 Hello Zwifters wherever you are in the world. Welcome to another episode of how to run on Zwift with me Stephen Cousins today We're going to be looking at the newest update as of June 2018 The latest update on Zwift is flexible training plans for running and cycling. We're interested in running So let's get in and have a look at what this new feature has to offer So I've logged into Zwift and here I am on the Zwift screen I can go to menu here and I can click workouts Now in workouts as we've seen before You've got the standard built-in workouts speed work repeat speed freak Up and down medium etc etc all based on your pastes if you go to edit pastes here Look, you can see what your pastes are. So I've put my 5k time down as 1956 it's not quite right, but I'm quite happy to leave it there for the time being so we click save Zwift will automatically work out the pace of each workout based on what you've put in the pastes settings But now we come to the flexible training plans. Look the new section here plans. We click on plans and Look at this how exciting we have a brand new section with three running plans so we've got 13.1 half marathon speed builder. We've got the 10k Cycling to running builder and this is for cyclists who have already got a good aerobic base And now want to get running and then we've got the run fast and have a blast in the 5k Flexible training plan and then there are a number of other cycling training plans under here But we're looking at the running training plans is very early stages for flexible training plans This is what Zwift might call their MVP their minimum viable product. It will develop. It will get more intuitive It will get more clever So it will be able to work out a lot of things about When you run how you run do you run better in the morning or in the evening? Those kind of things but for now, we've got this basic starting point for flexible training plans So let's have a look at this 13.1 half marathon speed builder So say you want to do a half marathon you can view this plan. So you click view plan and It will give you along the bottom here all the weeks and You've got a little preparation week here. Look So we can click our first session would be an intro tempo session Second session would be base miles six point eight kilometers of running and then we'd get into the first week of training So you've got three sessions per week week one is three sessions speed work A tempo run and a long run and then week two speed work Tempo run and a long run now the interesting thing about this is though. It's flexible. So let's click enrol and You get to choose How long you're going to do this flexible training plan for so at the moment this plan ends on the 27th of August 2018 now say I want my race my 13.1 half marathon isn't until oh, I don't know the end of September I Can stretch this training plan out to the 24th of September? Let's see how far I can go That's that's the furthest I can go 24th of September and that would be the full 16 weeks from now however, I can bring it back 12 weeks I Can do a 10 week plan I Can bring it to an eight week plan and that is the shortest I can do so eight weeks But you do have a lot of flexibility in there The idea is that Zwift wants you to build your training around your life Rather than running your life around your training So hopefully this will enable you to fit in runs where you can and where you feel it's easiest to Rather than a training run being on a set day at a set time and you've got no flexibility at all That's when people give up. It's when they lose motivation So say for instance, you're due to do a speed session on Wednesday and a long run on Friday But you have had a really hard day at work and you really can't do a speed session today You could do an easier run and maybe do your speed session tomorrow or do your speed session on the Friday And your long run on the Sunday, for example, it just allows you to be more flexible with where you put your training throughout your day So let's click enrol and see what happens if we have this plan ending on the 27th of August That gives us a 12 week training plan. Let's click enrol So today if we wanted to we can start today and we have one available workout here, which is the intro tempo if we move along This base miles run is available to us. It's currently locked, but it's available to us in 19 hours So at the moment we only have one run available to us now on another day Let's go into week one in week one We will have two runs available to us so speed work will be available to us in five days But also The tempo run will be available to us in five days So in five days, I'll have a choice of whether to do a tempo run or a speed session And I can fit that around what I feel I need to do and I'm able to do on that particular day And if we go back to the available workout today, it says here do this by Friday afternoon So today is Wednesday I've got three days in which to do this intro tempo workout and if I decide that this half marathon Training plan is not for me. I can just go back to here and just click cancel plan Let's have a look quickly at the 5k plan Do this plan if you struggle to translate your training into tangible results on race day This plan will push you out of your comfort zone and ask you to run fast, run hard and run often If you want to set a best time for 5k, this is your plan So let's view the plan and we start with some short hills And look, I like this. Hills are really speed work in disguise. Very true. Hills are speed work in disguise I like it a lot, although it does train different muscles of course, but I understand what they mean And then we have a progressive base low 5k is short in comparison to many road races, but it's still a long way With all the focus on speed work, the endurance runs in this plan will tend to be at the lower end of zone two of your heart rates When we run fast, we run really fast, but when we run easy, we run really easy So this is a 12 kilometer run that's 76% of your 5k pace There's a short and easy And let's enrol and just see what happens So we have one available workout and we need to do that by Monday morning So today is Wednesday. We have until Monday morning to do that short hill workout And then our progressive base low, our 12 kilometer run is available in 19 hours So in 19 hours, if I haven't done the short hills, I'll have two available workouts to do And that is it for our look at flexible training plans in running It's a great start from Zwift. It can only get better. It can only improve Lots of data for Zwift to work on to improve the way they plan and structure our training to help us out To give us more flexibility to target our training more specifically to our needs Based on the running that we do in Zwift That's it. Thank you very much for joining me guys. It's been a pleasure Take care and we'll see you for another episode of how to run on Zwift very soon. Bye. Bye