When I starting coaching it was always my hope that as I gained more experience my training plans would evolve and become more advanced. Well I believe that’s happened and a switch from “distance” to “training load” is probably the biggest improvement I have made.

Often training plans will be based on the number of miles (or kms) you run each week. The idea being you slowly add more mileage to your training to improve your fitness.

But this method is flawed. 6 miles along the seafront chatting with a friend is completely different to 6 miles of threshold running (close to 10k pace). Any training plan based around miles per week would therefore be comparing them as equal.

I have given a training load score to all the sessions currently in my library that I allocate to my team of runners. Load is based on two factors, the time or distance you are running for and the RPE (effort level) you are working at.

You don’t need to know much more than that really. An example is that a 60 minute easy run with a friend has a training load of 150. A fast 5k, despite being half the distance, has a score of 260, including your WU & CD.

Creating training plans using load will ensure the total effort is consistent and the chances of over training are lower. It may also result in some weeks doing less runs if the intensity of those sessions is higher.

For example you’d have to do 4 x 60 minute easy runs to score a higher training load than just 2 quick 5ks.

Something to bear in mind with your own training is if the load of a session is different from that in the plan. When would this apply? For example if you have a 60 minute easy run in the schedule and join a group, and that leader takes you up and down every single hill they can find, the RPE will be much higher than 3 and therefore the training load will be greater too.

You might turn up at parkrun with every intention of going for an easy run, but get carried away and end up running much faster than planned (you know who you are 🙄). Again this would significantly increase your training load.

If your training load is much higher than it should be the risk of injury increases. So the response to either of those scenarios would be to then change the next session in your weekly schedule, or if you are working with myself or another coach, simply notify then of the extra effort you put in.

As the plan progresses you want the training load to gradually increase and you might find your peak weeks of training are 3-6 weeks prior to your goal race, allowing some time to taper if need be.

Having an understanding of your training load across an entire plan can also help going forward. You can look to increase that figure slightly for your next training plan. If you run with a smart watch then it’s likely they have these features to help you measure the training load of each run.

I’m very excited about this change and hopefully it will lead to even better results but also reduce the risk of injury.