Running Plan Review Runner's World Break 4:00 Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

A marathon build has two jobs. It has to make you able to cover the distance, and then able to hold your pace across all of it. Good plans give those jobs their own stretches of weeks, so the kind of hard work shifts as the race gets closer. Shifting the emphasis that way tends to beat holding the same training for months, though the edge is small.

This plan does make that shift, once. For the first 5 weeks, the hard work is Wednesday's track repeats and a long run that grows. From week 6, every other Sunday trades the long run for a shorter one with a stretch at half-marathon effort in the middle, which is the plan's turn toward the steady, sustained running the race asks for.

But it never tells you why. The 4 phases are mostly names on the page. The Wednesday session changes shape from week to week, but not in kind: it's measured repeats between 400 meters and a mile, at printed paces, in week 2 and in week 15 alike. And none of the hard sessions say what they're for. A runner who wonders why week 10 is 800s and week 11 is 400s won't find an answer in the PDF.

Does it protect you from injury?

Partly. The schedule itself is built with care, but the PDF leaves you on your own once something starts to hurt.

Runners tend to describe injury as a sliding scale, from feeling fine, to a low ache that hangs around between runs, to pain that stops you running altogether. That lingering ache, the one runners call a niggle, may raise the odds of a bigger injury, though so far that has been measured in footballers rather than runners. Easing off when it first shows up often costs a few days. Running through it to keep the schedule can cost weeks. And it's easy to do. One club runner told researchers in Ireland that a niggle is simple to brush aside "because it is not an external thing, you can't see it, you can just kind of ignore it."

This plan says almost nothing about that stage. The workout key tells you once not to overdo it, and that's all. Picture an Achilles that turns sore in week 9, with the first 18 to 20 miler on Sunday. The PDF has no list of warning signs, no advice on when to skip a run, and no guidance for returning after a few days off. That call is yours alone.

Strength is the second gap. The schedule never includes a strength session, so which days to use, and which runs to keep it away from, is left to you. That's a real loss, because regular strength training cuts the risk of sport injuries substantially, more than stretching does. In one study of Brazilian runners, a program that "focused on foot and ankle strength reduced injury risk by nearly 60%," two university lecturers wrote. Here, that work is yours to add, and it's easier to start in week 1 than after the first ache.

The calendar does its own part well. The weekly mileage climbs from the mid-20s to the high 40s, and four lighter weeks, in weeks 6, 8, 12 and 14, break up the climb. That matters on a printed plan, because training that piles up without a break tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and a scheduled lighter week is the simplest way to build one in. Saturday's rest comes before every long Sunday, and the first half-marathon stretch arrives in week 6, a lighter week, rather than piled onto a big one.

What happens when you miss a day?

Not much. The PDF assumes every run happens as printed, at the pace printed.

The paces are the bigger problem. Every track repeat comes with a target pace set for one goal, the one in the plan's name, and nothing else: no effort to run by instead, and no way to adjust as you get fitter or fall behind. A runner whose recent races land a few minutes short of that goal gets the same targets as one who is already there, and the plan has no way to meet them where they are. Training adjusted to the runner tends to match or beat a fixed template, with fewer runners who don't respond to it. "Every training plan is written in pencil," says Chris Bennett, Nike Running's global head coach. "They're meant to be erased and adjusted." This PDF never says when to erase, so if the Wednesday targets are out of reach, adjusting them is up to you.

Missed runs get no attention at all. There's nothing on what to do after a lost Wednesday, a skipped long run, or a week out sick. The workout key names the track session and the long run as the hard days, but it doesn't say which comes first when only one fits.

There is some give in the week: the optional easy runs can go. The starting point is clear, so you can check you're ready before week 1. And the workout key explains each kind of run in a line or two, with easy runs set at an effort you could talk through and the half-marathon stretches at about 6 or 7 out of 10.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Race readiness is where this plan does its best work. The long runs, the harder Sundays and the taper all point at the race.

For most recreational marathoners, race pace sits well below threshold, the effort you could hold for about an hour, so a race-pace run and a threshold run are different kinds of training. That holds at this plan's goal. In a small study of 15 Athens marathoners, those who finished under 4 hours raced at about 89 percent of their threshold speed, and slower runners at about 78 percent. So which should you train at? Either is a reasonable choice, and no study shows one beats the other. This plan spends its hard Sunday miles above race pace. The stretches at half-marathon effort sit close to threshold, and they grow from 2 miles in week 6 to 6 miles in weeks 10 and 12. By the second 6-miler, a runner has held a harder effort than race day asks for, for nearly an hour.

The long run gets the same steady attention. Early evidence ties longer long runs to faster marathons, though no study has tested whether shorter, faster sessions could do the same job. Here the long runs climb in steps, reach 18 to 20 miles twice, then 20 to 22 in week 13, three weeks before the race. The weekly mileage peaks that same week, near 48 miles with the optional runs, which is plenty for this goal.

Then the plan eases off. Week 14's Sunday is your choice of 16 miles or a 5K race, week 15's is 8 miles, and race week is short and light. Cutting back over the last 1 to 3 weeks, while keeping some faster running, improves race performance compared with training straight through. If you choose the 5K, treat it as pacing practice. Runners with more races behind them tend to pace a marathon more evenly, and that is the case coaches make for a tune-up.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Mostly. The track session changes shape almost every week, but nothing adds short, fast strides to the easy days.

Plenty of easy running mixed with a few clearly hard sessions tends to build endurance a little better than a steady stream of medium effort. This plan follows that pattern. About 83 percent of the running is easy, counting warm-ups and cool-downs. The kind of work on Wednesdays stays the same, but its shape keeps moving: straight 400s one week, 800s another, ladders that climb and fall between 400 meters and a mile, and five one-mile repeats in the biggest week. A runner who dreads the same workout every week will rarely meet it twice in a row. The straight 800s, in weeks 6, 10, and 15, are each set at 4 minutes, and that echoes a workout Runner's World made famous. "I'm trying to build up to ten 800s in the same time as my marathon goal time," longtime staffer Bart Yasso told the magazine's Amby Burfoot. This plan stops at 8, but the target matches: 4 minutes each for a 4-hour goal.

The gap is the small stuff. There are no strides, no short sprints and no drills anywhere in the plan. Strides take only a few minutes at the end of an easy run, and short, explosive efforts can make running a little more efficient, though results are mixed and strides themselves haven't been tested directly. Some coaches want them from the start of a marathon build. You "need to rev the engine with strides, at 5k pace or faster," writes Jay Johnson, a coach and the author of Simple Marathon Training. Strides are "rarely part of a marathoner's plan in their first two weeks," he adds, "and that's a problem." This plan leaves them out of all 16 weeks, so adding them is up to you.