A 50-kilometre week can be routine, progressive or excessive. The total cannot tell you which. The intensity of the work, the load already established and the timing of each run all change the meaning.
VOLUME IS ONLY ONE DIMENSION
Ten easy kilometres and ten hard kilometres are not the same input.
Weekly distance is useful because it is simple and stable. But it treats every kilometre as equal. A short hard session can create more physiological demand than a longer easy run, while two identical sessions can land differently depending on the fatigue already present.
Runome derives per-run training load from duration and heart-rate reserve using the runner’s configured maximum and resting heart rates. That produces a personal load estimate rather than a distance count.
- Intensity
- Unknown
- Timing
- Flattened
- Accumulated fatigue
- Unknown
Clear volume. Limited state.
Every load enters on a date.
- 01Duration and heart-rate reserve shape per-run TRIMP
- 02Daily load updates short- and long-term signals
- 03Fitness builds and clears more slowly than fatigue
- 04Form is the balance between those two curves
- 05Recovery and coaching read the current context
ONE RUN → FOUR VIEWS
Runome carries load forward.
Review load alongside Summary, Trends and coaching. Each view helps you ask a different training question, from what happened today to how the recent weeks fit together.
Duration weighted by heart-rate reserve estimates the load created by one recorded run.
A longer-term view describes the training load you have established.
A shorter-term view brings recent training demands into focus.
Fitness minus fatigue describes the current load balance—not health, motivation or race certainty.
DIFFERENT DECAY SPEEDS
Fatigue moves quickly. Fitness moves slowly.
Recent load influences the fatigue curve more strongly, so a demanding block can raise ATL quickly. CTL changes more gradually because it represents a longer training history. When fatigue rises above fitness, TSB becomes negative; when recent load clears, form rises again.
Illustrative pattern only. Bar height is not a recommendation or user record.
A freshness or recovery score can become high after time off because calculated fatigue has cleared. That does not prove fitness was maintained, or that soreness, illness, pain, stress, hydration and today’s sleep are favourable.
CONTEXT, NOT INJURY PREDICTION
Load balance is a training question.
Compare recent training demands with the history that came before them. This helps you review changes in your training; it does not measure injury risk or medical readiness.
READ THE CURVES TOGETHER
Use load to explain change, not dictate it.
Track TRIMP against the usual session type, weekly load against the recent normal and CTL across several weeks. Treat abrupt changes as prompts to inspect recovery, session mix and how the runner feels.
When the numbers disagree with pain, illness or unusual fatigue, the lived signal wins. Recorded runs cannot observe everything that matters.
Training load is most useful when it keeps yesterday connected to today without pretending it can see tomorrow with certainty.