diff --git a/crates/xtrain-train/tests/real_training.rs b/crates/xtrain-train/tests/real_training.rs
index 5d6a4e6..70e186c 100644
--- a/crates/xtrain-train/tests/real_training.rs
+++ b/crates/xtrain-train/tests/real_training.rs
@@ -46,9 +46,15 @@ fn trains_on_tinystories() {
         std::env::var("XTRAIN_TOKENIZER")
             .unwrap_or_else(|_| "/opt/wjh/models/gpt2/tokenizer.json".into()),
     );
-    let corpus_path = PathBuf::from(
-        std::env::var("XTRAIN_CORPUS").unwrap_or_else(|_| "data/tinystories-valid-3mb.txt".into()),
-    );
+    // Default resolves relative to the repo root (cargo runs tests with cwd =
+    // crate dir, so `../../data/...` from crates/xtrain-train); override with
+    // XTRAIN_CORPUS for any other location.
+    let corpus_path = PathBuf::from(std::env::var("XTRAIN_CORPUS").unwrap_or_else(|_| {
+        format!(
+            "{}/../../data/tinystories-valid-3mb.txt",
+            env!("CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR")
+        )
+    }));
 
     let corpus = Corpus::load(&tok_path, &corpus_path);
     println!(