Feature Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash
If you were to ask which marathon training plan is the most popular, I’d probably say Hal Higdon. He is frequently recommended on r/Running and r/Marathon_Training to new runners, and when you look at the Google Search data people look for information on him much more frequently than other coaches and authors.
But, while Hal is popular among newer runners, his book and his training plans leave a lot to be desired for the serious runner looking to set a new PR. If you hang out in r/AdvancedRunning, there’s another name that reigns supreme: Pete Pfitzinger.
I was recently working on a data project, and I stumbled on a trove of data from reddit – including the full post and comment history of major subreddits going back quite a ways. That got me thinking. How popular is Pfitz, compared to some of the other common “advanced” training plans?
For a quick little project, I took the post and comment data from r/AdvancedRunning, narrowed it down to posts from 2019 or later, and counted up the number of mentions each of the major training plans got. I specifically narrowed in on Pfitz, Jack Daniels, and Hanson. I also excluded any posts or comments that had a negative number of upvotes.
Which Training Plan Is Mentioned the Most in Titles?
For the first data point, this visual counts up the number of post title mentions each author got in a given month.
For Pfitz, I simply searched for “Pfitz,” which would be inclusive of Pfitzinger. For Jack Daniels, I included JD, 2Q, and Jack Daniels. And for Hanson, I just looked for Hanson. Sure, there could be some false positives and negatives in there, but I think that’s good enough for a quick survey.
After all, this isn’t peer reviewed work.
When you look at title mentions, there aren’t a whole lot.
In part, this could be due to the nature of the subreddit. A lot of discussion is driven to the regular Q/A threads, and there are relatively few standalone posts compared to other subreddits.
Nonetheless, Pfitz is definitely mentioned more frequently than the other two. There are a few months where it’s close, and the occasional month where JD wins out. But by and large, Pfitz sits at the top.
Hanson gets fewer mentions than the other two, although the number of Hanson mentions has increased a bit in the last couple of years.
Which Training Plan Is Mentioned the Most in Post Bodies?
When you look at title mentions, there aren’t that many posts in a given month that mention any of these training plans. Part of that might also be that the names themselves aren’t mentioned in the titles – but they’ll appear more frequently in the post bodies.
So the visual below counts up the same data, but this time we’re going to focus on the body of the actual post.
Here, the numbers are quite a bit higher.
For title mentions, it was rare for Pfitz to get above 10. In the post bodies, there are often 20, 30, or more mentions in a given month.
The order here is still the same. Pfitz sits at the top – and here he more clearly towers over the other two. JD sits in the middle. And Hanson sits at the bottom, although again the number of Hanson mentions has picked up since the end of 2022.
Another interesting thing to note here is that the mentions are quite seasonal. The highest numbers typically come from April and October, followed by November and September.
I’d wager this is likely a result of another quirk of the subreddit. One of the major standalone post types is the race report. And when people write up race reports, they frequently mention the training plan that they used.
It’s no coincidence, then, that the most frequent mentions occur in October, April, and November. Those are the months with the greatest number of marathons and marathon finishers. Although November has more finishers than April, April is when Boston takes place. And participants at the Boston Marathon are likely overrepresented in r/AdvancedRunning.
Say all that to say … this is likely (at least in part) a reflection of the plans used most commonly by posters who post race reports.
An interesting follow up project could be to take a closer look at these race reports and categorize them by training plan and some other variables. But that’s more in depth, and that’ll have to wait for another day.
Which Training Plan Is Mentioned the Most in the Comments?
Finally, let’s take a look at the comments. A lot of the discussion happens in the comments, especially the comments on the stickied daily Q/A threads. So this is likely more indicative of the general conversation than just which plan people are writing about in their race reports.
Although the underlying conversation may be different, the trend is still the same.
The number of mentions is much higher. Note that the y-axis here goes above 250. For post body mentions it didn’t reach 80. And for title mentions, it only got to about 15.
But Pfitz still reigns supreme, followed by Jack, followed by Hanson.
Again, the number of Hanson mentions does increase in the last few years. But here there’s a clearer distinction between JD and Hanson. In the post bodies, there was more overlap, and Hanson had a few months where he was mentioned more. In the comments, there’s definitely more discussion about JD and his 2Q plans.
Which Team Are You – Pfitz, JD, or Hanson?
I’ve read all three training books, and I found them all valuable. No matter which one you’d prefer, I think it’s worth reading as much as you can to get a well rounded understanding of marathon training.
Personally, I’m team JD. I love the flexibility of the 2Q training plan, as well as the focus on the two longer quality sessions.
But there’s no denying that Pfitz is effective, and a lot of people see success. I also think his plans are more approachable than JD’s 2Q. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think 2Q is more demanding than Pfitz – and Pfitz is a great choice for a young guy who has a lot of speed and just needs to build up his endurance.
If you’re not familiar with any of the three authors, here’s an overview of the pros and cons of Jack Daniels 2Q, Pfitz’s Advanced Marathoning, and Hanson’s Marathon Method.
Here’s one interesting data point that surprised, me, though.
If you look at the sales ranking on Amazon, Jack Daniels Running Formula outranks Hal Higdon’s Marathon. I assumed Hal would have been on top, given his appeal to beginners. Pfitz ranks below Hal, and Hanson brings up the rear of the four books.
