Running books and training plans

I am looking for a good training plan to help me build up to a marathon in September. I hope to train regularly to achieve a good time.

I have seen on many websites that you have to pay for a training plans, especially time/goal specific plans.

Also I have seen lots of offers for training books.

What are people's experiences of such books or paying for plans. Should I stick with the standard non-specific free plans or should I invest in detailed plans and read the books to gain benefit through the theory.

Any views would be useful.

Thanks

Don't even have to pay for books if you visit a library!  That way you can read up on loads of stuff for free, and, if you find certain books, copy out a training plan.

Most plans aren't worth the (electronic) paper they're written on, mainly because they don't start with you and work from there.  However, understanding what they consist of, what they're based on, and why they're written that way can be priceless.

Why not write ur own training plan? Then you can personalise it for however you want to train and what days/times will fit in with your schedule. As long as you remember basic principles such as increase distance/speed slowly and allow enough time for your body to recover in between runs, you should be ok. Make sure that you're aware of the signs of overtraining though so you can alter your plan if it gets too much.