うたぴょんスポーツ
April was a busy one. Uta went from a quiet March to a month packed with meets, and the numbers show it - more kilometers, more hard efforts, and five separate competitions squeezed into four weeks.
Here is what the month actually looked like, based on her training log.
| Distance | 88.6 km |
|---|---|
| Days run | 24 days |
| Rest days | 6 days |
| Easy : hard | 21 : 79 |
| vs 2026-03 | +37.9 km / +1 days |
| Races | 9 |
What the training looked like: the mix of sessions and how the weeks went
Uta trained 24 days in April and rested 6, covering 88.6km in total, which works out to about 3.7km on an average training day. But the weeks were not even at all. The first stretch (April 1-5) was light, just 5.7km over 2 days, probably easing in after the school term started. Then came 18.4km over 5 days, a dip to 14.3km over 3 days, and then a big jump to 38.2km over 5 days in the week of April 20-26 - the week with the most racing. The month closed quieter, 12km over the last 2 days.
Looking at session types, she did 12 jog sessions, 1 pace run, 8 interval sessions, 6 strength-and-drill sessions, and 9 meets (大会). That is a lot of interval and race-day work packed into one month. Her longest single session was 10.7km on April 26, but that was a meet day, not a long training run - so the distance includes warm-up, race, and cool-down rather than one continuous effort.
Easy vs hard: what the split says about the month
The easy-to-hard split for April was 21% easy and 79% hard. That is heavily tilted toward quality and racing. With 8 interval sessions and 9 meets out of 24 training days, more than two-thirds of her training days involved either structured hard running or actual competition. Only 12 sessions were plain jogs, and just 1 was a steady pace run.
For a parent, this reads less like a base-building month and more like a racing block - lots of short, intense efforts and lots of meets, with easy running filling the gaps rather than leading the plan. It is worth knowing this going in, because a month like this will naturally feel different, and look different in the numbers, than a month built around long easy mileage.
Races and marks, including any personal bests
Uta raced five times in April. At a trial meet on April 5 she ran 800m in 2:48.35 and 100m in 16.49. On April 12 she ran 2km on the road at the Date Momo Marathon, a local road race, in 7:53.00. At the Fuwa Cup on April 18 she ran 800m in 2:48.38 and 100m in 15.84 - and that 100m time was a personal best, down from her earlier 16.49 that same month. The next day, April 19, at the Katsushika spring meet, a track meet in Katsushika, Tokyo, she ran 1km in 3:34.59 and long jumped 3m29cm. On April 26 she ran 1km in 3:34.00 at the Hi-Tech 1000, a 1km time trial meet. And to close the month, on April 29 at the Kawagoe spring meet, in Kawagoe, Saitama, she ran 800m in 2:47.20.
Her 800m times across the month - 2:48.35, 2:48.38, and 2:47.20 - stayed close together, and her two 1km times, 3:34.59 and 3:34.00, did too. The clearest headline from the month is the 100m personal best on April 18.
Looking at next month - only what the numbers support
April's total of 88.6km was 37.9km more than March's 50.7km, on almost the same number of training days - 24 versus 23. So the jump in volume came from doing more per session, not from training more often. Rest days held steady at 6 for the month, matching the pattern from before.
Given how hard-effort-heavy April was, with 79% of training falling into the hard category, I will be watching how that balance looks in May - whether the mix shifts back toward more easy running, or whether the meet schedule keeps it similarly loaded. The data does not tell me yet which way it will go.
A month of meets, a personal best, and a lot more kilometers than March. I will keep logging it the same way and see what May brings.