Planning a training block

Plan templates turn a goal, a race date and how you train today into a block where every session is planned. The rules are deterministic: the same inputs always give the same plan, and the tables and the figure in this article come from the code that builds it.

Starting from current fitness

Everything is anchored on a threshold pace T: the pace of a race lasting about 55 minutes. It comes from, in order: the threshold you set in Settings; your most recent race in the log (3–25 km, in the last 14 weeks, never a marathon); the current race pace you enter for the goal (not for the marathon, whose pace is no proxy for threshold); or a conservative estimate. The target pace is never used: training follows the fitness you have, and the target stays the race goal. When the threshold is estimated from a performance, adding the plan saves it in Settings.

Where:

t(d)

race time (s) over a distance d in km

d_T

the distance covered in 55 minutes (3300 s) at threshold pace

1.06

Riegel's fatigue exponent: going twice as far takes a little more than twice as long

Every training pace follows from T by the same model: 3K, 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon pace, the marathon a further 2% slower since few runners hold the predicted pace that long. From a 4:00/km threshold: 3K 3:39, 5K 3:46, 10K 3:55, half marathon 4:06, marathon 4:22. Easy pace is the one in Settings and never speeds up because the goal is faster. [5] [6]

Fitness may improve during the block, but conservatively: about 0.3% of T per build week, at most 4%, and never past the target. A target further away is noted as ambitious; the workouts stay realistic and the race itself is planned at the target.

Periods and recovery weeks

A block runs through Base (aerobic development), Build (threshold work), Specific (race-specific work) and a Taper, in proportions that depend on the goal: the marathon gives more weeks to base and specific work, the 10K more to building threshold. Base building is all base, without a taper.

After two or three loading weeks comes a lighter week (every two for runners under 30 km a week), never in the first three weeks or just before the taper. It runs at 80–90% of the level it interrupts, and its key session is about 30% smaller too. A race closer than the usual block gets a shorter one (at least four weeks); a race further away a longer, gentler one.

Weekly volume

Week one is your current volume. Each loading week adds a modest step that gets smaller as volume grows: 6% below 25 km a week, 5% up to 50 km, 4% up to 80 km and 3% above, never more than 10%. A block stretched over more weeks spreads the same growth more gently.

Peak volume has two ceilings, never targets: 1.25 to 1.45 times the starting volume depending on the goal, and about 18 km per training day plus 10 (20 for the marathon), so six days with a rest day hold around 118 km. The days are always yours to choose; picking more than you have been running holds the volume for two weeks per added day, so frequency and volume don't rise together.

Long runs

The long run is sized by you, not by the race distance: a share of the week that falls as training days rise (35% at three days to 26% at seven) and eases off above 60 km a week. That gives roughly 9–10 km at 30 km a week, 15 km at 50, 18–19 km at 70 and 22 km at 90, for a 5K runner as much as for a marathoner; the marathon adds 4 points of the week and the half marathon 2.

It starts from your longest run of the last four weeks and grows by about 10% a loading week (1–2 km, 2.5 for the marathon), never jumping to meet the share. It never takes more than 40% of the week, or longer than 2:30 at long-run pace (2:45 for the marathon). In marathon-specific weeks every other long run finishes at marathon pace, from 4 km growing to 12; late in a half-marathon block some carry 3–6 km at half-marathon pace. 5K, 10K and base long runs stay aerobic.

Key sessions

Each goal has a small library of sessions per period, rotated week by week instead of one session repeated with more reps. 5K: hills, threshold cruise intervals and controlled 400s, then 600–800 m at 5K pace, then 1000 m reps, 400 m at 3K effort and a 1200-1000-800-600 ladder. 10K: tempo and threshold cruise intervals, then 1–2 km reps at 10K pace. Half marathon: threshold, then blocks at half-marathon pace. Marathon: threshold, then marathon-pace blocks and continuous marathon pace.

The hard part of a session scales with your weekly volume, within limits per effort. Warm-up and cool-down add 2–5 km, and recoveries suit the session: short jogs between threshold reps, longer ones between 5K reps.

A second key session is planned only at six or seven training days and at least 50 km a week, on a day at least two days from both the main session and the long run, and only when neither carries big race-pace work. Together the two stay within 16% of the week.

The session library

These are the sessions each goal rotates through, period by period. The table shows their shape; the number of repetitions and the length of continuous runs follow from your weekly volume (table 4.2).

The week, and rest days

Sessions go on your training days by priority: the long run on Sunday (else Saturday, else your last training day), the main session at least two days from it (Tuesday first), easy runs on the other days, a recovery run right after a hard day from five days a week, and strides (short, relaxed accelerations) on one easy run from four days a week. A final check keeps hard sessions at least 48 hours apart and at most two a week. The rest days you choose are logged as rest.

A week from the sample block

Week 7 of the sample block in figure 4.1 is a Specific week of 51.1 km on four days; its race week follows. Each session's pace is its average, warm-up and cool-down included; the description names the hard part.

Taper and race week

The taper is distance-specific: the race week for 5K and 10K, two weeks for the half marathon (85%, then 50% of the peak) and three for the marathon (80%, 65%, 35%). Intensity stays: race week keeps a short sharpener at race rhythm (4 × 400 m at 5K pace, 4 × 600 m at 10K pace, 2 × 1600 m at half-marathon pace, or 3 km at marathon pace), at least three days before the race, and nothing the day before.

Notes, never blocks

A plan is always generated; what deserves a second look is noted: a target faster than one block can bring, volume or training days low for the goal, a long run over 40% of its week, a week rising more than 12%, long daily runs on few days (with a suggestion of one more day, never more than six), and a threshold that was estimated rather than set.

From template to log

• Every session becomes a planned workout in your log, with its distance, paces, zones and a title, and counts toward Effort and Fatigue like any planned run.
• The other days are logged as rest days, so Fatigue keeps its history (the Training Fatigue article).
• Days already gone this week are left alone. Planned workouts that are not done yet are replaced, unless you choose to keep them alongside; completed runs and runs from Strava are never replaced.
• Each session stores the threshold it was planned with, so its Effort stays put if your threshold changes later.
• Everything stays editable: move, change or delete sessions like any other workout.