Running Plan Review Runner's World 10-Week Beginner Half Marathon Training Plan

Does it build you up smartly?

A plan this short can't do everything, so the order matters, and this one gets the order right. Shifting the emphasis toward race-specific work as the race nears tends to beat holding the same training throughout, though the edge is small.

The first 2 weeks are all easy. New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard wrote in Run to the Top: "You must condition the body first so that it can stand the hard fast work." Here that conditioning is short, 2 easy weeks on top of the year of running the plan asks for, before the first hard Wednesday. From week 3, most Wednesdays carry a stretch at race effort, and those stretches grow toward the race before shrinking for race week. The first month adds the Wednesday race effort and a longer Sunday, and the weeks after it build on both. Every hard session is written out in full, from the warmup to the cooldown, and each one says what it's for.

Does it protect you from injury?

Not fully. Most weeks build gently, but week 6 jumps, there's no real lighter week, and strength and warning signs are left to you.

The trouble starts in week 6. The running climbs from 15 miles to 20, about a third more, and week 7 adds a fifth run on top. The Sunday long run reaches 8 and then 9 miles, each the longest yet. Very large weekly jumps, above about 30 percent, tend to raise injury risk, especially for newer runners, and week 6 lands just past that line. The worry is an old one at Runner's World. "I noticed that runners who increased their training load too quickly were incurring injuries," said Joan Ullyot, a doctor who wrote about running for the magazine. Week 6 is that kind of step, so treat it with care. Your breathing will likely cope. But while heart and lungs tend to catch up within weeks, tendons take weeks to a few months and bone longer still, so the legs can fall behind the lungs, and a jump that feels fine on Sunday can turn into a sore shin or a tight Achilles a few days later.

The plan does try to build in a break. In week 5, the Wednesday race effort disappears, the long run drops back to 5 miles, and the plan tells you why: to give your legs a rest after the first month, and to resist the urge to add miles. That's sound thinking. But the week is only 2 miles lighter than week 4, too small a dip to count as a real lighter week, and the next week brings the biggest jump in the plan. Training that piles up without a break tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and on a printed plan a scheduled lighter week is the simplest way to build one in. A runner heading into week 6 hasn't really had that.

The plan does some things well. Each race effort session opens and closes with easy running, so you never start it cold. And no hard day ever follows another.

But strength training is missing. The plan never schedules it. Monday, Thursday and Saturday are open, but they're also your recovery days, and in week 7 Saturday becomes a run. Where strength fits, and what it includes, is left to you. That's a real gap, because strength training substantially lowers the risk of sports injury.

But the bigger gap may be the warning signs. The plan never says which aches mean ease off. A low grade ache that lingers may raise the chance of a full injury that stops your training, though that has so far been measured in footballers rather than runners. Weeks 6 and 7 are the ones to watch for it. Without guidance, it's easy to push through just to stay on schedule. Sports medicine doctor Brett Toresdahl draws a clear line: "If there is pain that gets worse throughout the course of a run and causes a runner to limp or change how they run, that should be seen by a sports medicine specialist." Keep that rule in mind through weeks 6 and 7, when this plan asks the most of your legs.

What happens when you miss a day?

The weeks a runner can least afford to lose here are 6 and 7, where the Sunday long run takes its biggest steps. Miss one of those Sundays to a cold, and the plan has nothing to say about it.

What it does well is effort. Easy runs should be easy enough to talk through, and if you're huffing and puffing, you're going too fast. Long runs stay below 5 on a scale of 10, and walking is fine. Race effort is an even, steady feel, and first timers are told not to fuss over an exact number. Chris Twiggs, who leads training for Jeff Galloway's run/walk programs, put the test even more simply: "If you aren’t smiling when you run, at least on the inside, you’re doing it wrong." On this plan's easy days and Sunday long runs, that's a fair check. These cues work on a bad day as well as a good one. You don't need a watch to know you're running right, and when you're tired, the same cues tell you to slow down.

But nothing in the plan covers missed runs. There's no word on what to do after a week lost to illness, whether to repeat a week or move on, or which run to drop when a week gets crowded. If you have to choose, the Wednesday session and the Sunday long run carry the most, but the plan leaves you to work that out.

Will it get you ready for race day?

Yes. This plan prepares you well for race day.

The long run is the heart of a first half marathon, and this plan builds it steadily, from 5 miles in the first week to 10 in week 8, two weeks before the race. That leaves 2 weeks between the longest run and the race. The biggest week reaches 23 miles, which suits a first half.

The Wednesday runs do the rest. In 7 of the last 8 weeks, you spend a stretch at half marathon effort, building from 3 miles to 6 in week 9. By race day, an even, sustainable race effort is something you've practiced many times.

Then the plan eases off. It calls week 9 the start of the taper and eases the long run back to 8 miles. That same week's Wednesday holds the longest race effort stretch of the whole plan, 6 miles, so plan the week around it. Race week is light: a short Wednesday at race effort, Thursday and Friday off, and a short easy run on Saturday. A planned drop in training before a race improves race performance compared with training right up to the start. Even elite runners take that on trust. "It's more faith than a physical feeling for me, anyway," said 1500-meter runner Jenny Simpson of resting before a big race. So if race week here feels too light, trust the 9 weeks behind it.

Are the workouts varied enough?

Partly. Most of the running is easy, which is right. But the hard days are all one kind of run.

Easy running should make up most of a runner's week, with the harder days built on top of it. This plan keeps about three quarters of its running easy, and for a first half marathon that's a sound base.

Keeping one workout lets a first timer learn race effort without much else to think about. But that's all the variety there is. There are no strides, no hills, no faster repeats and no drills. Mixing mostly easy running with a few clearly hard sessions tends to build endurance a little better than long stretches of steady, moderate running. Strides, a few short, fast, controlled runs at the end of an easy day, cost little and give your legs regular practice at quicker running. This plan leaves them out. "I do strides on my easy days after my run," trail runner and author Morgan Sjogren said in Outside. "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." Here, the short easy run each Tuesday, the day before most Wednesday race efforts, is a natural place for a few.