How to live with your plan

Five minutes, once. Everything here is also explained in place, where you meet it.

What each run is for

EasyHard

Easy runs

Most of the plan, on purpose. They build the engine race day spends, and only work if they stay easy - too slow is the point.

the base

Long run

Stretches how far your aerobic system carries you. Time on your feet matters more than pace.

endurance

Threshold

The pace you could hold about an hour flat out. The plan's anchor - so these sessions are also how it measures you.

the anchor

Intervals

Short doses above threshold with recoveries, teaching the speed the threshold work then makes sustainable.

top end

Races

Carry a purpose you choose - a hard effort, a workout, a steady day, or just for fun - and the day is paced for it, not always flat out.

your call

Where the paces come from

Your runs
Real evidence
Your paces

Every pace comes from your own recorded running, not a questionnaire. When your running moves, the paces move with the evidence - and the app tells you what it saw rather than silently changing numbers.

If a pace feels wrong, run the session by effort and let the watch record it - a good honest run is exactly the evidence that straightens the numbers out.

Change it without breaking it

Edit
Replace
Add note
Club nightfixed in place
parkrunplan builds round it
Treadmilladapts to indoors

Edits are plain text; anything Taper is unsure it parsed comes back for your confirmation, never a silent guess. Skipping a session is honest, not a failure - mark it and the plan rebalances from where you actually are.

When life happens

Going awayreshapes the days you'll miss
Feeling illrests you, eases you back
Injurystops, never reshuffles

From the Training page. Injury deliberately does not reshuffle, because running through one is the thing a plan must never help you do. Each shows you the change before it is applied.

After you run

Your run matches its planned session by itself- no ticking boxes. The activity page carries the coach's read: what it showed, how it went against the plan, what it means for your numbers.

If recovery trends the wrong way for a few days, Taper suggests going gentler - a suggestion only. The plan is never rewritten behind your back.

Race week

3 weeks outRace

The taper trims volume while keeping the legs sharp, and it protects itself - nothing expensive creeps into the final days. Feeling too fresh, even twitchy, is the taper working.

Race day gets its own plan: a pacing schedule from your target, checkpoint by checkpoint - and with the course attached, the splits bend around its climbs instead of pretending it is flat.

Shorter answers to everything else live in the FAQ.