Freshness, Fitness and Fatigue

[runner_404]

I am unsure how to use these features...

In September I ran my first ever marathon, and my fitness showed 100+ points (I don't know what these are) but I had the darndest time executing my plan on a mostly flat course.

Fast forward 6 months and My fitness was about 50 however finishing the LA Marathon I was able to execute well, and my legs felt great going into mile 18 (no wall) I PR'ed by 10 minutes, yes I'm still slow but I beat my previous time by 10 minutes and I didn't hit a wall despite all the hills.  

So I don't know how to use these numbers on the graph by Strava because it would be my assumption that the higher the fitness I should be able to run farther / faster than when fitness is lower?

[Rogier]

This should be called "four-week training load" instead.

[Jan_Mantau · Accepted solution]

We have another thread that explains this: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/strava-features-chat/strava-fitness-graph-is-bogus/m-p/15995/

In short what Strava has named "fitness" isn't what everybody would assume it is but an indicator how intensive (measured by heart rate) and extensive (measured by time) your activities where in the last weeks. It's a cumulated workload. It doesn't have anything to do with your performance. On the contrary if your performance increases that leads usually to a lower heart rate for the same pace and thus the "fitness" decreases. That's most likely what happens in your case.