I have had a tough week or so of training. The missus was away on business, so I was busy playing Daddy Daycare at home to our 16-month old. Needless to say, the running suffered horribly last week. This is fine since I've not taken an extended break in well over a year. The 4-5 days off gave my body some much need down time. I felt quite fresh in legs during my 2:20 long run on Sat under somewhat warm and humid conditions (usually my undoing). It did however raise an interesting question about adherence to schedule - If you miss a planned training session that you can't possibly make up that day, do you: a) skip it, and move on to your next regularly scheduled run b) push that workout forward to the next day, and so on until you catch up c) make it up on your next regularly scheduled rest day (assuming you take them) Not that I get overly fussed about these things, but my week was supposed to look like this; Mon - 8 mi. w/10x100m strides (which I missed) Tue - 5 mi. Easy Wed - 10 mi. mid-long Thu - Rest Fri - 4 mi. Easy Sat - Group long run (2 hrs) For a total of 42 mi. This is from a modified version of Pfitz's 18/55 plan (Wk 4). I'll probably run 5-8 mi. on Thu, but maybe without the strides. Or, maybe I'll run them. I suspect it will be a sort of 'wait and see how I feel' thing, but I am curious how others handle this. Not that it will likely change what I do - just curious is all...

Skip it! Enjoy the rest and return to your schedule when you can - safe in the knowledge that you're not risking injury and have given your body a great chance to recuperate. I'm no expert mind (but Blaine is btw), but I very definitely follow the advice that, "It's not the training that makes you faster, it's the rest". I've found this very true, unless you give your body a chance to adapt to the workload you will not get better.

I concur skip it! It's not worth the stress/hassel of figuring out how to make it up. So no beating yourself up! Move on!

I wrote a report about it that goes into more details if you are interested in reading it. I can email it to you or if you want you can download it free as soon as you sign up to my newsletter: http://www.runtowin.com/newsletter.html

That was a really smooth plug by the way!

Blaine - I would really appreciate a copy of that report. I'm trying to build my mileage up to approx 70mpw whilst dropping weight from 209 to 156 - getting the right balance will be key for me. Email add: tom.meldrum521@land.mod.uk Many thanks

This is from a modified version of Pfitz's 18/55 plan (Wk 4).

I agree w/ the advice already given - but just to go a step further - I'm pretty sure there's a page in Pfitz's book that he goes into this in detail - what to do depending on how many days you miss and when you miss them, etc... I'm at work and the book's at home, but if you have it, be sure to look.