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How to Interpret My Training Journal

Date Created: 2023-04-08, Date Modified: 2023-05-24

Introduction

My training journal includes a lot of acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon that I have picked up from various sources throughout the year. I read through several of my training journals and tried to pull out anything that might need some further definition and explanation to understand how I’m thinking about my training.

Very few, if any, of these terms are my own novel creations. Instead I try to learn as much as I can from a variety of sources. The definitions and thoughts below are my attempts at making them my own and explaining how I use them and why I find them to be useful. My current working model of how to train is heavily influenced by the following people and resources:

Glossary of Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Terms

AE, Aerobic Efficiency

This is the range of intensity just below LT1, and corresponds to a 6/10 RPE. I currently run in this intensity for about 30 minutes or 2 x 20 minute intervals.

ATL, Acute training load

This is a TrainingPeaks indicator that is calculated by an exponential weighted average of TSS (Training Stress Score) over the past 7 days. It is meant to represent the training an athlete has done over the past two weeks. It attempts to summarize both the volume and intensity of training into one composite score. This basically only shows up in my training journal on my weekly TrainingPeaks summaries that I include at the start of each week’s journal entry.

TrainingPeaks refers to ATL as “Fatigue”, but when I refer to fatigue in my own journal, I never mean ATL. Instead when I say fatigue, I mean my subjective feedback of how my body feels.

CTL, Chronic training load

This is a TrainingPeaks indicator that is calculated by an exponential weighted average of TSS (Training Stress Score) over the past 42 days. It is meant to represent the training an athlete has done over the past 3 months. It attempts to summarize both the volume and intensity of training into one composite score. I occasionally use this indicator as a way to compare my level of consistency in training over different periods of time.

TrainingPeaks refers to CTL as “Fitness”, but when I refer to fitness in my own journal, I never mean CTL. Instead when I say fitness, I mean my ability to perform now relative to my goals and past performances. If I say my fitness is improving, I mean that I’m running faster for a consistent level of effort.

EF, Efficiency factor

This is a TrainingPeaks calculation that takes average pace or power and divides it by average heart rate. They actually use a Normalized Graded Pace or Normalized Power. I think the Normalized Graded Pace does a pretty good job comparing across rolling or flat pavement, but not on very steep trails. I typically use EF when comparing intervals from similar workouts to see how well performing at a given heart rate.

ER, Endurance run/ride

This is the intensity I’m using for most of my easy and long runs. I rate it as 5-6/10 RPE (Rating of perceived exertion). I can comfortably carry on a conversation, typically running about 1.5-2 minutes slower than my marathon pace, HR usually around 70-75% of my max. This is also the intensity I use if I have completed the structured intensity portion of a workout but want to add on additional time to increase my total volume for the day.

HR, Heart rate

This one’s pretty easy. Simply measures how many times my heart beats per minute.

HRV, Heart rate variability

If your heart beats 60 times in one minute, it’s extremely unlikely that it is beating exactly once every second. There is variation beat to beat. Whether there is high or low variation between beats compared to your normal or baseline can provide information regarding how well your body is adapting to training. I use Marco Altini’s app, HRV4Training, to measure my HRV every morning.

LT1, First lactate turnpoint

This is the intensity at which blood lactate concentration first begins to rise above baseline levels. This is where exercise changes from the moderate domain to the heavy domain.

I’m actually a little unclear on identifying this point for myself. I often see this defined as the point that lactate rises above resting levels. My resting lactate levels before I even warm up are typcially around 1.1-1.5 mmol/L. If I warm up at around 8:30/mi or slower, my lactate stays right in that same range, but when I speed up to 7:00-8:00/mi, my lactate concentration decreases to about 0.7-0.8mmol/L. So then if I keep speeding up, my lactate can rise quite a bit before I cross my resting levels. Is LT1 when lacate starts to rise after it has fallen, or is it after lactate surpasses my resting levels?

LT2, Second lactate turnpoint

As exercise intensity increase above LT1, blood lacate concentration also continues to rise, but will remain stable if intensity is held constant. When intensity increases beyond LT2, blood lactate will continue to rise even if intensity is held constant. Lactate will continue accumulating in the blood until the athlete reaches exhaustion. This is also referred to as the maximal lactate steady state. This is where excercise changes from the heavy domain to the severe domain.

MP, Marathon pace

This is another easy one. This is the pace that I can sustain for 26.2 miles. It’s located somewhere in between LT1 and LT2.

R, Repetition

These are very fast (for me) repeats over short distances with equal distance recovery jogging in between. I most frequently do these over 200 m, sometimes over 400 m, and rarely 800 m.

RHR, Resting heart rate

When I record my HRV each morning in HRV4Training, it also logs my resting heart rate. I usually take this on my bed, halfway sitting up, leaning on my headrest.

RI, Running intervals aka VO2Max intervals

These are fast intervals, typically 3 minutes in duration with 3 minutes of rest/recovery jog in between. 10/10 RPE (rating of perceived exertion), above LT2, intended to accumulate time spent working at my VO2Max.

RPE, Rating of perceived exertion/effort

I’ve always loved to run by feel. That’s how I ran my first Boston qualifying time, my current half marathon PR, and all of my ultras. Our bodies and brains are like powerful supercomputers, quickly synthesizing and reacting to a practically infinite number of inputs at any given time. I believe that I can maximize my own athletic performances only if I develop an intimate understanding of my own body and can reliably self-regulate my effort moment to moment. As I’ve dug deeper and deeper into heart rate and lactate guided training, I’m using these data points as a way to fine tune and calibrate my feelings.

I use a scale of 1-10, with 1-3 being very light movement up to a brisk walk. Running and training efforts typically fall between 4-10. The table below summarizes my connection between my RPE scale and the varius workout prescriptions I use regularly in training.

RPE Workout Intensity Notes
4 RR I imagine myself slightly tapping the breaks to slow down just a little from what I naturally settle into to reduce the recovery cost of these sessions.
5-6 ER I usually settle into the low end 5/10. I think of 6/10 effort as just slightly pushing the throttle down to moderately increase intensity.
7 SSR This is targeting the intensity just above LT1 and below MP, where lactate has risen slightly, but still stable.
8-9 MP, Tempo I run some of my longer Tempo intervals (10 min) closer to an 8/10 and my shorter Tempo intervals closer to 9/10. MP is basically the border of 7-8/10. The top of this intensity band is LT2.
10 RI, R Basically anything above LT2 is marked as 10/10.
11 Sprints I occasionally do short maximal hill sprints (8-10s). I mark these as 11 because they’re way faster than anything else I do in training. (I forgot about this a while ago, and have been marking all my hill sprints in 2024 as 10/10.)

RR, Recovery run/ride

These are easy efforts meant to mostly get my body moving in between harder workout days. 4/10 RPE, no floor on pace or HR, usually < 70% max HR. Just want to keep it light to reduce the recovery cost and allow my body a break from hard training. I typically cap these at no more than 1 hr, and often keep it closer to 45 min.

SSR, Steady state run/ride

This intensity is just above LT1, with 7/10 RPE. I think this is what most people are talking about when they refer to “Zone 2.” At least, I know this where Alan Couzens defines Zone 2. I usually do 20-30 minutes at a time, with 5 minutes recovery in between.

TSB, Training Stress Balance

This is a TrainingPeaks indicator that is calculated by yesterdays CTL minus yesterday’s ATL. It is meant to represent freshness or form. I use this to identify periods of training where I tried to do too much too soon. I do this by looking at my subjective feedback of how my body feels or if I start to feel a nagging pain and seeing how far negative my TSB has gone.

Tempo

This intensity is capped at the high end by LT2. I do some Tempo sessions with long intervals of 10-12 minutes and some Tempo sessions with short intervals of 3-4 minutes. The long intervals will either be 8 or 9/10 RPE aiming for blood lactate mmol/L in the high 2s and low 3s, and the short intervals are almost always 9/10 RPE aiming > 3.5mmol/L. For the long intervals i do a 2:1 work:recovery ratio. For the shorter intervals I usually just do about 1-1.5 min recovery or rest.

TID, Training intesity distribution

This describes how I allocate my training time between my various intensities. You can break down training by HR zones or pace/power zones, but I like to look at mine by RPE. Each week I calculate my TID showing how much time and what percentage of time I spent at each RPE level.

TSS, Training Stress Score

TrainingPeaks attempts to quantify the stress of each training session into a single training stress score. The caclulation is based on the duration and pace of the workout relative to FTP (functional threshold pace), or the pace that you can sustatin for 1 hour. This FTP is near LT2. A 1 hour run at this intensity is scored 100 points.