As someone who has run many half marathons, one marathon and followed several training programs: no, that is not what happens. If you have not finished your training the only thing which happens is that you will probably run slower than you would have if you had finished your training. A common advice is to not follow the plan slavishly because that way there is only injury and burnout.

So, yes, races are deadlines but not deadlines you can rush towards because then your body will break and then you will fail the race for real. You still need to slowly and consistently build up your body just like if there was no deadline at all. It is much better to not have finished your training than to be injured.

> You can, however, create a system in which you consistently increase the number of miles you run.

This is indeed how you become a fast runner and how most training plans work, except they often peak at a mileage most people do not want to sustain to top the form right before the race.

Creating "a system in which you consistently increase the number of miles you run" is pointless if it doesn't get you to the point where you can run the marathon on the day that it happens.

How long you have until the marathon would determine what kind of training schedule (system) you create.

Yes and no. Having more time gives you more flexibility in how to plan it so you can for example either reduce injury risk or aim at running the race at a higher pace. But it is not like you can rush it beyond a certain level.

I feel one of your misconceptions is that running a marathon (or a half as in the article) is something binary. A lot of people could just go out and run a half marathon tomorrow if they were forced to. The injury risk would be high and they would feel miserable, but they would make it. A full marathon requires much more training but all marathon training programs I have seen are overkill if the goal is just to complete the race. They are instead aimed at either making people complete it at a certain pace or complete the race while being able to enjoy it. If you have a lack of time to train you can sacrifice pace/enjoyment. Rushing the training on the other hand is stupid.

So for marathon training the deadline is in the form of a hard cutoff where you have to decide if you are satisfied with that little training or if you want to wait until a later race. It is more like a release train which only happens a couple of times per year.

Edit: Sorry for the rant, my real point is actually that you are encouraged to change your training plan on the fly to adapt to real life events and that while the race is a deadline it is very unclear what will be delivered at it until you get pretty close to it. Will it be a 3:30 marathon or a 3:15 one? Unless you have sponsors nobody will get angry at you for not delivering what you had planned to.

> if it doesn't get you to the point where you can run the marathon on the day that it happens.

Doesn't the same logic apply to the training system that we created based on time until the marathon? Does the existence of a deadline guarantee success of a training system?

And, doesn't any training system increase the number of miles consistently? Because, if I am to run 26 miles, any training regime should make me able to run 5 before 10, 10 before 26.

This is a straw man that the article argues against. I don't think it is a common belief that deadlines make you more productive. Deadlines exist because that is reality.

The marathon happens on a specific day. You can train however you want, but if you want to run the marathon then you need to be ready on the day of the marathon. Deadlines exist.