Finding a marathon training schedule that works for you is an essential component to achieving your goals.

Not only do you need to find a plan that fits with your individual strengths and weaknesses, but you need to believe strongly in the philosophy behind the plan.

My biggest mistake early in my running career was believing I knew it all. As such, I never put my full faith in the training philosophy of my coach.

I thought there was a better way, I’d get caught up in the latest “fad” training idea, and I always wanted more mileage and harder workouts.

The problem with this approach is that it’s short-sighted.

I focused on the immediate aspects of one “training system” but didn’t try to think long-term about the philosophy – how did things fit together, how did it compare, what were the strengths and weaknesses?

Once I understood this, I was able to better compare specific training philosophies and training plans and find what worked for me. When that happened, I developed the trust in the system that allowed me to record new PRs after months of bad races.

As a coach now, I am frequently asked how our training philosophy and training schedules at RunnersConnect compare to some of the other well-known and popular training plans available.

This is a great question because I believe, like I was in my own training, you can only be truly successful if you believe in the plan. Having faith in your plan and understanding its nuances helps build confidence in your fitness and abilities.

In this article, I am going to outline the differences between our training philosophy or approach to the 5k and 10k compared to some of the more popular plans or programs available.

Some notes before we get started

1. I can only compare our philosophy to those I know well, have studied, or worked under myself. If I don’t mention a coach/program specifically, let me know in the comments and I can try do some research. However, the plan must be publicly available in some way.

2. It’s important to remember when comparing any two training philosophies that there isn’t only one way to train. While there are certainly training concepts that apply universally, the specifics of how to approach a race can be different. Obviously, each coach believes in their system.

3. If you have no intention of ever using us as coaches, that’s ok. I still think this can be a valuable read as you’ll get to learn different approaches to training and definitely some ideas you can implement in your own plan.

4. This comparison is in no means written as a way to besmirch any of the following plans or coaches. I actually really like some of them. It’s simply a means to compare our differing approaches to the same goal – helping you run faster.

5. Finally, I have no doubt that for the plans mentioned below that offer personalized coaching options they would accommodate your needs. This is simply a comparison of philosophies based of generally available plans and literature produced.

Ready to get started? Jump to the plan you’d like to compare…

Hal Higdon
McMillan
Hansons
Pfitzinger

The RunnersConnect Philosophy

First, it’s helpful if you know our overall approach to training so you have something to compare it to if you’re not currently coached by us.

Our overall approach to training is that as a runner gets closer to race day, we want their workouts and training to become more and more specific to the demands of the race.

This progression is generally called “general to specific”. In essence, your training is split into two these two phases:

The general phase occurs at the start of your training cycle and is designed to slowly build each energy system to its highest fitness before starting the race specific phase.

During the general phase you slowly build upon each component (speed, strength, long run, mileage, etc.) so that no particular energy system is left behind. You start at whatever fitness level you’re at and by the end of the training cycle, your aerobic development, speed, and threshold are at their maximum levels simultaneously.

Here’s a good way to visualize how this works:

The general phase can also be broken down into subsections with a particular focus. For example, if you’re a little weak on speed, workouts can have a more speed development focus whereas if you need to develop your aerobic system, you can target more threshold runs in this phase

The race specific phase is typically 10-12 weeks long, depending on your fitness level and training history. It occurs directly after the general phase and comprises the last 10-12 weeks of your training before the race.

As the name implies, race-specific training means training to the specific physiological demands of your race distance.

In a marathon specific training phase, your goal should be to develop your aerobic threshold, improve your ability to burn fat as a fuel source when running at marathon pace, and increase your muscular endurance. The more you can develop and target these systems, the faster you will be able to race.

In almost all runners we coach, our goal is to build them up to their highest level of overall running fitness during the general phase and then target their training specifically in the final 10-12 weeks before their marathon.

Aerobic threshold

Here’s where it gets interesting:

Imagine you are a hybrid car.

Your muscles are the engine, glycogen the gas power and fat electric power. Just like a car, you can run using both glycogen and fats depending on how hard you need to work. And, similar to a car, your personal gas tank holds a finite amount of gas (glycogen). Fully carbo-loaded, you can store 1320kcal to 2020kcal glycogen in your liver, muscles and blood combined.

Depending on your size and fitness, running utilizes about 1kcal/Kg/Km. Let’s say you weight 175 pounds (80kg) you need about 3360 kcals (80kg x 42 km) to make it through the race.

Therefore, the stored amount of glycogen of 1320 to 2020kcal is far less than the 3360kcal needed to finish the race. Since it’s impossible to eat 2000 calories during the race, we need to find a way to conserve gas (glycogen) and run as efficiently as possible on electric (fats).

Now:

Like a hybrid car, the faster you run, the more you need to rely on gas (glycogen). Luckily, running aerobically requires only a little gas and is mostly electric. But, if you just run very easy, you’re not likely to finish in a time you’re happy with.

So, we need to find that optimal balance between electric (fat burning) and gas (glycogen burning) that allows you to get to the finish as quickly as possible.

Aerobic threshold is defined as the fastest pace you can run while using the aerobic system as the primary energy pathway

In essence, aerobic threshold is that optimal pace between fat and glycogen usage. Thus your marathon pace, and thus your finishing time, is directly correlated with your aerobic threshold.

Burning fat as a fuel source

The problem with using fat as an energy source is that it’s not a very efficient provider of energy. It takes a while for your body to be able to oxidize fat into usable energy for the body. The faster you want to go (and thus the more energy your muscles demand) the less efficient fat becomes.

However, you can train your body to become more efficient at burning fat as a fuel source. This can occur by targeting this system specifically with workouts/mileage, the way you structure your workouts and long runs, as well as your nutrition.

Here’s the deal:

The big mistake I see a lot of runners make is not paying any attention to improving their ability to burn fat as a fuel source in training. They either don’t know about it, are following antiquated training methods, or are simply given wrong information.

Our marathon training philosophy is designed around training this specific system as often as possible in training. I don’t often see other training systems with this goal.

Improving muscular endurance

The final big piece of the puzzle is muscular endurance. You can have all the glycogen in the world, but if your muscles are not up to the task of running 26.2 miles, you’re going to have a crappy race.

The challenge is that running the full marathon distance in training is not recommended (due to how long it would take to recover). So, we need to get creative in training to simulate the fatigue and develop the muscular endurance needed.

To accomplish this, we can do two things:

First, we can implement what coaches call the theory of “accumulated fatigue“. Basically, this means that the fatigue from one workout accumulates and transfers to the next so that you’re always starting a workout or a long run a little tired from your previous training.

This type of training helps your develop the muscular endurance without needing to run the full marathon in training.

Second, you can implement specific workouts that are designed to fatigue your legs and muscle and then have you train and run at marathon pace. The nice thing about these workouts is that they occur all in one session and can help simulate different types of fatigue you’ll experience on race day.

Long runs

As you may already know, I tend to believe that most runners and training schedules overemphasize the long run. Here’s why I think that is a critical flaw and how we approach things instead:

As we’ve discussed already, the primary goals of training should be to increase aerobic threshold, utilize fat more efficiently at marathon pace, and build endurance.

So where does the marathon long run fit in with these 3 goals?

Aerobic threshold

Research has shown that your body doesn’t see a significant increase in aerobic development, specifically mitochondrial development, after you’ve been running for 2 hours. As a 3:45 marathoner, your easy long run pace is likely between 9:30 and 10:00 mile. So, a 20-22 miler will take you a little over 3 hours to finish.

Moreover, running all easy pace, which you’ll need to do to run for 22 miles in the middle of training, never challenges your aerobic threshold. Not one mile trains you to run at aerobic threshold. You can’t improve an energy system if you never train it.

Compare this to what we suggest, which is instead running 16-18 mile long runs with a 4-5 mile fast finish (at marathon pace).

The total time running will be closer to 2:30, which still provides the aerobic development you need and is similar in comparison to a 20-miler due to how aerobic development flat lines after 2 hours. More importantly, you spend 4-5 miles running at aerobic threshold (while tired).

The added benefit is that reducing your long run volume makes you less susceptible to injury and reduces your recovery time.

This allows you to be more consistent, remain injury-free, and have the energy to perform marathon-specific workouts and more mileage through the week.

When running a 20-22 miler, it takes you almost all week to recover so you never have a chance to do the race-specific work you need.

Fat utilization

Here’s the deal:

It’s easy for your body to burn fat as a fuel source when running easy. However, to teach your body how to burn fat as a fuel as a fuel source you need to run at marathon pace while you’re already low on glycogen. This forces the body to use fat as a fuel source (at marathon pace) and therefore become more efficient at doing so.

20-22 miles of all easy running = 0 miles training to burn fat while running at marathon pace

16-18 miles with a 4-5 mile faster finish = 4 to 5 miles training to utilize fat as a fuel source while running at marathon pace.

Endurance

You might be wondering:

Yes, running 20-22 miles is good for muscular endurance. But, the longer you run, the more you susceptible to injuries you become. Your form begins to break down, your major muscles become weak (thus relying on smaller, less used muscles), and overuse injuries begin to take their toll.

Moreover, you never run at marathon pace while tired.

Your muscular endurance is improved while running easy, but not when trying to run at marathon pace, which requires different recruitment of muscle fibers.

This approach is not very specific to what you’ll experience on race day and why your body isn’t capable of pushing through it.

Compare this to the muscular fatigue from a 16-18 miler with a fast finish.

You get 4-5 miles of running at marathon pace while tired.

Moreover, our long run philosophy is to always buttress the long run against a steady run the day before. For example, you may run 1 mile easy, 6 miles marathon pace, 1 mile easy on Saturday and then run your full long run on Sunday. Because of the harder running on Saturday, you start Sunday’s long run not at zero miles, but rather at six or eight miles, since that is the level of fatigue and glycogen depletion your body is carrying over from the previous run.

Compare our long run approach to the traditional 20-22 mile easy approach

Total miles at MP = 0. Total miles for weekend = 22

Total miles at MP = 11. Total miles for weekend = 26

Hopefully, that helped give you an overview of our philosophy and how our marathon plans are structured. Now on to some more popular plans…

Hal Higdon

Of all popular training programs, I’d say Hal Higdon is probably most different from our training philosophy. The two main differences are the focus (or lack thereof) of race specificity and the emphasis on long runs.

Race specificity

Now:

Our overall approach to training is that as a runner gets closer to race day, we want their workouts and training to become more and more specific to the demands of the race.

In a marathon specific training phase, your goal should be to develop your aerobic threshold, improve your ability to burn fat as a fuel source when running at marathon pace, and increase your muscular endurance.

The more you can develop and target these systems, the faster you will be able to race.

In Hal Higdon’s programs, I believe the idea of race specificity is somewhat ignored.

Here’s why:

The mid-week workout rotates between hill repeats, 800 intervals and basic tempo run. In my view, that’s a lot of VO2max and interval training for an event which relies very little on these two physiological elements (the marathon is 99% aerobic).

Since the marathon requires running at your aerobic threshold and burning fat efficiently as a fuel source at marathon pace, I believe swapping these workouts with lactate clearance runs, steady state efforts, and other more marathon-specific workouts makes better use of the mind-week workout day.

Long runs

Hal Higdon’s plans follow the traditional marathon philosophy of running multiple slow, easy 20 milers. As you already know, I tend to believe that long, slow easy runs are overrated, especially for those running over 3:30 minutes or who are running less than 50 miles per week.

This is interesting:

Research has shown that your body doesn’t see a significant increase in aerobic development, specifically mitochondrial development, after you’ve been running for 2 hours. As a 3:45 marathoner, your easy long run pace is likely between 9:30 and 10:00 mile. So, a 20 miler will take you a little over 3 hours to finish.

Moreover, running all easy pace never challenges your aerobic threshold. Not one mile trains you to run at aerobic threshold.

You can’t improve an energy system if you never train it.

Finally, research has also shown that the longer your long runs, the greater your chance of injury.

By reducing your long runs (and getting more marathon specific) you can reduce injury risk and recovery time (allowing you to do more mileage and marathon-specific workouts during the week).

Our approach is to use marathon specific long runs, such as fast finish long runs and surge long runs, to better simulate the specific demands of the race while reducing wear and tear.

As an example, it’s easy for your body to burn fat as a fuel source when running slow (the energy demand isn’t high). However, to teach your body how to burn fat as a fuel source at marathon pace, you need to run at marathon pace while you’re already low on glycogen. This forces the body to use fat as a fuel source (at marathon pace) and therefore become more efficient at doing so.

20 miles of all easy running = 0 miles training to burn fat while running at marathon pace

16-18 miles with a 4-5 mile faster finish = 4 to 5 miles training to utilize fat as a fuel source while running at marathon pace.

I’ll admit, running 20 miles is good for muscular endurance. But, you never run at marathon pace while tired.

What does this mean?

Your muscular endurance is improved while running easy, but not when trying to run at marathon pace, which requires a different recruitment of muscle fibers. This approach is not very specific to what you’ll experience on race day and why your body isn’t capable of pushing through it.

Compare this to the muscular fatigue from a 16-18 miler with a fast finish.

You get 4-5 miles of running at marathon pace while tired.

Hansons plan

Now:

Having spent a few years training with the Hansons, a good portion of our marathon training philosophy echoes the Hansons plan. Specifically, as outlined above, we believe that the long run is an integrated part of the training, rather than a specific number you need to hit, and the volume needs to correspond to your weekly mileage.

Likewise, we believe that overall mileage and marathon specific work is the key to running your best – not long, slow 20 milers.

Our approach to the marathon differs mainly in how we approach the long runs.

Our harder long runs are always preceded by a steady run (marathon paced run) the day before. The volume of this run depends on experience level and mileage. In addition, long runs almost always contain some type of faster running – fast finish or surges.

The goal of the steady run the day before the long run is to capitalize on accumulated fatigue. By running marathon pace the day before the long run, you lower your glycogen stores and fatigue the legs in a very marathon-specific fashion so that you’re essentially starting the long run with miles already in your legs.

Don’t get me wrong, the Hansons plan has the same goal – I just think adding the steady the day before is more specific. Plus, the extra stimulus is needed to help boost the shorter long run for more overall quality throughout the weekend.

We also have a few workouts and long runs the Hansons plans don’t have, which I think help with marathon-specific readiness. For example, we include what we call “marathon surges” which are an innovative way to help teach your body to burn fat as a fuel source while running at marathon pace. These types of workouts can help you conserve glycogen and prevent bonking.

Finally, I also find the Hansons plan structures training on goal marathon pace (and 10 seconds faster) rather than current physiological fitness.

While this distinction seems slight, I think it’s critical and something most runners get wrong.

In order for you to become fitter, you need to run in the right effort and pace zones.

For example, if your goal is to run a 3:10 marathon, then under the Hansons plan you’ll be doing marathon pace runs at 7:15 or 7:05 pace. However, if your physiological fitness level is actually 3:20 for the marathon, then 7:40 pace is your physiological aerobic threshold (marathon pace).

Running 7:15 or 7:05 pace turns this workout into a high end threshold run rather than an aerobic threshold run. As such, you’ll have run 0 miles at aerobic threshold. Sure, your overall running fitness will improve, but your marathon specific fitness won’t.

McMillan

The main difference between RunnersConnect and McMillan is how we approach the phases and progression of training.

McMillan envisions the base or general phase like a pyramid. The pyramid model is based on the idea that you begin with a large aerobic base, transition to strength work such tempo runs and hill work, add in speed work, and then peak at the end of the training cycle.

McMillan’s methods are based mostly off the Lydiard system, which has been shown to be highly successful, specifically because of it’s focus on aerobic development.

However, my main argument against the pyramid model is the notion that aerobic development, lactate threshold, and speed have to be trained independently of each other. I believe, if done correctly, you don’t have to run months of just mileage or taper off your tempo runs as you introduce speed work.

When you train using the typical pyramid model, you’re forced to revert back to a base building period after each training cycle and you lose many of the of the strength and speed gains you’ve made at the top of the pyramid.

Therefore, you spend a good portion of your next training cycle just trying to get back to that level of speed and strength, instead of constantly improving the current point that you’re at.

My approach is to use what we call the “diamond” model in the general phase, which is designed to slowly build each energy system to its highest fitness before starting the race specific phase.

During the general phase you slowly build upon each component (speed, strength, long run, mileage) so that no particular energy system is left behind. You start at whatever fitness level you’re at and by the end of the training cycle, your aerobic development, speed, and threshold are at their maximum levels simultaneously. Here’s a good way to visualize how this works:

The general phase can also be broken down into subsections with a particular focus. For example, if you’re a little weak on speed, workouts can have a more speed development focus whereas if you need to develop your aerobic system, you can target more threshold runs in this phase

Pfiztiger

Pftzinger seems to follow a very “traditional” marathon formula, which is quite different from how we approach the marathon and is similar to the McMillan marathon training approach.

First, Pfitzinger begins the training plan with lactate threshold workouts and transitions to VO2max workouts as the race gets closer. This is the more traditional pyramid structure I discussed earlier with McMillan.

As you might remember from the outline of the Hal Higdeon approach, our marathon philosophy is focused on marathon-specificity. Particularly, I believe that the closer you get to race day, the more specific your workouts need to be to the demands of the marathon distance – handling the volume, burning fat as a fuel source at marathon pace, and improving aerobic threshold.

In the Pftizinger plan, you’re actually getting farther away from marathon specify as you get closer to the race. You’re working on your VO2max and anaerobic capabilities, which have little bearing on your marathon performance.

Second, weekly mileage seems to be a large component of Pfitz plans – it’s almost how you select your plan.

But:

I feel that mileage itself needs to be individualized to the runner – background, tolerance and injury history. Otherwise, you’re often just running miles for miles.

More importantly, I believe the focus shouldn’t be on the total mileage you’re running, but rather the percentage of miles you’re running at race pace, easy pace, Vo2 max pace, etc. I think approaching mileage in this way helps prevent junk miles and helps keep the training marathon specific.

To illustrate, throughout the entire Pftizinger training plan, you’ll run 44 miles at marathon pace. This is a very small percentage of your overall mileage – depending on the specific mileage level you choose, only about 4%. While again, we don’t use “stock” mileage plans (it’s individualized) the number of miles at marathon pace three times (12%) that of Pftzinger.

Finally, as we’ve discussed a few times now in this comparison post, we focus on shorter, quality long runs that incorporate accumulated fatigue and marathon specificity whereas Pfitzinger follows the more traditional quantity and volume of long runs.

Since I have discussed this already above, I’ll simply link to those sections if you want a recap (or you skipped it).

Why an individualized approach matters

Here’s the deal:

Like many coaches, I am not a big believer in stock or template training plans. I strongly believe that there is too much individual consideration that needs to be taken into any training schedule.

Yes, I understand I am in the business of selling training and coaching, but I still believe a personalized plan is always going to be better than a stock plan – regardless of the training philosophy.

Specifically, mileage, number of training days and paces are critical elements of a training plan that are trivialized by template schedules.

They simply assume that you’re running a certain number of miles or days per week based on your “experience level”.

However, beginner, intermediate and advanced designations for a runner can vary widely in mileage and tolerance for training. The only mileage progression and total that will work optimally for you is one that takes into account YOUR background and injury history.

Likewise, factoring in your strengths and weaknesses is critical to maximizing the effectiveness of a training plan.

By targeting your weaknesses and using your strengths to your advantage you can ensure that each and every workout is progressing you forward.

As an example, a session of 200 meter repeats is somewhat wasted on the runner who has an abundance of natural speed while it’s essential to runners accustomed to marathon success.

Finally, getting your paces correct is essential for targeting the right energy systems. A lactate threshold run performed at 10-15 seconds faster than your actual threshold means you actually ran zero miles training your threshold and improving that system.

It was a wasted workout.

By getting your training paces correct you can maximize each session.

That’s why we addressed all three of these issues with our custom training plans.

You get a plan specific to your strengths and weaknesses, tailored to your mileage levels, and assigned exact paces to target the right physiological systems.

If you’re interested in receiving a customized training plan based on our training philosophy, you can check out our plans here.

It’s an opportunity to see what a customized, race-specific schedule can look like for you.

We have both monthly and one-time plans for those training for long-term improvement or just want a training plan for their next race.

Hope you enjoyed this little comparison!