How to plan a trail season around one goal race

Start with one goal race, the one you most want to be ready for. Everything else in the season is there to serve it, so choose it first and put its date on the calendar.

Then work backwards from that date:

• Build gradually. Raise your weekly distance and climbing step by step, and make your long run the longest effort of the week.
• Include easier weeks. They give your body time to absorb the work.
• Taper at the end. In the last weeks, keep the rhythm and cut the length of your runs.
• Add shorter prep races where they fit the build, and keep them well clear of the goal.

You can do this on paper or in a spreadsheet. Kliva has a Season planner that lays it out month by month for you.

You need to be signed in, and you need four things:

• A target race. Pick one from Kliva, or add your own with its name, date, distance and D+. It has to be at least 4 weeks away, otherwise there is no room to build.
• Your typical week right now, in distance and D+. Hiking counts, and rough numbers are fine.
• Your longest run of the last month.
• How fast you want to build: Easy aims for a smaller peak, enough to finish. Normal aims for the typical peak for that race. Hard aims for a bigger peak, to race it faster.

Here is an earlier example of what the planner gives, for a 69 km race with 3,950 m D+. Your numbers will differ, because they start from your own week and your own date. Each month is a card, and each figure is a monthly total: the weekly ranges added together.

• September, build: 33–45 km, 1,200–1,600 m D+, long runs up to 13 km.
• October, build: 69–94 km, 2,500–3,500 m D+, long runs up to 15 km.
• November, build: 103–143 km, 4,000–5,400 m D+, long runs up to 18 km.
• December, build: 96–132 km, 3,700–5,100 m D+, long runs up to 20 km.
• January, race: 113–156 km, 4,300–6,000 m D+, long runs up to 22 km.
• February, build: 130–180 km, 5,200–7,100 m D+, long runs up to 24 km.
• March, build: 197–270 km, 7,800–10,800 m D+, long runs up to 27 km.
• April, build: 183–251 km, 7,400–10,300 m D+, long runs up to 31 km.
• May, race: 274–378 km, 11,500–15,800 m D+, long runs up to 34 km.
• June, peak: 234–320 km, 9,900–13,700 m D+, long runs up to 37 km.
• July, race: 55–76 km, 3,200–4,300 m D+.

Tap a month and you get its weeks, each with a range to aim for and its long run. Kliva sets no workouts.

A month holds four or five weeks, so its total rises and falls with the calendar. In this example, December sits below November and April below March. The weeks also differ: easier weeks are built in so the work can sink in, and a race on the way changes the weeks around it.

The long-run figures are easier to compare from month to month. Here they climb from 13 km in September to 37 km in June, and a long run is never allowed to outgrow its own week.

The Peak tag marks the month with the biggest weeks of the build, before the taper. It is about weeks, so a Peak month does not have to be the biggest month in total.

January and May carry a Race tag because a race sits in those months on the way to the goal. That week, the race is your long effort, and it counts toward the month.

You taper: shorter weeks, same rhythm. Keep the number of runs and cut their length. Then comes the race week.

Season looks for races that fit the gaps in your build. Set where you train from and a radius, and it picks around home. Without a location, it looks at the countries on your profile. Each suggestion says why it is there: how many weeks before your target, what share of its distance or how steep it is, and in which region. Some are tagged Trains elevation or Trains distance.

You stay in charge. Add a suggestion to your season, dismiss it, look at the alternatives, or add a race of your own. You can also set a second target. A longer prep race gets a lighter week before it and easier time after it. If your target is too close, or no race fits the window, Season says so instead of inventing one.

Season compares what your build can reach with the typical peak for that race, and gives a verdict: On track, Stretch or Too steep. If it doesn't fit, it offers ways to make it fit: another build level, a distance that suits your weeks, or a month from which this distance works.

As the season goes on, you can log what you really did each week, and the page tells you how the week went against its range. Hiking counts there too.

No. Kliva gives you no sessions, intervals or paces. Season tells you what volume is typical on the way to your race, and you decide how to fill it, alone or with a coach. Being in range is about arriving fit. Finishing is mostly pacing, fuelling and heat, which is what your race plan is for.

• See how the season planner works
• Build the race plan for your goal race