Week 35: training and analysis — what the averages hid this time

Week 35 (24–30 Aug) gets unpacked this time with a slightly more precise method than before. Two changes from before: the floor for a loggable session dropped from 20 minutes to 15 minutes, and if one session starts less than 10 minutes after the previous one ended, they’re treated as a single combined session — for example, an indoor run that continues straight into strength training with no break is, in reality, one training session, not two.

Methodology note: this immediately revealed a new hidden structure — many days weren’t a single sport at all, but 2–4 back-to-back parts (e.g. cycling + running + gym). A combined day’s total distance/pace would be just as misleading as last week’s Thursday average pace, so in the table, combined days’ Pace column is marked with a dash and the parts are broken out separately in their own sections below.

This week’s sessions

Day	Type	Duration	Distance	Pace	Avg / Max HR	Calories
Mon 24 Aug	Combo: Cycling + Running + Gym	73.6 min	4.40 km*	–	133 / 154	728 kcal
Tue 25 Aug (morning)	Combo: Cycling + Walking	75.4 min	9.43 km*	–	122 / 131	524 kcal
Tue 25 Aug (evening)	Cycling	30.4 min	5.72 km	4:40 min/km	112 / 135	155 kcal
Wed 26 Aug	Walking	41.5 min	3.43 km	12:06 min/km	108 / 129	241 kcal
Thu 27 Aug	Running	56.5 min	8.96 km	6:19 min/km (avg)**	157 / 173	765 kcal
Fri 28 Aug	(no logged session ≥15 min)
Sat 29 Aug	Combo: Cycling + Hyrox stations (treadmill + row/SkiErg)	75.9 min	7.42 km*†	–	147 / 168	743 kcal
Sun 30 Aug	Combo: Cycling + Walking + SkiErg	105.2 min	11.21 km*	–	121 / 140	799 kcal

Weekly total: 458.5 min (about 7 h 39 min) of exercise, 50.57 km covered in logged sessions, 3,955 kcal of active energy burned.

* A combo day’s distance is the sum of its parts — not a single steady pace, since the day contained several different activity types. Parts are broken out below. ** Thursday’s 6:19 min/km is the whole session’s average pace. The real interval structure is broken down in its own section below. † Saturday’s 7.42 km covers only the cycling segments — the treadmill’s roughly 1.89 km doesn’t show up in Apple Health’s own summary distance figure at all, see below for why.

Monday’s strength session in detail

The logged Gym segment (50.7 min, average HR 136, max 154) was checked against my own training notes: back squat 6×70 kg, deadlift with a trap bar at 90 kg, pull-up 5 reps, plus the planned burpees with short rests. The data doesn’t separate individual sets, but the relationship between average HR (136) and max (154) shows the rests really were kept short — heart rate didn’t have time to drop properly between sets, which matches the “short rests” note. Before the gym there was an 11-minute cycling warm-up and a 5-minute easy running segment — the whole morning was thus one continuous, three-part 73.6-minute whole, which the new 10-minute merge rule can now handle as a single session instead of splitting it into three separate rows.

Thursday’s interval session in detail: what the average pace hid this time

The whole session’s average pace (6:19 min/km) is again a mix of hard and slow. Unpacking the same data from sub-3-second interval samples reveals five roughly 800-metre reps — exactly matching the planned 5×800m rep count, and faster than the target:

Phase	Duration	Time range	Distance	Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
Opening phase (warm-up, no distinct recovery break)	20.75 min	18:28:00–18:48:45	3,411 m	6:05 min/km	150	167
Recovery 1	1.50 min	18:48:45–18:50:15	129 m	11:38 min/km	150	161
Rep 1	4.75 min	18:50:15–18:55:00	855 m	5:33 min/km	160	166
Recovery 2	2.00 min	18:55:00–18:57:00	191 m	10:27 min/km	153	165
Rep 2	4.50 min	18:57:00–19:01:30	797 m	5:39 min/km	161	167
Recovery 3	2.25 min	19:01:30–19:03:45	228 m	9:53 min/km	151	163
Rep 3	4.50 min	19:03:45–19:08:15	822 m	5:28 min/km	163	169
Recovery 4	1.75 min	19:08:15–19:10:00	203 m	8:37 min/km	157	164
Rep 4	4.50 min	19:10:00–19:14:30	829 m	5:26 min/km	165	170
Recovery 5	2.00 min	19:14:30–19:16:30	202 m	9:55 min/km	157	170
Rep 5	4.75 min	19:16:30–19:21:15	879 m	5:24 min/km	167	172
Cool-down	4.00 min	19:21:15–19:25:15	469 m	8:32 min/km	159	165

The five reps’ combined distance is 4.18 km in 22.5 minutes — the real rep pace is therefore about 5:23 min/km, clearly faster than the planned 5:45–6:00 min/km target. Heart rate climbed steadily rep by rep from 160 to 167 (maxes 166–172), and the 1.5–2.25-minute recoveries didn’t have time to drop heart rate below 150–157 — the same phenomenon as last week, but now both rep count (5/5) and pace beat the target. The opening phase (20.75 min, 3.41 km), on the other hand, is longer and slower than the planned 1.5 km warm-up — the data shows no clear boundary between the warm-up and the first rep, since heart rate and pace rose gradually without a detectable recovery break.

Saturday’s Hyrox stations in detail: data vs. memory

According to my own notes, Saturday was a three-round combo: treadmill on every round (round 1 at 5:30 min/km, rounds 2–3 at 6:00 min/km), rowing machine on the first round and SkiErg on the next two. Here the data and memory don’t fully match, and that’s worth saying outright rather than smoothing over:

• The whole 45.5-minute “Functional Strength Training” session (within which the entire station circuit happened) contains one continuous 12.25-minute treadmill segment (16:40–16:53) that has real distance data: 1.89 km, average pace 6:29 min/km, heart rate 157 → 166. This is the entire treadmill portion as one block — Apple Watch didn’t split it into three separate rounds, so the per-round paces (5:30 / 6:00 / 6:00) come from the training notes, not directly from sensor data.
• On either side of the treadmill segment are two distance-invisible phases where heart rate rises but no GPS/distance data accumulates at all (8.25 min before the run, HR 147→157; 10.25 min after the run, HR 159→168). According to the notes, the entire rest of the station content happened within these: row/SkiErg, Sandbag Lunges with 10+10 kg dumbbells, and BBJ as planned — none of these produce automatic distance data in Apple Health under the “Functional Strength Training” activity type, so they all show up in the data only as elevated heart rate with no separation between stations.
• The treadmill’s own summary contains no distance at all in the workout-level WorkoutStatistics data — the 1.89 km only turned up in the second-by-second raw data. This is a genuinely new finding compared to last week: back then the problem was a misleading average; this time the problem is that the device’s own summary forgot the distance entirely.
• The total distance (1.89 km) falls a bit short of the planned 3×800 m (2.4 km) target, which fits with transitions between rounds eating into some of the time.

Heart rate and max heart rate, visually

Dark bar = average heart rate relative to a 90–180 bpm scale, vertical line = max heart rate. Hover (or focus with the keyboard) over a row for exact readings.

Load versus the plan

The previous update laid out week 35 like this: Mon strength, Tue easy base run, Wed active recovery, Thu 5×800m interval session at 5:45–6:00 min/km, Fri rest day, Sat Hyrox Combi (3 rounds), Sun long low-heart-rate combo. The outcome landed unusually close to the plan:

• Monday went to plan: back squat, deadlift, and pull-up match the plan’s “maintenance, no fatigue” goal, and the heart rate data (136/154) supports a reading of short rests but not extreme load.
• Tuesday exceeded the planned duration, but not the heart rate zone: the planned 45–60 min at low heart rate happened as two parts (75.4 + 30.4 min = 105.8 min), but both stayed close to a 112–122 average heart rate — more volume, the right intensity.
• Wednesday went to plan: a 41.5-minute walk at low heart rate (108) matches the “active recovery” goal, albeit longer than the planned 30 min.
• Thursday’s interval session hit the rep count exactly (5/5) and beat the pace target: the real rep pace of 5:23 min/km was faster than the planned 5:45–6:00 min/km target (see the breakdown above).
• Friday stayed a rest day — no session ≥15 min at all, exactly to plan.
• Saturday’s Hyrox stations happened mostly as planned: three rounds of treadmill with alternating ergs (row/SkiErg), though total distance (1.89 km) fell a bit short of the planned 2.4 km and the Sandbag Lunges/BBJ portion doesn’t show up in the data — a clear improvement over last week, when the whole Combi didn’t happen at all.
• Sunday’s long low-heart-rate combo exceeded the planned duration: 105.2 minutes (69.7 min in motion) versus the planned 60–75 minutes, average heart rate 121 stayed right in the correct low zone.

Overall picture: this was a much more plan-compliant week following week 34 — especially Thursday’s intervals and Saturday’s Hyrox stations, both of which either fell short or didn’t happen at all last week.

Heart rate zones

Resting heart rate varied between 56–72 bpm over the week. This week’s sessions split clearly:

• Low/recovery (avg HR 108–122): Wednesday’s walk, both of Tuesday’s parts, and Sunday’s combo. All landed well in the base-endurance zone.
• Moderate/brisk (avg HR 133–147): Monday’s strength session and Saturday’s Hyrox stations.
• Hard (avg HR 157, maxes over 170): Thursday’s interval session — the only session where heart rate clearly rose above threshold.

Pace and duration

Of the purely single-sport sessions (Tuesday’s evening ride, Wednesday’s walk, Thursday’s run), the table pace describes the session directly except for the latter two — Thursday’s 6:19 min/km is a flat average, behind which is actually a 5:23 min/km rep pace (see above). The combo days’ (Mon, Tue morning, Sat, Sun) table distance is the sum of their parts and doesn’t describe one steady pace — their real structure is broken out in their own sections.

Recovery

• Resting heart rate: lowest on Thursday (56) — the same day as the week’s hardest session, a good sign of base fitness. Highest on Tuesday (72), otherwise an easy day.
• HRV (SDNN): varied between 35.6–57.3 ms at the daily level. The lowest value landed on Monday (35.6 ms) and the second-lowest on Sunday (37.5 ms) — both clearly below last week’s range floor (45.6 ms). Worth factoring into next week’s load.
• Sleep: varied from 6.1 hours (the night Sun→Mon) to 8.24 hours (the night Fri→Sat, right before the Hyrox stations). The longest night landed right before the day needing the best preparation — good timing.

In summary: week 35 was more data-driven and followed the plan more closely than before — Thursday’s reps beat the target pace and Saturday’s Hyrox stations happened mostly as-is. The one clear concern is the drop in HRV from last week’s level, which will be factored into next week’s program.

Follow the journey and training diary here at puhakka.org!