Training

Your watch shows you a VO2 max number, and it feels weirdly official. Mine crept up over a training block and I wanted to believe it. But the watch never measured my oxygen. It made an educated guess off heart rate and pace. So the fair question, and the one worth answering before you get […]

Here is a pattern that shows up in almost every beginner’s training log. Every run sits in the same narrow band of pace. The easy days are not really easy, and the hard days are not really hard. It all feels productive, because every run leaves the legs a little tired. That constant tiredness is

You open your plan and it says “tempo run.” Your training partner’s plan says “threshold run.” You compare notes and realize you might be doing the same workout, or two completely different ones, and neither of you is sure. It gets worse when you read three articles and get three answers. The terms get thrown

You lace up for an easy run. Comfortable pace, normal effort. Then you glance at your watch and your heart rate is sitting at 168 bpm. That is not a Zone 2 number. You slow down, it drops a bit, but the moment you hit any kind of incline or mild headwind it creeps straight

Most runners and cyclists have seen the number. It shows up every morning on your Garmin, your Whoop, your Polar. Two digits, sometimes with a coloured status next to it, and absolutely no explanation of what you are supposed to do about it. That number is your HRV score, and it is more useful than

Most recreational athletes train too hard. Not race-hard : just hard enough that their easy days aren’t really easy, and their hard days aren’t hard enough to matter. The result is a lot of middle-ground effort that doesn’t produce much of anything. Zone 2 and Zone 3 sit right at the centre of this problem.

If you’ve registered for your first triathlon, you’ve probably heard someone mention brick workouts. Maybe at a club run, maybe in a Facebook group, maybe in a race forum where everyone seems to already know what everyone else is talking about. A brick workout is simply two disciplines done back to back in a single

Typing “make me a 12-week training plan” into ChatGPT will get you something back. It might look plausible. It might even be vaguely appropriate for someone. But it probably won’t be appropriate for you: your fitness level, your injury history, your schedule, your goal race. The output is only as good as what you put

Your GPS watch has heart rate zones. Your training plan probably references them. But if you’ve ever finished a “Zone 2” run feeling like you just raced, or cruised through a threshold workout wondering if you even did anything — your zones are probably wrong. Most are. The default settings on watches and apps are