Being on track for your marathon does not mean every planned session is automatically right today. Day-of readiness should combine what your training data shows with what only you can report – unusual fatigue, how the last run felt and whether you can keep today’s session at its intended effort.
A good training block does not make every session non-negotiable. Some mornings, the plan still fits. On others, something has changed enough that today’s decision deserves another look.
That is why SmartRunning separates marathon readiness from day-of readiness. One asks where your preparation is heading. The other asks whether today’s session still makes sense.
Those two things can both be true.
You can be on track for your marathon without necessarily being ready for the run planned today.
This is why SmartRunning does not try to squeeze every meaning of readiness into one score.
Some things only you know today
Your training data can tell us a great deal about what you have been doing. It cannot necessarily know how the last run felt to you, whether you feel unusually tired today or whether you believe you can keep the planned session at the effort it is supposed to require.
That information should not simply be ignored because it is subjective.
A systematic review of 56 studies (*) comparing subjective and objective athlete-monitoring measures found that self-reported measures of wellbeing responded to changes in training load with greater sensitivity and consistency than many commonly used objective measures. The review covered athlete monitoring broadly rather than recreational marathon runners specifically, so it supports the value of self-report without validating any one day-of-readiness quiz.
This does not mean that how you feel should automatically overrule the plan. It means that your own experience can provide information that training data alone may not capture.
That is what the ‘Should I Run Today?’ quiz is for
SmartRunning’s Should I Run Today? quiz (add link) asks a deliberately narrower question than the marathon readiness score: does the training planned for today still appear appropriate?
It considers factors such as how your most recent run felt, how ready you feel today, whether you can keep the planned session at its intended effort, and the type of session you are about to do. It then gives guidance to continue, adjust or pause.
The quiz does not determine whether you should begin marathon-specific preparation. Article 1 (link) answers that question. Nor does it tell you whether you are progressing towards being ready for your marathon. That is the role of the longer-term readiness assessment described in Article 2 (link).
Its job is to bring information from today into today’s training decision.
This is the distinction behind SmartRunning’s readiness philosophy. Before marathon-specific preparation, readiness helps determine where you should start. During marathon-specific preparation, marathon readiness helps assess whether you are progressing towards being ready on race day. Day-of readiness asks whether the session planned for today still fits your current situation.
The three questions are connected, but they are not interchangeable. You can be on track for your marathon and still have a day when the planned session is not the right one.
Three possible directions for today
The result is deliberately simple: Ready, Adjust or Pause.
Ready means the planned session appears broadly aligned with your recent training and today’s context. You can continue, while still paying attention to how the run develops.
Adjust means something about the planned session deserves refinement. That might be pace, load, timing or expectations. The point is not that the training has gone wrong, but that changing something may make today’s session fit better.
Pause means recovery or caution should take priority before you reassess what comes next. It is not a diagnosis or a judgement that you are “unfit to run”. It is a signal that continuing with the original session may not be the right response today.
These are directions for today’s training, not permanent labels and not a verdict on your marathon preparation.
Behind them sits Steady, the normal rhythm of training. SmartRunning is not designed to turn every day into a new decision or make the plan constantly change. Ready, Adjust and Pause help make the direction clearer when you check in, so that training can continue steadily when it still fits and change when there is a good reason.
That is the purpose of day-of readiness: to make today’s decision clearer without making training more complicated.