yeah they’re all set up. I just don’t think it recognises really hard, short interval sessions (with good recovery). The figures you get from it aren’t that ‘high’ yet you know after doing such a session that your legs are going to be absolutely battered. And you certainly won’t be running tempo or the like the next day.
I saw the following progression as good prep for a 10k or HM.
Week 1 6x1k
Week 2 2k 4x1k
Week 3 2x2k 2k1k
Week 4 3x2k
All at 10k pace.
Thoughts on usefulness as I’m building distance for marathon. Not running much above MP or tempo at the moment.
Come what may, I must knock my HR back 10 bpm on my long run this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how the legs fare after Sunday. Just using the Zoom Flys as normal, so giving-up 10bpm or 10s/km there for sure 
(without 4%)
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Long run planned for tonight. 14 miles of 9/1 run/walk.
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The big problem with half of the above is that people are talking about “fitness”. None of these graphs (the TP PMC, or the Elevate extension plugin) represent “fitness”. Elevate is particularly unhelpful, as they call the graph the “fitness trend”.
These things are measuring training stress. Training stress does not correlate to fitness. They may have some similarities, but they are not the same. Indeed, all training stress is not created equal. You could do a 2hr steady ride, and accumulate significantly more TSS than 20mins of 200% FTP 20s intervals. Yet that latter session is going to trash the legs a fair bit more (and trigger different fitness adaptations).
As a very simply example of why CTL does not equate to fitness, simply take the bike (where TSS/CTL/ATL is more widely understood). You do an FTP test, get a score of 200, and then do 6 weeks of sessions where you score, on average, 50 TSS/day. Your cycling CTL is now (loosely*) 50.
You retest, and your FTP has gone up to 225. You now do the exact same 6 week block, with all sessions proportionately increased in terms of interval absolute power to reflect the increased FTP. You will score exactly 50 TSS/day again. So after 12 weeks, your cycling CTL is still only 50. At the end of this you retest, and have got another bump to 250 FTP.
Clearly you are fitter. FTP is up 25%. Yet cycling CTL will have stayed entirely flat.
A record of training stress does not equal fitness!
*I say loosely, as whilst the Trainerroad scores work on a linear basis, I believe TP have some weighting to give more importance to the most recent sessions, so a session yesterday counts more than a session 41 days ago (that’s just about to drop out of the CTL calculation). Runalyze also does this. Their available to view calcs for “marathon fitness” show how this works from memory.
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Okay…so tracking running “weekly” mileage.
I’m currently doing the following build:
Wk1, Wk2, Wk3, Wk4
35, 24, 35, 17
40, 28, 40, 20
45, 31, 45, 22.5
50, 35, 50, 25
etc, etc…
I am currently in the 35 mile week 3.
With a much needed lighter running week coming up.
This is a pretty conservative way of building up running mileage, IMO.
However…I have noticed that in the past rolling seven days, I’ve ran 41 miles (66km).
I have a total of nine miles planned in for tomorrow - which would be 50 miles in the past rolling seven days 
Now I am left wondering if I should jump up to 50 miles following this lighter week, as I don’t feel too bad at all.
Or, just keep building up as per the plan…which was just a fag packet way of building up to 70mpw by the end of October.
Thoughts and opinions…
The end goal is a marathon?
Or ultra run?
No thoughts or opinions only that I’m using your build method and currently here (actuals in KM);
Wk1, Wk2, Wk3, Wk4
37.4, 31, 40.3, 18
32.7 (with 16k left to run this week)
That second week of 40 felt like a slog but my legs feel great this week despite running more distance and I put in an intervals session this morning. It does feel conservative but I was having calf issues which appear to be going away, hopefully leaving me more resilient. My plan takes me to a peak week of 72km (45 miles) which leaves me 3 weeks to taper before the mara.
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10km or half marathon.
Theory is doing 90-95% of your running at a really slow pace (for me, thats >5:00/km), with the intensity done in the 5-10% bit.
For example, in a hard 8*800m session, you’ll do a two mile warm up, two mile cool down and take 90 seconds rest between those intervals.
That’s 44 minutes of easy running in a hard session.
You’re only really running hard for 22 minutes in that time.
It’s all about increasing running economy and pushing the easy pace up and HR down through that.
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I did something similar by accident this year
Hence the fast half at the Deva …?!
It was the lack of run speed that really concerned me…
I actually did one three hour t mill run per month at 144 bpm strict
Went from 32 to nearly 38.5 in 7 months.
Just got used to moving at that effort lost a bit of weight and did loads of cycling!
Fancy a marathon …!?
10 k”s hurt far too much at my age!
I’ve come unstuck with this before. Due to the way life has happened, i’ve either front or rear loaded a week and despite the calendar week looking low, the rolling 7 day, like you, has ended up pretty high.
It got even worse in my London build, where i was running 2 x times a day. Depending on the time of day of my runs i was getting very short recoveries on some days. I think i ended up covering around 45-50 over a 25/26 hour period on a few occasions if i did lunchtime, evening, morning, lunchtime type scenario.
As a result i try to consciously keep an eye on the rolling totals and not to pay attention so much to calendar week. Kind of a follow on to another post i made on one of the threads about deconstructing my mileage plans etc. I now work with ‘rough’ weekly targets instead of stringent.
For your situation, if you’re continuing with the bike and the swim i’d stick to your plan. Yes your legs feel good now, but will they in 4 weeks time when all of your totals have increased, the aggregate fatigue sets in and injury risk (certainly with running) starts to creep up.
That said, if after Cots you are now reducing the S&B then i think you have plenty enough base to cope with a 50 mile week at this point in time. you’re very disciplined and focussed on your effort levels i.e. a lot of your mileage is low risk, low speed stuff.
That’s my thoughts anyway. Also depends on your history of coping with run volume. I seem ot be able to quite happily go from 10 mile weeks to 70 and back down again with no lead in, or any major problems (normally).
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Cheers!
They’re great thoughts 
Not sure about S&B yet?
Last week of this month is a 40 mile week, so I’m going to see how I cope with 3 swims and 2/3 bikes.
I’m not a member of a running club and no longer swim with the Tri club, so cycling is a bit of a social for me. I want to knock out a couple of longer rides this month, before the nights start drawing in again 
I get niggles and normal wear and tear, but no massive injury history (apart from the temporary paralysis after my first IM - but that was down to too much too soon)
So…I reckon I’ll chalk this one up as a “YES! I can run a 50 mile week” and continue as I am.
Thanks. 
Ugh, long OW swim in a bit, and it’s honking-it-down.
Haha - it passed right over us a few hours ago! Dry now 
Exactly right. My CTL is slightly above my CTL at the same point last year… however, my FTP is up from 270 to 300+, my run LTR has reduced from 4:40m/km to 4:06m/km, my CSS has reduced from 1:53/100m to 1:44/100m, clearly I am much fitter, despite my CTL being flat
Last couple of big days this weekend before taper time
Have done my key swim and run sessions this week.
40 x 100m off 1:45 on Monday (with 8 x 5 mins @ 90% FTP in the evening)
10 x 3 mins at 5km pace (90 seconds recovery) on Tuesday
21 mile run yesterday averaging 7:31 per mile (10 seconds quicker than the previous week)
Just OWS in the morning and then a big brick and a 85-100 mile ride to do
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Been quite steady for the last few weeks, lots of commuting miles, few runs and swims, got a supersprint race tomorrow at Fritton Lake, hoping to improve on last years 15th place finish!
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Funking heck!!!
15-20 just about kills me.
What you swimming 3.8km in?
Yes, nice here now, but sh1te when I swam.
erm…dunno
Hoping for 60
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