Setting a training focus

Start by telling your coach what this stretch of training is for.

A Training Focus — the single direction your current training serves — can take one of three shapes: a race, a distance without a race, or general fitness. It answers why you are training; choices about weekly mileage, run days and the shape of the plan live elsewhere.

Training for a race

Use a race focus when you know the event you are preparing for. Give the distance and, when it is known, the date. A target time is optional.

You can record the race before its date is locked. Once the date is present, the plan can place the block and race week against it. If the date later moves, the existing plan needs a separate conversation to refit the weeks ahead.

Building toward a distance

Use a distance focus when you care about the event distance but have not chosen a race. For example, you may want to become ready for a half marathon or improve at 10K without putting a date on the calendar.

A distance focus can carry a target time, but never a race date. It gives the coach a clear kind of training to build without pretending an event is booked.

Training for general fitness

Use a fitness focus when consistency, resilience or broad running development matters more than a race distance. It carries no event distance, date or target time. The plan distance and duration are choices you make separately when you choose from the available plans.

Keep the name current too

When you replace a race focus with something else, give the new focus a name that matches. A name such as an old race can be technically valid while still misleading you and your coach in later conversations.

You have one current focus at a time. Previous training remains in your history; changing the focus changes the direction from here rather than erasing what you already did.