The week of June 1–7

This was a down week, and most of that was illness. Seven sessions and five and a half hours, after eleven sessions and just under eight hours the week before. I got sick on Friday, which took out the back end of the week: nothing on Friday, and only a token thirteen-minute spin on Saturday before a run on Sunday.

The drop is where you would expect it. Running came down to three runs for 25 km, from five runs and 38 km. The two strength sessions from the previous week went to zero. The bike held its count at four rides, but one of those was the Saturday thirteen minutes, so even that was lighter than it looks.

The shape stayed right. More than four-fifths of the time was easy, Z1 and Z2, with the middle at 14% and the hard end at 5%. For a week built around getting over a bug, sitting that much in the easy zones is what I want. There was no reason to defend the volume by pushing the easy days, so I didn't.

I am also changing how the volume gets built. Instead of doubling up, I want one session a day so training gives more of the day back. This week was nearly that already, only Tuesday had two. The single hard effort, a progressive 5k on Monday, stepped down through 5:45, 5:27 and 5:06 and closed around 5:09. Sunday's 10 km was on trail, so its slow 7:39 close is the terrain rather than me fading.

The thing to watch coming out of a sick week is the urge to claw the hours straight back. The honest move is to let the volume return through the length of each single session rather than by stacking extra ones on top. If one session a day is the rule now, the easy ones have to stay genuinely easy, so duration does the building instead of frequency.