Weekly Training Notes: Train at Your Current Fitness

Practical training advice, athlete highlights, and lessons from real training blocks.

Each week I send a short newsletter to my athletes with training tips, coaching notes, and shout-outs. The goal is simple: share things that actually help people train consistently and stay healthy while working toward their goals.

Below is an excerpt from a recent newsletter.

Training Tip: Train at Your Current Fitness

One of the most common mistakes early in a training block is trying to train at a future goal pace instead of your current fitness level. While goals matter, your body responds to the work you can handle right now, not the pace you hope to run later.

A better approach is to guide your effort using how the run feels. Easy days should feel genuinely easy. Moderate efforts should feel controlled and sustainable. Harder efforts should challenge you without leaving you buried for days afterward. Heart rate, perceived effort, and your ability to talk in short phrases can all help keep effort in the right zone, especially early in a build.

It’s also important to remember that pace is influenced by more than fitness. Weather, stress, sleep, fueling, and life outside of training all affect how fast a given effort shows up on the watch. When the numbers aren’t there, give yourself some grace. Showing up consistently and running the appropriate effort is what drives long-term improvement.

As fitness builds, pace naturally improves at the same effort. That’s the payoff. Focus on doing the work well, not forcing the outcome.

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