From now on, you can also follow a plan to build up to 10 miles, and we’re improving a popular Peak Pro feature, because we’re updating the intermediate goals.

_ Intermediate goals: v2

This Peak Pro feature was due for an upgrade. Until now, an intermediate race was a ‘one size fits all’ feature. Anyone who added an intermediate goal saw the priority 1 training in that week canceled, but the volume remained. The training order that I had set was often overruled by your preferred days, making the week of the intermediate goal often far from ideal. In the week after, nothing changed.

That was good for version 1 of this feature, but as an app, we have grown to the point where this just wasn’t good enough anymore. From now on, the volumes and intensities are adjusted in the run-up to your intermediate goal, to perform better. Also, the week after your intermediate goal is adjusted to recover faster and thus better resume the plan towards the main goal.

Very satisfied with this v2, which makes the app a lot more personal – no more one size fits all! To ‘activate’ this new feature, you need to reset the goal.

This also allows me, in the long term, to no longer limit intermediate goals to 21km or to work with C races later on (races you want to participate in but are not focused on/which is not a goal). v1 was, in practice, tailored to a C race, whereas it was intended for a B race.

_ Build-up Plans for 10 Miles

I also designed new plans to build up towards 10 miles. I would even dare to say: specifically for the Antwerp 10 miles. Because for many, this seems to be one of the good resolutions in 2024!

What do the build-up plans look like now?

There are 2 trajectories:

• the ‘real’ build-up (when you have no experience or haven’t run for a while)

• rebuilding (after recent illness/injury).

The difference between the two is the duration. Building up is more patient than rebuilding – logically. Don’t overestimate yourself.

Within each of these trajectories, you can build up from 0 to 5km, from 5 to 10km, and now also from 10km to 10 miles. The shorter distance is, for me as a coach, a precondition to be able to build further towards the longer distance.

These build-up plans do not work with ‘external stress’: I deliberately do not impose paces. Running at pace is subordinate to making the minutes, and your physical condition is also not stable enough yet to focus on this. This means that the features that determine the pace are not active. The build-up plan towards 10 miles does contain weekly interval training as a stepping stone to a later ‘ultimate plan’ – in the latter, we are looking for performance improvements, not for building up.

Often I am asked when you can make the jump from (re)building plan to that ‘ultimate plan.’ Well: not too soon. Take your time because in an ultimate plan the training load, in volume and intensity, goes up faster. Therefore, there is a condition to be able to comfortably complete a 10km when you want to set an ultimate goal: at any time of the week, you should be ready for a 10k, so to speak.

Suppose you have completed a build-up plan towards 10km, then the next step is not a 10 miles or half marathon as an ‘ultimate’ goal, but a 5 or 10km (ultimate goal) or now those 10 miles (build-up goal). This way, you build up the load, again in volume and intensity, gently. Free tip from the coach!