Two races, properly periodised. The half in December 2026 — 4:13/km for 21.1km. The marathon in October 2027 — 4:15/km for 42.2km. Built for someone who has been here before, ready to chase it again, and who needs to keep the ego off the easy days.
How to read the runs
Easy
Conversational pace. Talk in full sentences. Likely 5:30–6:00/km when you're fit, 5:00–5:15/km when properly trained. The talk test rules — pace doesn't.
Steady
Sub-threshold. Broken sentences, clearly working but controlled. ~4:35–4:45/km. Below the level where lactate climbs.
Threshold
Few words at a time. Genuinely hard but sustainable. ~4:20–4:25/km. Building the engine to handle race pace later.
HM pace
4:13/km — the actual sub-90 race pace. Phase 6 trains your body to hold this. In the marathon block, an HM-tune pace of 4:05–4:07/km shows up — sharper than HM goal pace, used to keep top-end alive while marathon training.
Marathon pace (MP)
4:15/km — sub-3 marathon race pace. Introduced in Phase 12. Always inside the band 4:13–4:18/km; never faster than 4:13. The long-run MP segments are the workouts that win the marathon.
Strides
20-second pickups at ~5K effort with full walking recovery. Done at the end of an easy run. Neuromuscular freshness, not fitness.
WU/CD
Warm-up / Cool-down. Easy jogging that bookends quality work.
Recovery week
Drop volume by ~30%. Adaptation happens here, not in the hard weeks. Don't skip them.
Pace ceilings
Every easy run has a ceiling — the fastest you're allowed to go. Slower than the ceiling = workout executed correctly. Faster = doing a different (worse) workout. No negotiation in the moment.