I can now see how my marathon training schedule is working. It lets you exert yourself beyond what's comfortable, then recover from it, and do it again, relying on the training effect. It should be in the range 3.0 – 3.9 optimally, most of the time, 4.0 – 4.9 once a week. The only exception is the training session before an important race event, in which the training effect should be between 2.0 and 2.9, to recover.
Here are the values of my previous training weeks:
- week 1: 3.6 + 3.6 + 3.4 + 2.3 + 4.4 → ℮ 3.5
- week 2: 3.4 + 3.7 + 3.7 + 4.0 + 2.6 → ℮ 3.5
- week 3: 3.2 + 3.7 + 3.7 + 3.0 → ℮ 3.4
- week 4: 3.4 + 4.1 + 3.7 + 3.0 → ℮ 3.6
As long as the average value remains between 3.0 and 3.9 I'm on the right track. Of course, this is just an approximation, as my EPOC is estimated, and I didn't include my rest days, since I haven't measured those.
Since I haven't done any intense sessions this week, and those in the weekend won't be either, I guess today's session should reach beyond 3.9. It's a 10 km tempo run, in which I clearly should push myself. That's good to know.