Beyond “How Far” and “How Fast”
Every runner has asked the same question after a workout: Was that a good session?
For most of running history, the answer has come down to two numbers: distance and pace. Maybe heart rate if you are wearing a monitor. Maybe a vague sense of effort stored somewhere between your legs and your lungs. But the reality is that a 10k run at 5:00 per kilometre on flat ground and a 10k run at 5:00 per kilometre over rolling hills are not the same workout. They do not stress the same systems, they do not produce the same adaptation, and they should not be scored the same way in your training log.
Wahoo’s 3DP (Three-Dimensional Profile) was built to solve one of the most persistent problems in running: the idea that a single number can describe either who you are as a runner or what a workout did to your body. The Running Athlete Profile established the foundation by mapping your capabilities across three physiological dimensions. Now, Dimensional Training Load (DTL) takes that profile and uses it to answer a much more practical daily question: what did that run actually do for me, and which energy system was most impacted?
This is how the two connect, and why it matters for every run you do from here.
A Quick Refresher: What Your 3DP Running Athlete Profile Actually Is
Your Running Athlete Profile is a personalised, three-dimensional model of your current physiological capabilities as a runner. It is built on the same Dimensional Power Profile framework that Wahoo uses in cycling, intentionally designed so that fitness across both sports can be compared and integrated into a unified picture.
The three dimensions in running are:
- Threshold Pace (TP) represents the pace you can sustain for extended periods at the boundary between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. This is the engine that drives marathon and half marathon performance, the capacity for sustained, hard effort over long durations.
- Maximum Aerobic Pace (MAP) represents the ceiling of your aerobic system, the fastest pace your body can maintain while still operating primarily on oxygen. MAP is the dimension that matters most for 5K and 10K racing, for the surges in the middle of a tempo run, and for your ability to recover quickly between hard efforts.
- Anaerobic Capacity (AC) represents your ability to produce speed above your aerobic ceiling, the reserve you draw on for finishing kicks, short hill efforts, and any moment in a race where you need to go beyond what your aerobic system can deliver.
Every runner has all three dimensions. What makes you different from every other runner is the shape of your profile: the relative balance between them. That shape determines your Runner Type, a classification that describes the kind of runner you are, not how good or bad you are compared to someone else.
The Runner Types are: Speedster, Miler, Climber, Tempo Ace, All-Rounder, and Marathoner. A Marathoner is not a better or worse runner than a Speedster. They are a different kind of runner, with a different pattern of strengths and weaknesses, who should be training differently as a result.
Your profile can be generated today through the Running Athlete Profile Quiz, with a structured Running Fitness Test coming soon.
The Problem with Traditional Training Load
If you have been running with any kind of training platform for the past few years, you have likely seen a training load number attached to your workouts. A single score that tells you how demanding a session was, usually derived from duration, heart rate, and pace.
The problem is not that these numbers are wrong. They capture something real about how hard a run was. The problem is that they are flat. They compress a complex physiological event into a single dimension and in doing so, they lose the information that actually matters for understanding your training.
Consider two similarly experienced runners who go out and run a 60-minute session.
Runner A spent the session doing a steady tempo run, holding a pace just below their threshold for the full hour. That session was almost entirely a TP stimulus, building the aerobic endurance and lactate management that supports long-distance racing.
Runner B ran the same duration but structured it as a high-intensity interval session: short, fast repetitions with recovery jogs between them. That session was largely a MAP and AC stimulus, building top-end aerobic capacity and anaerobic power.
A traditional training load system scores those two runs as roughly equivalent. But they are not equivalent. They trained different systems, they will produce different adaptations, and they should inform the next day’s training decision in completely different ways.
This is the gap that Dimensional Training Load was built to close.
What Wahoo’s Dimensional Training Load (DTL) for Running Actually Does
Running DTL measures the physiological load of each run across all three dimensions of your personal Running Athlete Profile. Rather than compressing a workout into a single number, it produces a total load score and a breakdown showing how that load was distributed across TP, MAP, AC and Neuromuscular (NM).
The inputs are your Running Athlete Profile and Grade-Adjusted Pace (GAP), a normalised pace that recalculates your speed to a flat-ground equivalent, based on the slope you were running. A 9:00 per mile pace on a steep climb demands far more physiological effort than the same pace on flat terrain, and GAP accounts for that difference. Without it, the training load from hilly runs would reflect geography more than fitness.
The output is a colour-coded bar chart that answers the question traditional load cannot: not just how hard was that run, but what kind of training stimulus did it deliver?
A long, steady run at an easy pace will show a load concentrated almost entirely in the TP dimension. An interval session will light up MAP and AC. A hilly tempo run might distribute load more evenly across all three. The same total load number can mean very different things depending on where the effort landed, and DTL makes that visible for the first time.
How DTL Connects Back to Your Profile
This is where the relationship between your Running Athlete Profile and your daily training becomes practical rather than theoretical.
Your profile tells you what kind of runner you are. DTL tells you what kind of training you are actually doing. When you put them side by side, you can answer the question that most runners never have the data to address: is my training actually building what I need it to build?
Here is what that looks like for different Runner Types.
If You Are a Marathoner
Your profile likely shows a strong TP relative to MAP and AC. Your sustained aerobic engine is your strength. If your weekly DTL breakdown shows that nearly all of your training load is concentrated in the TP dimension, that is reinforcing what you are already good at. It is not building the MAP capacity that would make your threshold higher or the AC reserves that would give you a finishing kick when you need one.
DTL makes this pattern visible in a way that pace and distance never could. A Marathoner who wants to improve might need to see more MAP-coloured load appearing in their weekly distribution, even if the total load stays the same.
If You Are a Speedster
Your profile likely shows strong AC and possibly strong MAP relative to TP. You have top-end speed and explosive capacity but may lack the sustained aerobic base for longer events. If your DTL distribution is dominated by AC and MAP load from frequent interval sessions, you are sharpening a blade that is already sharp. The load you might be missing is the consistent TP work that builds the aerobic foundation for everything else to sit on top of.
If You Are an All-Rounder
Your profile shows relatively balanced capabilities across all three dimensions. DTL helps you verify that your training maintains that balance, or intentionally shifts it toward the demands of a specific goal race. An All-Rounder preparing for a marathon should increase their TP load across a training block. An All-Rounder targeting a fast 5K should grow their MAP and AC load as race day approaches.
The Practical Application: Reading Your Weekly DTL
The real value of DTL is not in analysing any single run in isolation. It is in reading the pattern across a week of training.
Think of your weekly DTL distribution as a nutrition label for your training. Just as you might look at the macronutrient breakdown of your diet rather than just total calories, you should be looking at where your training load is distributed, not just how much load you accumulated.
A well-structured marathon training week might show a DTL distribution that looks something like this: the majority of load in the TP dimension from long runs and tempo efforts, a meaningful but smaller amount of MAP load from one or two quality sessions, and a modest amount of AC load from strides, hill sprints, or the faster components of an interval workout.
If you are training for a 5K, the balance shifts. More MAP, more AC, with enough TP to maintain your aerobic base without it dominating the week.
If every week looks the same regardless of what you are training for, DTL will show you that. And that visibility is the first step toward improving.
What Happens When You Run Without a Profile
If you run without a Running Athlete Profile established, Wahoo app will still display an estimated DTL based on duration and post-session rating. It is a functional estimate, but it cannot provide the dimensional breakdown that makes DTL genuinely useful.
The profile is the lens through which every run is interpreted. Without it, DTL operates in a single dimension, much like the traditional training load it was designed to replace. With it, DTL becomes the mechanism that connects who you are as a runner to what your training is doing to you, session by session, week by week.
Generating your profile through the Running Athlete Profile Quiz takes minutes. It is the single step that activates the full depth of what DTL and the broader Wahoo training ecosystem can offer.
DTL as the Foundation for What Comes Next
Dimensional Training Load is not a standalone feature. It is the primary mechanism by which every run you do contributes to your Fitness Score, Fitness State and Training Capacity within the Wahoo app. Each of those metrics relies on understanding not just how much you trained but what kind of training stimulus you delivered and how it distributed across your physiological profile.
A Fitness Score built on flat training load is an approximation. A Fitness Score built on DTL is a reflection of what is actually happening in your body: which systems are developing, which are being maintained, and which might be getting neglected.
Run 3DP Athlete Profile & DTL Recap
Your Running Athlete Profile tells you who you are currently as a runner. Dimensional Training Load tells you what your training is doing to you. Together, they answer the question that runners have been asking for years without ever having the right data to answer it: Is my training actually building what I need?
The shift from one-number training load to three-dimensional load is not a minor refinement. It is a fundamental change in how running training can be understood, evaluated, and improved. It makes the invisible visible. And once you can see it, you can act on it.
Download Wahoo app an generate your Running Athlete Profile. Start running with DTL and start seeing your training for what it actually is.
