Some runners have a desirable muscle fiber design, with a high fraction of slow-twitch endurance fibers, which leads to a high aerobic power output (high VO 2max). But if you're a serious competitor looking for optimum times this certainly would be the book for you.

Since 1997 Daniels has been the national running coach advisor for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program, which involves coaching thousands of marathon runners each year.While this is somewhat arbitrary on my part, I believe that counting the number of long runs that are 16 miles or more is a useful metric.

This is not an entry-level book, it assumes you have run quite a lot, you know about training, you know your capabilities, you know how to execute interval training. For instance, a workout such as "2E + 3T + 40 min E + 2T + 1E" requires you to work out how far you'd run at your Easy pace in 40 minutes, and add that to the 3 easy miles and 5 tempo miles. Within principle three, a basis for increasing 20 fitness level the fastest is shown, but that same training stress that produces great fitness improvements also increases risk of setback. The plans are also structured so that you can progress through white-red-blue-gold, building your fitness as you go. Choose a program to get in shape, target a race program, or regain conditioning after layoff or injury.

As a relative novice in the world of ultra-running I am more than happy to listen to or read advice from the experts so a book by “the world’s best running coach” was something I couldn’t pass up, especially as the blurb on the cover promises proven training and racing prescriptions for pretty much every distance you can think of. For distance running, Daniels introduces five specific training zones that serve as the basis for his workouts and training formula. The five weeks plan gives five weeks that can be repeated and there are three 18 week programs; two by distance and one by time. Daniels recommends two to three days of quality running per week with one day of primary emphasis (Q1), one day of secondary emphasis (Q2), and sometimes one day of maintenance emphasis (Q3).