A sprint kennel had no preparation of its own. A 30 km sled race got a mid-distance plan: the season's highest pace was 20 km/h, and no session went faster than the race.
What changes
When you add or edit an objective, on the site as on the phone, a "Format" control comes after the race duration: Sprint, Mid-distance or Long. MushMate deduces it for you, and says why:
- Sprint for canicross, bikejoring and scooter, by default;
- Sprint too when no stage exceeds 30 km — a one-day 30 km race, or a 14 · 8 · 14 programme;
- Long from 322 km in total;
- Mid-distance in between.
You can change the format: your choice then stays put, even if you edit the programme.
In Sprint, the training plan is different:
- more speed: on the sled, speed sessions go up to 28 km/h at peak, instead of 20;
- a "Race pace" session, at the pace the longest stage will ask for (25.2 km/h on the sled), which lengthens over the preparation up to the whole stage;
- a long run that never exceeds one and a half times the longest stage;
- for a race of several days, a "Race rehearsal" two and four weeks before it, when the build allows (a short season gets one, or none): your stages back to back (three at most), in programme order, one a day, then two rest days; a one-day race has none — its "Race pace" session already reaches the whole stage;
- a short taper: one lighter week, then race week;
- fewer kilometres on the sled: the week's ceiling is half the mid-distance one. On our test plans — a one-day 30 km race, a 14 · 8 · 14 programme — a peak week runs about 10% to over 40% fewer kilometres than in mid-distance depending on the race, and the whole season a few percent to nearly a third fewer. It is an order of magnitude, not a promised figure: yours depends on your dogs and your season. That half is a starting setting, awaiting a vet's opinion. In canicross, bikejoring and scooter, the ceiling does not change: it is the mid-distance one.
What others see
The word "Sprint" instead of "Mid-distance" on the plan, the objective's page, the dashboard and the Dogs screen — for whoever already sees your objective, as before. The deduction's reasoning ("longest stage 14 km") only shows in the form. Nothing public.
What the format does not do
- No target speed. A session's "up to" stays a ceiling, in Sprint as elsewhere; a vmax you enter always wins.
- No short stage faster than the long one: every stage is run at the same race pace.
- No sessions in minutes for canicross and bikejoring.
- No two heats on the same day: the rehearsal, like the race, lays one stage a day.
- No old objective converted. An objective becomes Sprint only when you save it as Sprint.
- A phone not yet updated that edits a Sprint objective turns it back into Mid-distance: update the app before editing your sprint objectives from the phone.
It is not "not yet" for everything: a target speed and a per-stage pace need a speed you would enter, and nothing is decided.
Choices against the obvious
- The longest stage, not the total. A 12 × 30 km stage race is 360 km: it is still a thirty-kilometre sprint, repeated. Training for the total would train for another race.
- Canicross, bikejoring and scooter Sprint by default, whatever the distance: they are short, fast efforts.
- Sprint is not a new "discipline". It is a preparation format: your objective stays where it is, with its dogs and its season.
- No new session type: yesterday's six types; in Sprint, two labels appear, "Race pace" and "Race rehearsal".
- Fewer kilometres, through the ceiling: a sprint is trained through speed, not kilometres. With a ceiling only 30% lower, the race-pace session, the session mix and the short taper added more kilometres than that ceiling took away: on a one-day 30 km race, the sprint plan ran more than mid-distance. Hence the half.
- The "up to" stays a ceiling: it rises at peak, it does not become an instruction.
The figures (30 km, 28 km/h, race pace at 90% of peak, the sled ceiling at half, the rehearsal weeks) are starting settings, to be validated with a vet. The plan's figures change without an app update; the 30 km threshold is built into the phone app: changing it takes a new version.