training
Training
A weekly running log.
- goal race
- Sydney Marathon
- date
- 30 aug 2026
- out
- 14 days · 2 wks
- target
- 2:40 to 2:45
The week
week ending 09 aug 2026On track for 2:41-2:44. Limiter remains specificity - no goal-pace-band volume exists yet at any freshness level - but the week's aerobic efficiency reading is the strongest of the block.
- runs
- 6
- distance
- 111.6 km
- time
- 8h 35m
- elevation
- 763 m
| day | session | km | time | pace | hr | load |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mon 03 aug | Lunch Run | 8.2 | 41:24 | 5:04 | 137 | 42 e |
8.2 km at 5:04/km, HR 137. Lowest-stress day of the week. | ||||||
| tue 04 aug | 40min steady | 12.7 | 55:03 | 4:19 | 164 | 81 e |
Work block 9.56 km in 40:00 at 4:11/km, HR 166.5, max 176. Lands in the undefined 4:09-4:21 zone, 3 s/km outside the bottom of the steady band. HR sat below the 172-177 marathon band throughout. WU 1.7 km at 4:52, CD 1.5 km at 4:35. | ||||||
| wed 05 aug | Herdsman | 29.4 | 2:18:02 | 4:42 | 149 | 167 e |
29.4 km continuous at 4:42/km, HR 148.5, 273 m vert. Split 16.9 km at 4:34 (HR 150.7) then 12.5 km at 4:51 (HR 145.8). Largest single easy block of the week; both halves inside the easy band. | ||||||
| thu 06 aug | 2x20min steady | 14.2 | 1:02:10 | 4:23 | 155 | 81 e |
Rep 1: 4.72 km at 4:14/km (undefined 4:09-4:21 zone), logged HR 147.3 which reads as a strap settling artifact given a 180 max within the same lap - treat as unusable. Rep 2: 4.94 km at 4:03/km, HR 170.4, max 180 - inside the steady band and the clean HR-at-pace datum. 1.05 km float at 4:46 between. Negative split by 11 s/km. | ||||||
| fri 07 aug | Cottesloe | 10.1 | 51:07 | 5:03 | 141 | 55 e |
10.1 km at 5:03/km, HR 141, 155 m vert. Recovery-band pace. Max 184 reads as a strap artifact. | ||||||
| sun 09 aug | Canning River Loop | 37.0 | 2:47:13 | 4:32 | 151 | 207 e |
37.0 km at 4:31/km, HR 151.1, max 172, 146 m vert. Company-paced long steady run, not a workout: 5x5 km at 4:22 / 4:19 / 4:20 / 4:19 / 4:23 separated by ~1 km floats at 4:55-5:09 (HR 140-147), after a 4.9 km approach at 5:03. Block HR 155.0 / 155.2 / 155.3 / 154.9 / 159.8, the last carrying 59 m of climb. Closing 3.0 km at 4:30, HR 152.6. 25.0 km of blocked running with effectively no drift across the first four. | ||||||
good
- Sunday's 37 km ran 4:31/km at 151 bpm average. Three weeks earlier a 39 km run at the identical 4:31/km average sat around 158 bpm. Same pace, roughly 7 bpm cheaper, though that run carried 356 m of climb against this one's 146 m and was 2 km longer, so the true gap is smaller than 7 and still clearly positive.
- Essentially zero cardiac drift across the Sunday blocks: the first four 5 km efforts averaged 155.0, 155.2, 155.3 and 154.9 bpm spanning roughly km 6 to km 29. The fifth read 159.8 but carried 59 m of the run's 146 m of climb. Whole-run max heart rate was 172 - the very bottom of the calibrated marathon band - across 37 km.
- Thursday's second 20-minute effort ran 4:03/km at 170.4 bpm, 24 hours after a 29.4 km day. Tuesday's fresher 40-minute effort ran 4:11/km at 166.5 bpm. Eight seconds per km faster for about 4 bpm on the more fatigued day: no measurable recovery penalty from the Wednesday volume.
note
- Volume returned to 111.6 km across 6 runs on 6 run-days, against a typical 116 km over 8 runs. The four-week sequence now reads 103.0 -> 105.7 -> 105.5 -> 111.6 km. Volume moved back toward baseline but landed about 4 km short, and the run count is still well under the usual 8.
- Work above 165 bpm totalled roughly 19.2 km, or 17% of weekly volume, against about 38% quality density across four sessions the prior week. Intensity came down as intended; the distribution is unusually easy-weighted by recent standards rather than off-pattern.
- Sunday's blocks were paced by company, not by intent - two 3:00-3:10 marathoners setting a pace near their own race effort. Excluded from band-versus-actual on that basis. Structurally it resembles a workout; by heart rate and by origin it was a long steady run.
watch
- The Z2 characterisation of Sunday holds for the whole run (151.1 bpm average) but not for the blocks themselves: the five 5 km efforts averaged 155.0, 155.2, 155.3, 154.9 and 159.8 bpm, so four straddle the Z2/Z3 boundary at 154/155 and the fifth is solidly Z3. Worth knowing which number is being read.
- No goal-pace-band data was produced this week, by design. The fatigued-legs 2:40 criterion - a sustained block of 15 km or more inside 3:43-3:50 at heart rate at or below 177 with under 10 bpm of drift - was untestable, not failed. Three weeks to race, the underlying gap is unchanged: no sustained effort on record has entered the 3:43-3:50 band at all, every one having run 3:52-3:57.
- Saturday was a second consecutive full rest day at week's end, and Sunday's 37 km came off it. Nothing was cut short and no niggle was reported at either dormant site, including through 25 km of blocked running.
5 weeks
06 jul 2026 to 09 aug 2026 · 35 days- runs
- 31
- distance
- 510.5 km
- time
- 39h 12m
- per week
- 102.1 km
| week ending | km | Δ km | runs | time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 jul | 84.9 | · | 6 | 6h 30m |
| 19 jul | 102.9 | +18.0 | 6 | 7h 42m |
| 26 jul | 105.7 | +2.8 | 7 | 8h 21m |
| 02 aug | 105.5 | -0.1 | 6 | 8h 05m |
| 09 aug | 111.6 | +6.0 | 6 | 8h 35m |
12 months
01 sep 2025 to 09 aug 2026- runs
- 266
- distance
- 4161 km
- time
- 327h 55m
- per month
- 347 km
| month | km | runs | time |
|---|---|---|---|
| sep 2025 | 359.3 | 24 | 28h 04m |
| oct 2025 | 325.9 | 23 | 25h 12m |
| nov 2025 | 262.3 | 23 | 19h 49m |
| dec 2025 | 324.4 | 18 | 26h 02m |
| jan 2026 | 300.8 | 19 | 23h 46m |
| feb 2026 | 351.5 | 22 | 28h 14m |
| mar 2026 | 473.1 | 28 | 37h 34m |
| apr 2026 | 465.0 | 25 | 37h 30m |
| may 2026 | 350.5 | 23 | 29h 01m |
| jun 2026 | 346.4 | 24 | 26h 32m |
| jul 2026 | 456.9 | 30 | 35h 13m |
| aug 2026 to 09 aug | 145.5 | 7 | 10h 58m |
- fitness
- 83
- fatigue
- 96
- form
- +3
- as of
- 09 aug 2026
- fitness, 42-day average
- fatigue, 7-day average
- the gap, fitness minus fatigue
| month end | fitness | fatigue | form |
|---|---|---|---|
| sep 2025 | 67 | 61 | +5 |
| oct 2025 | 60 | 54 | +4 |
| nov 2025 | 53 | 46 | +1 |
| dec 2025 | 61 | 83 | -21 |
| jan 2026 | 56 | 53 | -4 |
| feb 2026 | 62 | 55 | -1 |
| mar 2026 | 76 | 82 | -8 |
| apr 2026 | 83 | 87 | -7 |
| may 2026 | 79 | 78 | +12 |
| jun 2026 | 72 | 52 | +25 |
| jul 2026 | 81 | 92 | -15 |
| aug 2026 | 83 | 96 | +3 |
The curve runs on a heart-rate estimate recomputed the same way for every session, not on the stored load column. That column carries the numbers each source reported, and the two sources are on different scales, so feeding the mixture to the model would put a step at the seam between them and draw a fitness jump that never happened.