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Analyse

The Analyse view — chart a recurring workout over time and drill into the sessions behind it.

Analyse charts your completed training over time. Pick the workout you want to follow, pick what to measure, and the chart and the list underneath stay in sync, so every point on the chart is a workout you can open.

Recurring workouts

The picker on the left lists the workouts you actually repeat, most frequent first. It is built from your own history, so it is always current and needs no setting up. Selecting one charts every time you have run it.

A workout is identified by the work it repeats, not by how much of it you did. Fifteen, sixteen and twenty times 400m are the same workout at three volumes, so they chart together and the trend across them is readable. The row shows the spread underneath the name, so you can see what varies: how many reps, what recovery, at what intensity.

Warmups and cooldowns never affect which workout something is. Neither does the recovery you took, so a session with a 60 second jog and the same session with 90 seconds standing are one workout.

A rep your watch split in two is still one rep. A 1200m rep recorded as 800m plus a faster last 400m counts as 1200m, so it charts alongside the same session run without the split.

Sets are part of what a workout is. Ten times 400m and two sets of five are the same total work and not the same session. Sets that change size are kept as you ran them — a 5-4-3 is a 5-4-3, not three fours.

Easy runs and long runs are identified by category alone. An easy 5km and an easy 8km are both easy runs, and there is nothing useful in separating them.

RowWhat it covers
Easy runsEvery easy run, whatever the distance
Long runsEvery long run
400m repsEvery session built on 400m reps, at any rep count
2x400m repsThe same work in two sets, which is a different session
(5-4-3)x300mSets that change size, kept as they were run
45s repsSessions built on timed reps

Where a coaching framework describes the same shape, its name appears underneath — several, when several claim it, because 400m reps belong to more than one. It is context, not a relabelling: running ten times 1km does not put you on anyone's plan.

Reps run to a marker and reps run to a clock stay separate, because they are different choices. A session on one basis shows the nearest session on the other beside it, worked out from the pace you actually held: 1200m reps sit next to 4-minute reps if that is what 1200m takes you, and next to 6-minute reps if it takes you that.

Searching

Free text sits at the bottom of the picker, for when you want something the list does not cover. It matches workout names and structures.

You can also reach a chart straight from search. Typing analyse offers your most frequent workouts. Typing a workout, like 8x1km or 400m, offers to chart it alongside the workouts that match it.

What to measure

Each measure answers a different question. The picker shows what each one tells you.

Volume

Totalled per week, because a single run says little about whether training is building.

MeasureWhat it tells you
DistanceThe headline volume number — whether training is building, holding, or quietly falling off.
DurationVolume in time rather than distance. The fairer comparison when terrain or conditions swing week to week.
ElevationTotal climbing. Worth watching before a hilly race, or when pace drops for reasons pace alone can't explain.
Training LoadTotal training stress across every sport, not just running.

Pace

One point per workout.

MeasureWhat it tells you
Avg PaceWhole-run average pace.
Avg GAPAverage pace normalised for the hills you ran — the honest way to compare a hilly run against a flat one.
Quality Rep PacePace across the work reps only, ignoring warmup, recovery and cooldown. The number that tracks session progress.

Heart rate

MeasureWhat it tells you
Avg HRWhole-run average heart rate. Read next to pace: the same pace at a lower HR is fitness.
Quality Rep HRHeart rate across the work reps only — what the hard part of the session actually cost.

Efficiency

Easy Efficiency vs Zones is where trends live. It measures how much less heart rate a run cost than your zones predict — the number that quietly improves when training works. Above the line is more efficient than predicted; below is less. See Pace methods and Zones.

Subjective

From what you log after a workout, so they need no wearable.

MeasureWhat it tells you
RPEHow hard the session felt, 1–10. Effort climbing while pace holds steady is an early fatigue signal.
FeelingHow you felt afterwards, 1–5. A run of low days next to rising load is worth acting on.

How to read the charts

Every chart in Runtool follows the same rules, so a shape means the same thing wherever you see it.

What you seeWhat it means
Solid lineData that has happened.
Dashed lineA projection — planned or predicted, not yet run. Nothing else is ever dashed.
Dotted lineA reference: a baseline, an average, a threshold.
Shaded areaThe points are totals over a period (a week's distance), not single measurements.
Hollow dotA data point.
Filled dotThe point you are reading — the most recent, or the one under your cursor.
Faint straight lineThe trend across everything shown.
Columns above/belowA measurement against a baseline. Above the line is better than the baseline, below is worse.

On long ranges the individual dots disappear and only the line remains — at a year of training there are more points than there are pixels to draw them in. Hovering still reads out every one.

Efficiency charts draw a marker on the baseline each time you re-tested your zones. A step in the chart at that point is your baseline moving, not your fitness changing.

Range and display

  • Date range — 3 months, 6 months, or a year.
  • Display — per workout, per day, or per week. A chosen workout is always read per workout, so the option only appears across all runs.

The view state lives in the URL — bookmark a chart or share it with your coach and they open exactly what you see.

The workout list

Below the chart, every workout in the current selection is listed with its completion data. The chart holds its place while the list scrolls, so an outlier and its explanation stay visible together. Select a workout to inspect it.

FAQ

Why is a workout I have run missing from the list? The list only shows workouts you have completed more than once in the selected range — a workout you have run once is not yet a pattern worth charting. Widen the date range, or use the search field to find it.
A session is in the wrong row. What now? Runtool reads structure from the activity file, and an unusual session can be read wrongly — most often when the reps vary within the session or the recording has no clear breaks between them. Ladders and sessions recorded without lap presses are the common cases. Tell us which workout it was and we will fix the reading for everyone, rather than asking you to correct it each time.
What is GAP? Grade adjusted pace — your pace normalised for the hills you ran. A 5:00/km on rolling trails and a 4:40/km on the flat can be the same effort; GAP makes them comparable. See [Pace methods](/docs/pace-methods) for how it relates to the other pace bases.
Why do some workouts miss heart-rate metrics? Heart-rate metrics need HR data in the imported activity. Workouts recorded without an HR sensor, or completed manually, chart their pace and volume but skip HR-based metrics.
Why is my efficiency chart empty? Easy Efficiency vs Zones compares your heart rate against what your zones predict, so it needs both pace and heart-rate zones set, plus runs with heart-rate data. It also only covers easy, long and race runs — an interval session's rests drag the whole-run average down, which would make the number meaningless. Quality sessions get a per-rep comparison on the workout page instead.
Why does the heart-rate axis not start at zero? A resting heart rate is not zero, and a season's worth of change might be five beats. The axis is bounded by your own resting and max heart rate, then zooms to the range your data actually covers, so a real drift stays visible instead of flattening into a straight line.