel Martin once ran on a niggle in his lower leg: "I found I was able to run through it, literally for several months. However, inevitably as it wasn’t getting better, it eventually caught up with me." Easing off on one of those early steps is a sensible precaution. This plan leaves you to judge that alone, with set paces on the page pulling the other way.

Strength is missing too. The plan mentions it but puts none on the calendar, so when it happens, and what each session includes, is up to you. That matters, because strength training substantially lowers injury risk in sport.

There are lighter weeks, but only 3, and all of them come from week 10 on. Before that, weeks 4, 6 and 8 each drop about a tenth, but only because Sunday's run gets shorter, while the rest of the week carries on as before. A fixed plan needs that relief built in, since load that builds without a break tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and here the first full break arrives more than halfway through. Coach Pete Rea, who cut his ZAP Fitness runners back every third week, found that "the level of workouts is elevated thereafter, that workouts are more effective and staleness prevented." On this plan, the first full lighter week waits until week 10.

The weekly build is mostly gradual, but it climbs in a few big steps. Three times the weekly total grows by more than a fifth over the week before, in weeks 5, 7 and 9, each time Sunday's long run reaches a new distance. To its credit, none of those rises is large against the average of the few weeks before it. The track sessions open with 2 easy miles, but nothing more: no drills or strides to get the legs ready.

What happens when you miss a day?

Picture a flat Wednesday in week 12. Your legs are still heavy from Sunday's 20 miles or more, and three miles at a set pace sit ahead of you, with 800s in between. The plan has nothing to say about that day. It has nothing to say about a missed run or a missed week either: no rule for what to repeat or skip, no way back after a few days off sick, no advice after a week lost to a niggle. "If you’re forced to miss more than a few days of training, you need to decide whether to try to catch up or revise your marathon goal," write coach Pete Pfitzinger and writer Scott Douglas. With a goal this exact, that is a big call, and this plan leaves it to you. It assumes you'll run every session as printed.

That's where the paces bite. Every rep on the track has a set pace, printed for the goal, and those paces never change. The plan admits some days you won't hit them perfectly, but it offers no effort to fall back on. So on that flat Wednesday, the choice is to chase the number or miss it. And if you get fitter than the paces, or fall behind them, the page doesn't move with you.

The plan also never checks whether you're ready, and it gives no way in for a runner below its opening week. Coaches generally start a plan near what a runner already runs, though no study has tested that directly. Compare week 1, described above, with your last month before you begin.

The plan does leave some room. The Thursday run is optional in every week until race week, and so is Monday's in 7 of the 16 weeks, and you can swap an optional run for cross-training. The underlined key sessions show you what to protect in a short week, even though the plan never says what to drop first.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Mostly, yes. The plan builds the endurance a marathon takes, but it never has you rehearse the pace you hope to race.

Long runs are the backbone of most marathon training, a long-standing habit with some early evidence behind it. This plan's grow from 10 miles to 2 runs of 20 to 22 miles, in weeks 11 and 13. Week 13 is the biggest of all, around 53 miles, pairing 6 one-mile repeats on Wednesday with that second long Sunday. Then the running drops away, and a taper of up to 3 weeks improves race performance compared with holding the training steady.

The tempo blocks do the other job. Every other Sunday from week 6, the long run carries a stretch of comfortably hard running in the middle, growing from 2 miles to 8 by week 12. That's running close to your threshold, an effort you could sustain in a race lasting around an hour. Threshold work and race-pace work are different kinds of training, and either is a reasonable way to prepare. Week 14 adds an option: swap Sunday's 16 miles for a 5K race. A tune-up race may help as pacing rehearsal, though the evidence for that is thin.

The gap is race pace itself. The tempo miles are run faster than the pace you plan to race, by design, with the idea that race pace then feels easier by comparison. It's a reasonable choice. But nowhere does the plan ask for a long, steady stretch at goal pace, so the first time you hold it for mile after mile is the race. Most coaches would want at least one rehearsal of that before race day. Denver runner Matthew Hunsucker had been running "just slightly under three hours for the marathon distance" when he took up a Hansons plan, with tempo runs at goal marathon pace that grew longer as the weeks went on. That way, he said, "you get used to running marathon pace for longer periods of time, which builds the mental strength needed for a marathon and the confidence that you can sustain that pace on race day." This plan takes the other road, so a stretch at goal pace inside one long run is yours to add. The hard work also stops growing before the end, with the tempo blocks peaking in week 12.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Endurance usually grows better on a mix: plenty of easy running, with clearly hard sessions in between, rather than a steady run of medium-hard miles, though the edge in studies is small.

This plan gets that mix right on the hard days. About 83 percent of the running is easy. The Wednesday sessions take a different shape nearly every week: sets of 400s, runs of 800s, ladders that climb from one lap to three and back down, and mile repeats late in the build. The Sunday tempo blocks add a second kind of hard running, and on some Fridays the day's miles move to the hilliest route you can find.

But the easy days carry nothing extra. There are no strides, short hill sprints or drills anywhere in the plan. Strides are a few short, fast pickups at the end of an easy run, smooth rather than strained. Explosive work of this kind can make running more economical, though strides themselves haven't been tested directly. For a few minutes' work, they're an easy addition this plan skips. "I do strides on my easy days after my run," says trail runner and author Morgan Sjogren. "This reminds my body to run fastest at the end of a workout or race, practice good form, loosen up any tightness and prime my body to run fast the next day during my workout." On this plan, Tuesday's easy run comes the day before every track session, so it's the natural place for a few.