The past perfect continuous tenseA grammatical category that is marked by verb inflection. To express when an event or action happens in time or when a state exists, we use tenses. can express a repeated actionA general term expressing that somebody or something does something, or habit, over a period of timeThe length of time between two points of time. before a point of timeA particular moment in time. E.g.: She came home at six. ("six") I was born in 1980. ("1980") in the past.

I had been getting up at five o'clock all week, so on Friday I was completely exhausted.

Diagrams

Past perfect continuous for a continuous action in the past
Past perfect continuous The difference between past perfect and past perfect continuous