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If you’re gearing up for any race, but especially a marathon or a half marathon, your week probably looks a little something like this: long run on the weekend, then a few easy-effort runs during the week with a speed workout or two mixed into the schedule. Rinse and repeat.
But while training schedules broken into weekly increments are the most common, they’re hardly the only way to structure your race prep. Plans that build in a few extra days between long runs, like the 10-day approach, have surged in popularity for their flexibility and focus on R&R.
The nine-day cycle is similar but tightened up slightly, and it’s gained traction lately after elite racer Emma Bates used it to prep for her fifth-place finish in the 2023 Boston Marathon. And YouTube runner Michael “Kofuzi” Ko posted about training with it to nab a PR at the Tokyo Marathon. Meb Keflezighi also trained with it leading up to his Boston win in 2014.
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“The nine-day cycle started appearing in recent years, but the general concept of waiting until you’re fully recovered isn’t new,” says Mark Wooten, an ultramarathoner and run coach with Life Time in Garland, Texas. “It’s more aligned to the way the professional runners train, where their running schedule doesn’t have to be as rigid.” In fact, elite runners and coaches often tweak their daily workouts based on how their bodies are responding to their most recent sessions.
Here’s exactly what goes into a nine-day training cycle, plus all the pros and cons to help you decide if it’s the plan for you.
How the 9-Day Cycle Breaks Down
There’s flexibility with how you structure each nine days in your schedule, but most people will still include one long, slow training run and one to two days of speed work spread throughout the time period.
Think of breaking it into three blocks of three days, suggests Wooten: Each three days would consist of a hard workout followed by two days of easy workouts, a setup that makes it slightly simpler than the 10-day method. For the typical runner, that would mean two speed days and one long, slow run in a cycle, or an ultramarathoner might choose to do two long, slow days and one speed workout per nine days.
Here’s a sample nine-day training cycle for recreational runners:
- Saturday: long run
- Sunday: strength training
- Monday: easy-effort run
- Tuesday: mile repeats or other speed workout
- Wednesday: easy-effort run
- Thursday: cross train or rest
- Friday: tempo run or other speed workout
- Saturday: easy-effort run
- Sunday: rest
The Pros of the 9-Day Cycle
The biggest benefit of extending your training block to nine days instead of seven is pretty obvious: You have two additional days to let your body bounce back after a long run. That’s a plus both on your recovery days and on the higher-intensity days, says Wooten: “The thought process of the nine-day training cycle is that a consistent two easy or recovery days between the challenging workouts leads to better-quality workouts on the hard days.”
Think of it this way: With a standard seven-day cycle, you might feel like your muscles haven’t fully recovered when it’s time to head out on the next long run—and you might wind up cutting it short, or feeling like you’re struggling the entire run and not having a quality workout.
With two extra days baked into each cycle, you’ll also have more time to squeeze in cross-training. That, plus the extra days of recovery in the mix, mean you’re less likely to get an overuse injury. “You can never go wrong with prioritizing recovery in your training—no matter what distance yo’'re training for,” says Meg Takacs, NASM-CPT, a run coach and founder of the Movement & Miles app.
The Cons of the 9-Day Cycle
Some runners just crave the reliability of a rigid weekly cycle. And depending on your lifestyle (the hours you work, whether you commute or work from home, if you have travel on the calendar, etc.), the flexibility could be a drawback.
“The days of the week where you’re doing a focused or hard effort would shift each week—Saturday’s long run one week would be on Monday of the following week,” says Wooten. “For many of us, that shift in schedule is just not feasible. We need the weekend for our long day. We can only allot a limited amount of time each day during the work week, which we use for short recovery runs and speed workouts.” Plus, if you run with a group, it’ll likely plan long runs and speed work on consistent days each week for the ease of everyone’s schedules.
If you have only one long training run every nine days instead of every single weekend, you’ll obviously end up with fewer long runs over the course of an entire training schedule. For a 16-week marathon training plan, you’d end up with only about 12 long runs (instead of 16). It’s not a huge difference—and not necessarily a downfall—but it might leave you feeling a little less confident as you join the crowd at the start line come race day.
If you’re worried about that, keep in mind that “this is a quality over quantity approach,” recommends Wooten. “The idea is that each workout is a little more efficient and yields greater results.”
It’s also helpful to remember that even though you’re completing fewer super-long runs leading up to your event, you’re likely still clocking a similar amount of time running, says Takacs: “Your training pace should be slower than your race pace, so while theres only one super-long run every nine days, your shorter runs are at a very relaxed, aerobic pace. In other words, they could be upwards of two hours on your feet,” she explains, which means you might clock more miles on those easy runs on a nine-day cycle than the mid-week easy runs of a seven-day cycle.
The Bottom Line
Ask yourself: Do you have the flexibility to get in your long run any day of the week? Do you train solo or prefer to run with a group? Are there other workouts (like a yoga or boot-camp class at the gym) that are set in stone on certain days each week? “These are some examples of why a nine-day schedule may or may not work with your current routine,” says Wooten. “A nine-day cycle has the potential for the better results, but it tends to favor the solo runner with extreme flexibility in day-to-day scheduling.”
At the end of the day, you have to find the training schedule that fits into your life. “What works for me may not work for someone else,” says Takacs. “Give it a shot. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, then you can always fall back on the classic weekly mileage plan. Running is all about trial and error.”
