Tools Weekly Mileage Checker
Your weeks, honestly counted
Enter your last four weeks and what you have planned: you get the exact average of the weeks you recorded, the change from last week and the change from that average — each with its denominator named, because “up 30%” means two different things depending on what it is 30% of.
It gives you arithmetic and leaves the judgement to you. There is no safe/unsafe verdict, no injury claim and no prescribed limit, because weekly distance alone cannot support any of those.
Change this freely — it is your number to choose, and the comparisons update.
| Week | Distance (km) |
|---|---|
| 4 weeks ago | 30 |
| 3 weeks ago | 34 |
| 2 weeks ago | 36 |
| Last week | 38 |
| Planned next week | 45 |
Average of recorded weeks
34.5 km
4 of 4 weeks
Planned vs last week
+18.4%
denominator: last week (38 km)
Planned vs 4-week average
+30.4%
denominator: average (34.5 km)
- Across the recorded weeks your volume rose by 8 km, so the average already lags where you are now.
What mileage cannot see
- Intensity. Fifty easy kilometres and fifty with two interval sessions are not the same week.
- Terrain and surface. Hills and trails change the cost of a kilometre.
- Sleep, stress and life load, which change how much training you absorb.
- Injury history, which is the strongest predictor anyone has found — and is yours, not ours, to weigh.
- Single-run distance, which is counted separately below rather than folded into a weekly total.
This tool gives you arithmetic and leaves the judgement to you. It does not tell you a week is safe or unsafe, because weekly distance is not enough to know that. What the evidence actually says
How this works
Four weekly totals in, arithmetic out: the mean of the weeks you recorded, the change from last week, the change from that average, and the trend across the block. Each figure names its own denominator, because “up 30%” means two different things depending on what it is 30% of.
A blank week and a zero week are treated differently. Blank means not recorded and is left out of the average entirely; 0 means ran nothing and is counted, which pulls the average down — usually correctly, after time off.
Longest run is kept apart from weekly totals rather than folded in. Thirty kilometres in one run and thirty across a week are not the same stress, and adding them together would hide that.
A worked example
Weeks of 30, 34, 36 and 38 km average 34.5 km — shown as 34.5, not rounded to 35, so the percentages beside it can be checked by hand.
A planned 45 km is +30.4% on that 34.5 km average, and +18.4%on last week’s 38 km. Both are true. Which one is the relevant number depends on whether last week was typical for you — which is your judgement, not the tool’s.
What this cannot tell you
This tool makes no injury claims, and an earlier version of it did.It described jumps past 10% a week as “where overuse injuries breed” and called staying under it a guideline your tendons would thank you for. The randomised trial usually cited for the 10% rule found no reduction in running injuries from a graded programme compared with a standard one. A rule that failed its own trial cannot be presented as prevention, so that language is gone and has not been replaced with a different threshold.
It also no longer prints a taper. The previous version suggested specific percentages of your average for the final weeks, with no source. Taper structure depends on the distance, the athlete and the block, and inventing numbers for it was not defensible.
Weekly distance cannot describe a training week on its own. It does not see intensity, terrain, sleep, life stress or your injury history — and injury history is the strongest predictor anyone has found. There is no red or green verdict here because weekly mileage is not enough to earn one. If something hurts, that is a conversation with a physiotherapist, not a calculator.
Sources
A randomised trial of a graded (10%-style) programme against a standard one. It found NO reduction in running-related injuries. This is why the tool no longer presents 10% as injury prevention.
Cohort evidence on single-session distance
Observational. An association at group level is not a personal risk figure, and this tool does not convert one into the other.
Method version 2.0 · sources and method last reviewed by a person on 2026-09-08.
That review date is not a deploy date. It changes when someone checks the method, and at no other time.
Asked often
- What is the 10% rule in running, and does it work?
- It is a rule of thumb: don't increase weekly distance by much more than 10% at a time. It is worth knowing, but it is not injury prevention. The randomised trial usually cited for it — Buist and colleagues, 2008 — gave novice runners either a graded 10%-style programme or a standard one and found no difference in running-related injuries. This tool therefore shows you your percentages and does not tell you which side of 10% to be on.
- How should I taper before a race?
- This tool used to print specific percentages for the final weeks. It no longer does, because those numbers had no source behind them. Taper structure depends on the race distance, how long the block was and how you respond to reduced volume, and inventing figures for it was not defensible. Ask a coach who knows your training, or follow a plan written for your distance.
- Is weekly mileage the same as training load?
- No, and that is why this tool is now called a mileage and progression checker rather than a load estimator. Load in any physiological sense includes intensity — fifty easy kilometres and fifty with two interval sessions are very different weeks. Weekly distance is the most available proxy, not the thing itself.
- Should I compare against last week or my four-week average?
- Both, which is why the tool shows both with their denominators labelled. Against last week tells you how big a step you are taking right now; against the four-week average tells you how far you are from what your body has actually been doing. They disagree most when last week was unusual — a taper, an illness, a big race — and that disagreement is itself information.
- What if I did not record a week?
- Leave it blank. A blank week is excluded from the average entirely; a week you enter as 0 is counted as a real week of no running and pulls the average down. Treating those two the same would quietly distort every percentage on the page.
RunV decides the progression once, not every Sunday
A plan sets out where the weeks are going and rearranges the remaining ones when a session is missed, so the next week is not a judgement call each time. It makes no claim about preventing injury, and neither does this page. See how it handles a full goal build.
