Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon: How to Be Your Own Best Coach

Although a long time runner, I thoroughly enjoyed Brad Hudson's book that in a highly readable and efficient fashion relates his training programs for virtually all runners. His theory of adaptive running makes great sense and he constantly adjusts for abilities, current performance levels and common sense such as always pencil in workouts to adjust for how the runner feels today. His book focuses on balancing the human body with a combination of muscle training, aerobic and anaerobic combined with self assessment leading to an individualized plan. What I particularly like about this book is that it simply does not lead you into how to run a marathon but to a verity of race distances from 5K forward. He proves a variety of workout plans based on abilities and age at various distances. And what is somewhat rare, he has an excellent program for masters runners at different distances and, as he conveys that rest is needed, he builds in more rest time for masters runners in the form of cross training and core body workouts. His workouts are truly building block encouraging the athlete not to try to set PRs in practice or increase the load too soon but shy from injury and then work toward specific peak race workouts. He doesn't spend a lot of time on masters but what he says makes a lot of sense about different needs and recovery. For instance, for older and injury prone runners, he encourages more hill work over track workouts and hill work is a major part of all his training. I particularly like the 8 second sprints uphill that improve neuromuscular fitness. I am in the first 1/3 of the masters program, adding one extra day of running as opposed to 3 since 1 is a long social run, and I like the variety and a long range peak plan. Also, has great words of wisdom such as when cutting back for a recovery period, keep some intense workouts on the agenda since getting away from it too much makes a longer climb to get back in shape and increases the potential for injury. Great side bar articles on athletes he has coached with pictures. Dathan Ritzenhein just broke the American 5K record with a 12:55 and he was the 4th non-African to break 13:00. He currently is coached by Alberto Salazar for the past 3 months but Salazar credited Hudson for bringing Ritzenhien to such great shape free of the nagging injuries Ritz has had historically. This is a great book for all and particularly for HS coaches with four ranges of workouts based on class year/ability.

Before writing a review of this book I felt I needed to experience the contents on my own. The results were very encouraging as I was able to reduce my personal best by 14 minutes in a marathon race. I used one of the plans included as an example and deviated a little based on my own specific conditions (climate, altitude, time availability), but overall I followed the plan at 90%. What I like about the book is that it explains with plenty of detail what is going on in your body as you perform each of the sessions (long runs, easy runs, intervals, uphill sprints, etc) and therefore you are able to make changes and adapt your plan accordingly (but be ready to run a very high mileage during the 20 week plan). It did not feel like an easy read at times and bored me a little on some chapters but overall the results are there and it is only fair for me to say that it was good advice for training. I need to also mention that I have never had a coach in all my previous race experience and this book felt a little bit like having one.

A solid guide to constructing a running plan... thoroughly explains the "why's" behind its overall training template & rationales. If you're simply looking for an easy read to help you write up your own plan with a minimum of deeper thinking, this isn't the book for you. It is very detailed & will stretch the average, interested reader to grasp & distill its wisdom. While I loved this depth, I found myself wishing the authors had also included summaries of key points with each section, or provided a more step-by-step structure to the book alongside what they wrote. Even being a motivated & experienced runner, it was easy to miss the proverbial forest for the trees. Definitely not a book for beginners or those without much running experience... but for advanced runners & competitive athletes, this is a smorgasbord of knowledge & hard-won wisdom for building a running program to make you FAST. In regard to the latter audience, I give this book my highest recommendations!

I've been running for over half my life, and just recently got into serious miles and marathon training. Tom Holland has an AWESOME book for people training for their first time marathon, and Brad Hudson/Matt Fitzgerald has an AWESOME book for getting faster and understanding HOW to get faster...for whatever race you are running. In my case it was a marathon. I ran my second marathon in 28.5 minutes FASTER that my first marathon EVER...in only 3.5 monthes of serious training in between. Ok, so I'm not an elite runner, but I still went from a 5 hour marthon to a 4:30 marathon....and never thought I could EVER do that. In a little over 3 monthes. This book is slightly confusing for someone like me that doesn't understand the lingo completely, but he gets to the point. Change it up, hit your hills, and LISTEN to your body in HOW you think you should train TODAY. He also has awesome training guides for pretty much any race you are training for. Really good guidlines. He recommends running EVERY day. BUT, his plans vary, depending on your time level...from 4 days a week to 7. The ONLY thing I did NOT agree with was his statement that all his runners DID NOT lift weights. AND he didn't recommend it. WHAT?! I guess if you are an elite runner and that is ALL you care about...but in the real world, I care about my muscle tone! So, despite his thoughts on the subject, I still lifted at least twice a week, plus core work and flexiblity training. But he does say to listen to your body and train in a way that you become your own coach. So, I guess I didn't go too far from his coaching. If you are looking for something to motivate you to run faster and train harder, buy this book. I bought it on kindle and wish I had the book cuz the charts are really hard to read, but sometimes it is just hard to wait for that one thing you know is going to get you going....NOW!!!

Hudson (the book seems to be written entirely in Hudson's first-person voice) seems to have a lot of experience coaching elite runners, and particularly elite runners with chronic nagging injury issues. His plans are built around nonlinear periodization, with a focus on as-you-go adjustments based on feel ("adaptive running"). The book is well written and mostly succinct. I don't think this is a great choice for a beginner, unless you're experienced with high-level competitive training from another sport. He tries to accommodate all levels, but his experience is clearly with elites, and his approach reflects that. For example, in one paragraph, he has a random example of a goal--the actual goal time and distance is incidental to his point--and he uses a 37:00 10k. That's quite a bit quicker than most Amazon shoppers will ever run a 10k, myself included. This is probably not the best book to get you from a 5-hour marathon down to a 4-hour marathon. Hudson also emphasizes max-effort hill sprints for strength training and injury prevention--probably not a great approach for beginners fresh off the couch, without a long background of aerobic training. The book places equal emphasis on all "long" distance events--5k, 10k, half, marathon--which is a real plus if you are serious about a distance other than the marathon. I'm a 43-year-old wanna-be getting back into running, and have never run an organized 5k outside of a triathlon. My theoretical PR, from a decade ago, is around 23 minutes. I'm hoping to break 20 minutes with this book.

OK, I'm a tough grader. This is a good book to figure out how to run for yourself. Most of the popular plans (you can pick a few), tell you run this at a certain pace and you'll finish your race on schedule. I've been running races for six years. Never won anything. I was slow in third grade, I'm slow today. I'm older today. The good thing about this book is it teaches you to coach yourself and to adapt plans to fit your strengths and weaknesses. So I've got running friends who are a lot younger and faster than me and run Boston. Something that works for them is probably not going to work for me. I've got short legs/long legs. I'm young/old. I've (not) got weight issues. I am (not) out of shape. I am (fe)male. My BQ time is.... I've run one race or ten marathons. So everyone is different. Run Faster tries to help you adapt. I would like to see training get more scientific. We, as a running community, need to figure out how to train and how to adapt training plans. And we need to do it scientifically. We need to try new training programs with control groups. A coach can tell you to go run 20 miles three times a week and for some people that will be great. But is there a better way? Run Faster starts us on the way.

A neat rundown of how to approach planning your own workouts. It's complex and, if you don't just follow the pre-written plans outlined (and Hudson/Fitzgerald admit these are just sample plans), the method requires you put a lot of thought and planning into plotting out your schedule and buildup. Good things: - It specifies a given set of concerns to consider when planning a run, such as your current mileage, what you struggle with, and what workouts or approach can help address your weaknesses. - It points out several keys to successful progress (speedwork, neuromuscular strength, aerobic endurance) and emphasizes building a plan that will improve all of the above. - If you read it cover to cover you'll definitely have a good framework for building your own training plans, and training plans for others. - If all else fails and you just want a plan to follow, this book has several, and it explains in detail the logic of why they (and other solid training plans) set up the way they are. Issues: - While they permit you to vary the mileage and number of days per week, they insist on a particular timing and order of exercises, such as always doing a long run followed by hill work followed by tempo work, then two easy days before tempo work. They insist that this is the best approach and should usually be followed in this order, which doesn't lend itself to adapting to a given runner's schedule needs, especially if they run with a group that does certain runs on certain days of the week. - They plot runs by flat distance and give little consideration to a runner's pace or their current endurance. - The also rely on very general terms like 'easy run' and 'moderate pace'. That can mean a wide variety of things, and if a runner has issues with how they approach the pacing or intensity of these runs, this will not address that. - It's heavy on self promotion, featuring multiple "look at how awesome of a coach I am" stories about runners Hudson has coached. It doesn't help that one story is about a runner who quickly quit on him because he wasn't meeting her needs, as well as focusing on stories of runners early in their careers... meaning we don't really know if each given runner is a success story or not. There are some issues, but in all it's not a bad book. If you have aspirations of being a coach, this template approach is actually very helpful, whether or not you follow Hudson's guidelines for mileage, training phases or exercise schedule. If you're an individual runner looking to improve, this is probably helpful only if you want to learn to build your own reliable training plan, and again it's best to take or leave some of the stated general guidelines depending on your needs. If you're just looking for a training plan, there's probably a number of other resources that could serve you better, but this isn't bad.

This book in my opinion conveys what I've been looking for all over the internet, blogs, forums. It describes cutting edge training methods that are used by current elite athletes but explained in a way that a runner with lesser experience can get quite a lot from it. Brad Hudson's training philosophy is not one size fits all kind, as every athlete and runner is different, he articulately shows how based on a template training plan one can do adaptive training, where runners can modify their workouts based on how physiologically they are feeling on the day of running. He has also given deep insights as what it takes to be a great athlete for an athlete of any ability and how to improve year after year, a knowledge previously held only by top national coaches and not available in one place. He also gives out various training plan templates for athletes of varying abilities and methodology for readers to devise their own training plan once they understand all the principles for adaptive training written in this book. In all a wonderful training book that can open your mind to lot of useful new information and change your training forever.

A very helpful book for every runner. Either you are a beginner or an advanced runner this book has valuable insights on running everyone can benefit from!

One of the best running books I've read so far. Very insightful and pleasant to read. It explains very well the different factors that contribute to success in running and how to improve them with different workouts. It covers the whole process of building a training plan from scratch and adapting it to your personal specificities.

Un altro fantastico libro, sempre molto interessante e ricco di contenuti, di coach Matt Fitzgerald!

Ótimo

Great book, perfectly explained. I would highly recommend it to all runners!