Block 2, Registered: The Aerobic-Capacity Build, as Frozen Before It Ran

Start here: This is the Block 2 plan exactly as I froze it on September 6, 2026, before the block ran: the volumes, the schedule, and the six pass/fail criteria against which it would be scored. One note on the dateline. The plan was registered in my repository at signature, but it was not published here until after the block closed. That gap is mine, and the repair is the only honest one available: publish the frozen text unchanged, disclose the delay, and commit that every future block's registration publishes at signature. The Block 2 report, when it arrives, scores against precisely what appears below. Nothing has been edited since September 6.

Why this document exists

The method this site runs on is pre-registration: write the plan and its success criteria before training begins, freeze them, and score the block against them at the end, misses included. A frozen plan that lives only in a private repository asks the reader to take the author at his word; a published one does not. Block 1's registration appeared before that block ran. This one is late, and the lateness is disclosed rather than obscured.

The objective

Begin the road-half build on the base Block 1 produced: extend the long run from a banked 37 continuous minutes toward 45, roughly double the weekly running minutes across three run days, and introduce strides, all at genuinely easy effort, with strength and the ruck held at maintenance. Four weeks, September 7 through October 4, the first of three cycles before the Dallas half marathon in December.

The framework, in brief

Running leads; everything else holds. One lead quality per block: strength took Block 1, and running takes this one. Strength drops to two short maintenance doses folded onto run days, biased toward concentric work, with the plyometric dose reduced to a token, because running now spends the eccentric budget (ISSA, Tactical Conditioning 316–317).

Volume counts in minutes, not miles, and the long run follows the beginner pattern: three weeks up, one down, with distances repeated before they are extended (ISSA, Running Technique and Programming 172).

Easy means easy, and this block scores it. Block 1's lesson was that the risk inverts for a returning runner: fitness stops being the question, and easy-day pace becomes it. Every easy and long run is therefore a scored session for effort, not merely for duration. RPE is the primary dial; the chest strap polices a ceiling of 70–75% of maximum heart rate, with the standing caveat that Texas summer heat renders outdoor heart rate unreadable.

The recovery week is pre-committed. Week 4's numbers were written at signature, because two blocks of data show that in-the-moment judgment drifts upward.

The week

Four sessions, built around a real constraint: office Monday through Thursday, with a gym on site; home Friday through Sunday, with the road and the time.

• Monday — A: easy run, then maintenance strength (2–3 rounds) and eccentric calf raises
• Wednesday — B: easy run plus strides (4 × 15 seconds, rising to 6 in week 3), the only fast running in the block, and none of it hard
• Friday — C: short maintenance strength, then the ruck at 10 lb with the turn-timer enforced
• Saturday — rest, kept clear because of what follows
• Sunday — D: the long run, outdoors, RPE ≤ 5 throughout, the block's scored session

The volumes, frozen

Wk	A easy	B easy + strides	C ruck	D long run	Run total
1	30	35 + 4 strides	45	35	100 min
2	35	35 + 4 strides	50	40	110 min
3	35	40 + 6 strides	50	45	120 min
4 (recovery)	25	30 + 4 strides	35	30	85 min

Week 1 nearly doubles Block 1's weekly run minutes, from 52 to 100. That jump, driven by run days increasing from two to three, was named in the plan as the block's central tissue risk, and it is the reason easy-effort discipline became a scored criterion.

The six criteria, as frozen

1. Adherence ≥ 80% of planned sessions (13+ of 16)
2. Long run of 45 continuous minutes at RPE ≤ 5 by Week 3
3. Easy-effort discipline: zero run sessions at RPE 6 or above. A 6 is a scored miss, not a footnote
4. Strides introduced, with no flag attributable to them
5. Zero adverse-event register items reaching three appearances. Both open items entered this block at two of three
6. Strength maintained, not lost: three or more strict pull-ups and an opening push-up set of 18 at capped effort, demonstrated in Week 3

What happens next

Block 2 has since closed. The report, scored against the six lines above exactly as written, publishes soon, and one criterion did not survive contact with the calendar. The purpose of this post is simple: when the report says so, the claim can be verified.

ISSA-certified Running Coach; strength and conditioning work draws on ISSA's Tactical Conditioning curriculum (studied, not examined). One documented case plus certifying doctrine, not medical advice. Long-inactive readers, and anyone with a health condition, should consult a physician first.