Welcome to The Logbook, a new monthly series where I share what my own training actually looks like. You’ll get a real-time look at how I set my goals, adjust my training, and track my progress along the way as a personal trainer.
Fitness content is full of finished stories. Someone tells you what worked after it already worked, with the bad weeks edited out and the numbers rounded in a flattering direction. You get the conclusion without the process, which doesn’t teach you much if what you actually want is to learn how to run your own training.
So I’m doing it the other way around. Every month, I’ll share the real thing: the program I’m following, why I built it that way, the sessions exactly as they’re written, my numbers, and then what actually happened. Including the weeks when I miss sessions, feel terrible, or get something wrong.
For this first edition, we’re starting with the program I’ll be running for the next 8 weeks, with one goal: to become a faster runner while doing my best to maintain the muscle I’ve built.
The logic behind this goal and the trade-offs I’ll need to make
I’m running a half marathon next year. Before I start adding distance, I want to get faster over a shorter one first, because pace matters when you’re trying to make longer distances feel manageable.
The plan is three runs a week: one long run, one speed session, and one easy run to build volume. That puts me at around 25-30 kilometers a week, which tends to surprise people when the goal is simply to run a 5K in under 25 minutes. But you don’t get faster over 5 kilometers by only running 5 kilometers. A fast 5K is built on the aerobic base underneath it, your ability to hold a hard effort for 25 minutes without completely falling apart. And that base comes from the slower, longer runs.
You’re probably wondering how I’ll manage that much running while being a gym girlie who trains four to five times a week.
Well, for these eight weeks, I’m dropping down to four, with shorter sessions and fewer sets. And no, this isn’t because cardio “kills your gains.” I’ve already written a whole article about why that idea is mostly a myth. It’s more about recovery. I only have so much of it. If I spend most of it trying to recover from five days of lifting, my speed sessions will suffer, my runs will feel awful, and the whole experiment stops being worth doing.
So for these eight weeks the gym has one job: maintain what I’ve already built. I’m not trying to build muscle while also running 30 kilometers a week. That’s not a realistic goal for me right now, and pretending I can maximize both at the same time is probably the fastest way to end up doing both badly.
So, here’s the exact training split and nutrition plan I’ll be following.
The Logbook is for ✨ paid subscribers ✨
Everything above is the reasoning, what follows is the actual plan. Behind the paywall:
My full lifting program: the split, every exercise, sets and reps, and the exact progression rule I’m using week to week
My 8-week running program: the sessions, distances, and how they’re placed around lifting so my legs aren’t destroyed on speed day
The nutrition plan my dietitian and I built for this block: calories, protein target, and how I eat around runs
My starting numbers and what I expect to see at week 4
The red lines that make me change the plan instead of pushing through
Why become a paid subscriber?
The paid tier is for readers who want to take things a step further and turn what they learn into something they can actually use. Alongside the free posts, you’ll get:
2 in-depth guides every month: the tools, frameworks, & resources to help you put what you learn into practice.
The logbook: a monthly training journal where i share the exact program i’m running. it’s a real-time look at how i set goals, adjust my training, and track my progress along the way.
Member perks: exclusive offers, ready-to-use workout templates & workbooks.