How We Coach, Part 1 of 10
StressLogic: How We Decide Your Training, Week by Week
The short answer: Every week we answer one question for each athlete we coach: how much training can you absorb and adapt to right now, in each sport, given the life you are living this week? StressLogic is the method we use to answer it. We learn where you are, set your numbers and your block, fit the plan around your life, and change it as you change. This article explains each of those decisions, why we make them that way, and what they looked like for Katy Walmsley, Ben Creswick, Holly Koksel and Graham Lloyd.
The question a training plan can't answer for you
Ask any athlete in the middle of a build what worries them, and it is rarely the workouts themselves. It is the amount. Should this week be bigger than last week? Is the tiredness in my legs the useful kind, or the kind that turns into a missed week? I skipped Tuesday, so do I make it up on Saturday?
A training plan written in advance answers a different question. It says what a reasonable athlete could do in week nine of a build, and it says it months before week nine arrives. That is useful, because it gives the season a shape and points it at a race. What it can't know is what week nine is actually like for you. It can't see that you slept badly three nights running, that work sent you on two flights, that your calf has felt tight since Sunday, or that you are absorbing training so well that holding back would leave fitness on the table.
So the right amount of training has no fixed answer. It changes from week to week, sometimes from day to day, and it is different for every athlete. Two people on the same plan with the same tested numbers can need opposite weeks.
StressLogic is how we answer that question at Angela Naeth Coaching. Each week it brings together three things: your data, what you tell us, and what we see as your coach. Then it turns them into decisions about your block, your weekly load and your sessions. The rest of this article walks through how those decisions get made and why.
How load usually gets managed, and where it runs out
The most common way to manage training load is a fixed rhythm on the calendar. A few weeks build, one week backs off, and the cycle repeats. It is a reasonable starting point. It is simple to follow, it builds in recovery, and for some athletes in some stretches of a season it works well.
The limit is that the calendar decides, and the athlete's body and life don't get a vote. An athlete who is absorbing training well at the end of week two has to stop building because the schedule says the easy week is next. An athlete who is already showing strain at the end of week one is asked to push through two more weeks because recovery hasn't arrived yet on paper. Missed sessions get chased, so the load that was skipped for a reason gets added back on top of whatever caused the miss.
The cost shows up later. Pushing through early warning signs in one week can turn into a missed week, an illness or a sore Achilles a month later, and those lost weeks are what hold most athletes back on race day. The athletes who race best in the late summer are usually the ones who trained consistently from spring onward, and consistency comes from adjusting the load to the athlete as the weeks happen.
That is the job StressLogic does. It keeps the plan's direction and changes how hard we press within it, one week and one sport at a time.
What StressLogic decides each week
StressLogic makes four kinds of decision. Inside ANC we call them Evaluate, Calibrate, Harmonize and Optimize, but the decisions matter more than the names.
Where you are
We learn what is true right now: your history, your recent training, your tested numbers, your strengths and limits, how you recover, and how you respond to training and to life stress.
Your numbers and your block
We set the right intensities, volume, progression and recovery for where you are. Your zones come from your own Critical Power on the bike and Critical Speed on the run and in the pool. Your weekly load comes from your own recent fitness, set separately for bike and run.
Your life
We fit the training to your real life. Training stress, recovery, nutrition, work, family and competition all draw on the same person, so we plan them together.
What changes next
We keep assessing and refining. What happened this week, at your last test and at your last race feeds the next decision.
The decisions form a loop, and we can go back to any of them at any time. If your training or your life changes on a Wednesday, we go back to where you are on a Wednesday. StressLogic is a way of making decisions with you, and it is never an automated formula.
Why we start by learning where you are
Every decision later in the loop depends on an accurate picture now. If the zones are wrong, every interval lands in the wrong place. If we misread how much life stress you are carrying, the weekly load is set for an athlete who doesn't exist. So when an athlete joins ANC, the first conversation is about their life as much as their training. Angela asks simple questions. What races are you aiming at? What have the last few weeks of training been like? Do you use heart rate, power or both? What equipment do you have? How many hours a week are realistic for you?
Then we test, because every zone we write comes from your own numbers: Critical Power on the bike, and Critical Speed on the run and in the pool. We always read a test in context.
Ben Creswick shows why the context matters. Ben joined us in late August 2026 with an A race, IRONMAN 70.3 Tri Cities on September 20, and the Victoria Marathon three weeks after it. He is a health sciences student on a full course load who rides to work, and he was already training roughly 10 to 16 hours a week. When his first race intensity ride felt wrong, we listened and reset his bike numbers within a week, and those numbers anchored the rest of his 70.3 build.
Learning where you are also covers what a test can't show. How an athlete writes about a session tells us a lot. Ben loves to train, and in his first weeks his easy runs kept coming in faster than planned. He even wrote, "I know i get a bit carried away sometimes lol." That one line changed how we coached his easy days, which you will see next.
Why direction and dose are two separate decisions
Here we make two decisions, and keeping them apart is one of the most useful habits in coaching.
The first is direction. That is your training block, meaning what we are trying to change in you over the next several weeks: aerobic base, sustainable power, top end, or race rehearsal. The second is dose. That is how much training stress this particular week should carry. They have different fixes. If training feels hard and nothing seems to move, the block may be pointed at the wrong limiter, or the dose may be more than you can absorb this week. Changing the block when the dose was the problem throws away weeks of good direction. Cutting the dose when the block was the problem just makes the wrong training easier.
How we set the weekly dose
Each week we choose one of five weekly load levels for each sport: Big Push, Small Push, Hold, Small Pull Back or Big Pull Back. The bike and the run each get their own call, because they load the body differently and they rarely need the same thing in the same week.
The inputs are the same every week. On the objective side we read your fitness (CTL), how fast your load is rising compared with your fitness, your end of week form and its five day trend, the bike and run training stress you completed, and how well you executed your sessions. On the subjective side we read your motivation, soreness, mood, sleep, work and life stress, and any orthopedic warning signs.
Both sides matter, and neither tells the whole story alone. An athlete can have training numbers that look fine and still be in a poor position to absorb more: a brutal week at work, two short nights, a nagging Achilles. Good numbers never override that. We hold or pull back. The reverse also happens. Training is supposed to make you tired, and an athlete can feel heavy legged while carrying exactly the fatigue that produces adaptation. Part of the coaching is telling those two situations apart, and that usually takes the comments and the numbers read together.
Increases are small. Fitness usually rises about 3 to 5 points a week, and bigger steps come only once an athlete has shown they can absorb them. We don't schedule make up sessions and we don't cram missed intensity into the weekend. A missed session becomes part of your real training history, and the next week is set from where you actually are. Chasing it would add stress on top of whatever caused the miss, which is usually fatigue or life, the two things that needed less load in the first place. The calendar never forces a progression.
The five weekly load levels, shown on one example
What it measures. Five weekly load levels laid out around one example sustainable bike load of 300 TSS. TSS (training stress score) combines how long and how hard each session was.
The story at this point. This is an illustration built on one example week. Your own sustainable load comes from your own fitness in each sport.
How to read it. The orange dashed line is the sustainable week. The two increases sit just above it, Hold sits on it, and the two pull backs sit below. The step down for Big Pull Back is much larger than any step up.
You might see this in your own training if your weeks build gently for a while and then one week drops well below the rest. That lower week is usually where the earlier work gets absorbed.
What the dose looked like for Ben
Ben's comment about getting carried away mattered for the dose. An easy run done too fast doesn't feel like much on the day. The cost arrives two days later, when the key session starts with legs that are more tired than planned. A Z1 run done in Z2 is extra fatigue that takes quality from the next key session. So we kept the brakes on his easy days and set each week sport by sport.
Ben's weekly load during his two race build
What it measures. Ben's weekly TSS from TrainingPeaks, split by swim, bike and run.
The story at this point. With ANC his weekly load sat between about 560 and 1,010. The holds between the bigger weeks were planned. By mid September he wrote, "I made sure to stay on the slower side of my race pace on the intervals! Feeling good!"
How to read it. Each bar is one week, stacked by sport. Look at how the bars move up and down from week to week.
You might see this in your own training if your weekly load rises, holds for a week, then rises again. Those holds are a deliberate part of the dose.
How we choose the direction: training blocks
The block is the direction, and we choose it in a set order: anything that overrides the plan, then the time to your race, then your tested numbers, then what is limiting you, then your history, and then how ready you are this week. The order matters. Time to your race comes before your numbers because six weeks out there is no longer time to build a new base, however much an athlete might benefit from one. Your limiter comes before your history because the thing holding you back now is what the next block has to change.
Each block has a planned length, usually three to six weeks. It ends when its job is done and the gains flatten, which the next test or race shows us. Ending on evidence matters in both directions. A block that ends too early leaves adaptation unfinished. A block that runs on after the gains flatten keeps adding fatigue for very little return. These are the blocks you will see across ANC athletes.
Base and Durability
Easy aerobic running and riding with short pick ups and steady intervals, used early in a build, after a break, or when fitness is still low, so joints, tendons and muscles are ready before harder work arrives.
Aerobic Expansion
Longer aerobic work with a share of sweet spot and steady finishes, used when the aerobic base needs to grow before threshold work, and often as a bridge so most of the stress stays aerobic while a smaller share moves up.
Build to Threshold
Sweet spot and threshold intervals, used to raise sustainable speed or power, the staying power that a marathon or a 70.3 asks for.
VO2 Max
Short, hard intervals and over unders, chosen when sustainable speed has moved close to an athlete's top end, so the ceiling has to rise before the floor can rise again.
Specificity
Race intensity intervals and long sessions with race intensity finishes. It usually starts inside about six weeks of a key race, when rehearsal matters most, and it teaches pacing, fueling and patience at race effort.
Hybrid and Rest
A hybrid block runs two directions side by side when an athlete genuinely has two needs that can't wait. Rest follows a big race so the body can recover before the next build.
Katy Walmsley's winter shows the order working. Katy coaches athletes, covers a Masters swim group and raises three kids, and her A race was the Boston Marathon on April 20, 2026. Her run moved through Base and Durability, an Aerobic Expansion bridge in January, Build to Threshold in February, VO2 Max in March, and then marathon specific work. Her bike stayed in base and durability while the run took the new load, and moved to threshold in March. Letting one sport take the new stress at a time meant the total load on her body rose slowly even while her run training got harder.
Katy's run and bike blocks before Boston
What it measures. Katy's run and bike blocks from November 2025 to the Boston Marathon, from her TrainingPeaks session codes and the ANC app block history. The dashed lines mark the checks that decided what came next.
The story at this point. In March she wrote, "These intervals are definitely pushing the top end of my abilities!" Eleven days later she ran a 1:34:09 half marathon best, and on April 20 she ran Boston in 3:28:46, a marathon PR.
How to read it. The run blocks are on top and the bike blocks are below. Read across to see each block's dates, and notice that the two sports change at different times.
You might see this in your own training if your plan moves your run into harder work while your bike stays steady. That is usually a choice to let one sport take the new load at a time.
Holly Koksel shows the order with two A races in one summer. Holly coaches with ANC and trains on the same method. Her summer had the Anchor Down 6 hour ultra on August 7 and IRONMAN Maryland on September 19. Time to the race sits near the top of the order, so the block between the two races pointed at the second one while keeping what she had built for the first.
Holly's blocks across a summer with two A races
What it measures. Holly's training blocks from May to November 2026, with her two A races marked.
The story at this point. She trained about 9.3 hours a week, with long rides of 4 to 4.8 hours carrying much of the aerobic work, and her longest run was about two and a half hours. She won Anchor Down as first woman and second overall of 72, covering 31.85 miles on the hottest Anchor Down on record.
How to read it. Each row is a block type and each bar shows when she was in it. The diamonds mark her two races. Notice the second Specificity block between the races, then Rest and a return to Base after IRONMAN Maryland.
You might see this in your own training if you have two different races close together. Your block between them will usually aim at the second race while keeping what you built for the first.
Why your life is part of the training load
Your body doesn't keep separate accounts for training stress and the rest of your life. Work, family, travel, sleep, nutrition and weather all draw on the same recovery. A hard week at work lowers how much training you can absorb in the same way a big block does. If we plan the training as though the rest of the week were empty, the load we wrote is really bigger than it looks. So we plan them together.
For Katy that meant building her week around three kids. Pre dawn was her training window. When basketball took the afternoon, the session moved to the morning. When she was at her mom's house over the holidays, she rode outside. The bike and the pool carried extra aerobic work so her legs stayed ready for the runs that mattered, and her total fitness rose from 93 on December 1 to about 110 in late March.
For Ben it meant giving each sport its own block once his 70.3 was done. His run stayed race specific and turned toward the marathon. His bike went back to base and durability, because he had no bike race for eight months and race intensity riding would only have added fatigue that his marathon couldn't use.
Ben's run and bike blocks between two races
What it measures. Ben's run and bike blocks from his first tests on August 25 to the Victoria Marathon on October 11, 2026.
The story at this point. Both sports were 70.3 race specific until Tri Cities on September 20, where he finished third in his age group in 4:20:01. After that the sports split. On September 27 he ran 34 km, most of it on the marathon course, and wrote, "Intervals were tough at the end legs were feeling it but still felt in control."
How to read it. Run is on top and bike below. Grey is testing. The bars change color where the block changes, and on September 20 the two sports go in different directions.
You might see this in your own training if your run and bike blocks have different names in the same week. That usually means each sport is being set by its own next race.
Fitting training to life also shapes how we bring an athlete back. Graham Lloyd joined us in late May 2026 at 77, with an entry to the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice, a strong bike and six months without running. Running loads tendons and bones far more than riding, and they adapt more slowly than the heart and lungs. Rushing the run back would have risked the whole season, so we let the bike carry his fitness with Aerobic Expansion and rebuilt his run with a walk run ladder he could feel progress on.
Graham's walk run ladder
What it measures. The share of each run and walk interval that Graham spent running, by the date he started each ratio.
The story at this point. His first session on June 11 was 10 seconds of running and 30 of walking. He noticed his legs loosened around mile 1.5, so that became the signal to extend the run part of the ratio. His long runs stayed on the base ratio while shorter sessions moved the ratio up, so only one thing changed at a time. After his 10 mile session on July 26 he wrote, "Pleased and relieved! My longest session all year." On September 13 he finished the 70.3 World Championship in Nice.
How to read it. Each bar is one rung of the ladder. The longer the bar, the more of the interval he ran.
You might see this in your own training if you are coming back from a long break and your coach adds a few seconds of running at a time. Each small rung is a step your legs have already proven they can take.
Why every week and race feeds the next decision
The athlete who started a build in May is a different athlete by August. Fitness is higher, races have added fatigue, and life may look different. A plan that doesn't learn from that keeps coaching the May athlete. This is where each week and each race changes what comes next.
A race result is information too. It tells us what held, what faded and what the next block should change.
Holly's fitness, fatigue and form across the summer
What it measures. Holly's fitness (CTL), fatigue (ATL) and form (TSB) from TrainingPeaks. Fitness is a running average of about six weeks of training. Form is fitness minus fatigue, and above zero means fresh.
The story at this point. Her fitness climbed from about 30 in late April to about 80 by late July. The climb comes in steps, because Hold and Pull Back weeks let each rise settle in. Race week before Anchor Down was a Big Pull Back. "I hate tapering lol," she wrote, and then she won.
How to read it. The dark line is fitness, the light line is fatigue and the orange line is form. Look at how form rises above zero before each race marker.
You might see this in your own training if your fitness line has flat stretches between climbs. Those flat weeks are usually where your body catches up with the work.
This is also where we plan the final weeks before a race. We plan the final two weeks by hand so form lands in a set positive range on race morning, set separately for bike and run and by race distance. Doing it by hand matters because the right amount of freshness depends on the athlete, the sport and how long the race is.
Ben's run fitness and form into Victoria
What it measures. Ben's run only fitness, fatigue and form, from his daily TrainingPeaks run TSS, July to October 11.
The story at this point. After Tri Cities his next runs were easy so recovery came first, and on September 22 he wrote, "legs seemingly have bounced back well." On marathon morning his run form sat at about plus 16 with fitness near 49. He ran the Victoria Marathon in 2:46:42, third of 299 in his age group and 33rd of 3,817, seven weeks into coaching with us.
How to read it. Watch the orange form line in the last two weeks. It climbs above zero while the fitness line stays high.
You might see this in your own training if your final race weeks feel lighter while your fitness barely moves. That is the fresh and fit place we aim for on race morning.
Then the loop starts again. Ben's marathon helped us sharpen his run numbers, and his next season is already laid out.
Ben's next blocks and races
What it measures. Ben's planned blocks and races from September 2026 to IRONMAN Canada on August 8, 2027.
The story at this point. After Specificity for his two races, he moved into Base and Durability. He retests in all three sports on November 13 to 15, and that retest sets the block that follows. A winter of four short run races keeps checking his run fitness on the way to IRONMAN 70.3 Victoria on May 30, 2027 and IRONMAN Canada in August.
How to read it. Bars are blocks and diamonds are tests and races. The grey bar is left open on purpose, because the retest decides it.
You might see this in your own training if your coach leaves a future block unnamed until after a test. That block will be chosen from your new numbers.
How the weekly decision changes with your situation
The same method gives different answers in different weeks. These are the situations we see most often, and how each one usually plays out.
You raced recently, recovered well and your sessions are sharp
The calendar might say keep building. StressLogic agrees when the comments and the numbers both show you are absorbing the work, so the call is usually a Small Push in the sport that is ready. Ben's easy runs after Tri Cities, and his "legs seemingly have bounced back well," are this case.
Your fitness is on track, but work is heavy and sleep is short
The numbers look fine, and the athlete isn't fine. We usually hold, which protects consistency and avoids adding load to a week that already carries plenty.
A tendon is complaining and your sessions are slipping
This is the week the calendar is most likely to get wrong. We pull back now, because a reduced week costs far less than the weeks an injury would take.
You missed two sessions
We move forward from where you are. The missed stress becomes part of your history, and the next week is set from your real fitness and form.
One sport is ready and the other isn't
Each sport gets its own call. Katy's run took on harder blocks while her bike stayed steady, and Ben's bike went back to base while his run kept building.
What StressLogic is, and what it needs from you
StressLogic is a method for making coaching decisions. It organizes what we know about you so we can answer three questions each week: what is your block for, how much can you absorb now, and how does that fit your life. It doesn't write your workouts on its own and it doesn't run in the background without a coach. Data informs the decision, and the coach decides, with you.
There are no templates. Two athletes with the same tested numbers can get different blocks, because their races, histories and weeks are different. Katy, Ben, Holly and Graham were all coached with the same method, and their seasons look nothing alike.
The method is only as good as what goes into it, so it asks two things of you. The first is accurate numbers, which is why we reset numbers when the training says they are off. The second is honest comments. If every session is written up as fine when it isn't, the weekly decision is made on a picture that isn't true. Your comments in TrainingPeaks, your sleep and the shape of your week all count.
The bigger picture across a season
Endurance racing rewards months and years of steady work. The athletes who arrive at their A race fit and fresh are rarely the ones who trained hardest in one spring month. They are the ones who avoided the illness in week fourteen, the six weeks lost to a sore tendon, and the drop in motivation that comes from pushing too long without recovery.
That kind of consistency comes from a decision made every week, sport by sport, from what is actually happening. Holly's fitness rose in steps across a summer with holds between them. Katy's rose from 93 to about 110 over a winter built around her family. Ben's two races three weeks apart were both strong because each week was set from where he really was.
To put the whole method in a few lines: the block sets the direction, the weekly load level sets how hard we press within it, and your life is part of that load. Every week, every test and every race changes the next decision.
What this means for you
What this means for you
If you are coached with StressLogic, you should always be able to answer a few questions about your own training. What block am I in, and what is it for? Is this week a push, a hold or a pull back in each sport? What did we change after my last test or race?
If you can't answer them yet, ask us. Education is part of coaching at ANC, and understanding your own training is part of how you get better at it.
Keep reading in the How We Coach series
- Part 2: Reading where you are
- Part 3: Setting your Critical Power and Critical Speed
- Part 4: Fitting training to life
- Part 5: Learn, adjust, repeat
- Training block types
- Load and recovery
- Fueling
- Race prep
- Who we coach
Athlete stories from this article:
Coaching built around you
If you would like your training decided this way, week by week and around your real life, start at angelanaethcoaching.com.
Tell us your goal race and the hours you really have. Or see our online 70.3 coaching or online marathon coaching.