I Build the Plan Around Your Season

A Season, Not a Single Race

A runner rarely trains for one race. There is the marathon in the autumn, a half a few weeks before it, a 10K in the spring that matters for its own sake.

So a runner's goals are many. Each one is a race with a date, a distance and a target time, and I hold all of them at once. The plan is not built for one race and then thrown away when the next one comes along; it is built for the season.

Main Races and Tune-Ups

Every goal is either a main race or a tune-up.

The earliest main race ahead drives the plan. The training arc ends on its date: the phases, the long runs and the taper all point there. When that race is behind the runner, the next main race takes over.

A tune-up fits inside that arc. I can race it, race it easy, train through it or skip it, but it never costs a main race its taper or its recovery. A tune-up at the right point of the block can also stand in for a milestone: a real race is a better test of where fitness sits than a time trial on a quiet Tuesday.

I read the role from the runner's own words: "a half as a tune-up" or "a 10K along the way" reads as a tune-up. The runner can change it whenever they like.

One Card to Start

At sign-up, I ask for the whole season on one card. The runner writes every race they are aiming at, each with its distance, target time and date, and where their running is today.

I read it back: each race as I understood it, with its role, and the fitness I took from it. If something is missing or misread, they edit the text and send it again. When it matches, they confirm, and I build the plan.

There is no goal form after that. A goal changes the way everything else does here: the runner tells me. "Move Stockholm to 6 June." "Drop the 10K." "Make the half my main race."

I Rebuild Only When the Target Moves

When the main race changes, the plan is aimed at a different target than before. An earlier race becomes the main one and takes over, or the driving race's date or distance moves. Then I clear the workouts ahead of today and build again: milestones across the block and a first week written out in detail, with the later weeks filling in as they come closer.

Anything else, I adjust in the same conversation. A tune-up added, moved or dropped, a new target time, a renamed race: the target is the same, so the plan stays and I change the days around it.

Why I Rebuild Instead of Patching

The older approach did not clear anything. It took whatever plan was already on the calendar and tried to bend it toward the new goal, keeping some workouts, changing others, and adding milestones around the goal date.

The trouble is that a plan built for one target has the wrong shape for another. Its workouts, their order, and how hard they ramp up were chosen for something else. Editing that plan to point at a new target left a mixture: some old workouts that did not fit next to new ones that did, and the two did not add up to a sensible build toward the date.

Clearing the plan first removes that problem. Every workout in the new plan is chosen for the race that actually drives it, with nothing carried over from a plan that was meant for something else. Starting clean is what makes the plan match the goal.