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

This book has lots of useful information Hudson has learned from years of coaching elite athletes ages ~18-35. Other than saying we recover more slowly, I don't think he has much insight into the typical marathon runner, even a competitive one given how many of us are in our late 30s and older. All of the examples in the book are of elite athletes and I strongly suspect Hudson has never coached a Masters runner. Of course, some of the information Hudson and Fitzgerald provide applies to runners of all ages which is why I am rating it four stars instead of three stars.I'm 42. I've been running off and on, always recreationally, for 25+ years but got more serious about it in my mid and late 30s. Thus, I still think I have opportunity to improve and almost all of my PRs were when I was over 40. However, I was always injury-prone and, at this age my body cannot handle even close to the amount of quality work Hudson suggests is necessary in a training plan. That said, I have improved a lot by adding easy mileage and my body does seem able to handle that as long as the vast majority of those miles are quite slow.I doubt most actual Masters runners conform to the authors' views of what a Masters runner is. They authors conceive of Masters runners as essentially formerly very competitive runners that have used up their bodies and are now just trying to hang on to what they can. Obviously, every runner is unique (the point of the book), but given the demographics of marathon finishers, I suspect the far larger category of Masters are people that now have more time to train than they did in their 20s and so can still improve.Alas, I can't seem to find a good book specifically oriented towards how to design a training plan for a Masters runner. The key issue to me is that, if it takes you 2-3 days to recover from a workout, you can probably only handle one speed session and one long run a week + some easy days. That fact would suggest significant differences in training than a typical plan in this book.Thus, I wish Hudson had worked with a coach that regularly works with competitive Masters runners to write a book more geared towards that demographic so the book would be more useful for us.

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.

After several years of running I felt like I had exhausted a lot of the training plan resources on the internet, the majority of which direct you to guides to running your first 5k or first 10k rather than improving on your existing times for an established runner.This book helps you towards personal bests and boy has it worked for me. 9 weeks ago I took to following the most 'beginner' level (don't be fooled by the name) 5k plan and I have set course and distance PBs in 10 races during that period including reducing my 5k time from 19:22 to 18:52 in my first attempt. Those who have been running for a while will know that knocking 30 seconds off a 5k PB that you've been chipping away at for 7 or 8 years is quite a big chunk!The book contains several training guides which I would say are slightly beyond an absolute beginner in that they don't coach you from sofa to 5k, so don't expect that. The reader can easily skip all the brilliant background chapters and delve straight into the training guides which I did the first time round. I subsequently spent some time going back to the earlier chapters and understanding just what is meant by some of the sessions and what the benefits are. For example, you may read in a training plan that you have to run X miles with Y number of hill sprints and for me I wasn't sure whether I had to do them during the mileage or all of them as reps at the end. After having gone back to the background info chapters I then started again with a training plan and the training has been absolute quality.Given that it's a running faster guide, it's not as hard work as you might imagine, in fact in many ways I have found my training to be a bit easier. I don't have to go out running full pelt every day, far from it. Although I have upped my training frequency from 3 runs a week to 5 runs a week, there is a general theme in the shorter distance guides of running gently for 70-90% of the runs (which is an absolute joy!) with some sporadic hard efforts and it totally makes sense why that works for the shorter distance training. There is no prescription of pace at any point in this book because the author doesn't know the reader. Instead the plans will say run at 'tempo' pace or 'easy' pace and there are plenty of resources on the internet where you can plug in your target race time and it will advise you of what your tempo/steady/race/easy paces are.I will add that I am a coach at a running club, albeit only at the lowest level of coaching qualification, and I have recommended this book to anyone who will listen. In particular if anyone says to me "My times just aren't come down any more" they usually have a link to this book in their inbox within a day! I know a lot of my friends have bought it and their first impressions have been that it seems a bit wordy but I have encouraged them to follow the book in the way I have and I hope they'll have as much success with it as I have.

I have several running books, and this is a good one, but perhaps too abstract for people wanting very concrete advice. Sure, the book does include various sample training schedules, but they are not to be taken too literally. The overall message of the book, in fact, is that you have to constantly tailor your training to feedback from your own body. The book encourages you to listen to you body, and monitor carefully your progress, then adjust your training schedule accordingly. In a sense, then, it is advising you to be your own coach, armed with metaphorical clipboard with which to interrogate, monitor, and adjust.If that is what you are looking for then this book will be perfect for you. If you are just looking for pre-designed training schedules, you will be disappointed.

I've read a lot of running books on coaching and I found this by far the most valuable. For those who want an off-the-shelf training plan then this book is probably not the best choice (although there is still loads of good info there that will be of use). But for the 'nerdy' runner (like me) who wants to design their own training plans then this book is pure gold!It's not easy reading - I've read it about 3 times so far - and almost every page is covered in notes, scribbles, etc. But I now understand how to develop a structured training plan that is tailored to me (my current fitness, training capacity, race goal, etc). And I will know how to adjust it if things change during the training period (which they almost always do).The result - consistent injury free training that is targeted towards my goal race and enables me to 'Run Faster'!

When I wanted to run my first marathon, i got a suitable book: "The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer." That book got me through the training and the run extremely well."Run faster" got me me doing just that: running a faster marathon and much faster half-marathons. It provided me with a much clearer idea of how to train in a smarter, more efficient way than I been doing. In fact, reading the book led to me training less often and, perhaps most importantly, helped to keep me injury-free.I'm still looking to improve on my personal best times and still applying the techniques I learned here.

Really in depth analysis of training techniques and styles. It can leans toward the semi-pro/elite athlete but anyone that takes running seriously would definitely benefit from reading this book.