Three Weeks or More?

If you’ve missed a workout or two on your training plan, you’re certainly not alone. In fact, it’s pretty common: A study These Are the World’s Fastest Half Marathoners Frontiers in Sport and Active Living found that more than 50 percent of marathon runners experienced training disruptions that lasted at least seven days, after analyzing the training data of nearly 300,000 Strava users who completed marathons from 2014 to 2017.

It’s understandable, because sometimes life just gets in the way and derails your good intentions of getting out and checking off miles. Luckily, one missed workout isn’t going to ruin your performance or race-day plans—even missing a few workouts won’t derail your goals.

To help you better understand how missing one workout (or more!) can affect your run goals, we tapped a few running experts. Here’s what you need to know, plus how to rework your run schedule so you can get back on track.

If you miss a workout, don’t overthink it. Regardless of what you’re training for, you’re not going to lose all of your precious fitness gains overnight.

Research shows runners can go almost a full month before they start to notice a decline in their strength, says Heather Hart, C.S.C.S., certified exercise physiologist, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and co-owner of Hart Strength and Endurance. “From a cardiovascular standpoint, it is a little less time, it’s closer to two weeks that you start to see measurable differences in cardiovascular fitness,” she explains. But that’s still a lot more time than one or two days.

Races - Places marathon: According to the study mentioned, runners whose training disruptions lasted from seven to 13 days experienced a 4.25 percent increase in their finish times, compared to when the same runners completed an undisrupted marathon (defined as missing six days or less). Those who missed 14 to 20 days of training experienced more than a 6 percent increase in their finish times in comparison to their undisrupted marathon.

These increases in finish times occurred regardless of whether the undisrupted marathon took place before or after the disrupted marathon.

To put that in perspective, if you’re a four-hour marathoner, As for how that affects performance, especially in a race like a finish time.

“A week probably isn’t going to do a ton of damage if you have the room in your big-picture training,” Hart explains. But you will start to notice a difference once you hit the two-week mark and beyond. At this point your VO2 max, running economy, You also don’t need to reschedule a workout if you skipped it because you felt you needed a.

The takeaway: You may be able to get away with missing a week of workouts, but not necessarily two or three, especially if you have your eyes set on a time-related goal.

That said, you can still race if you’re feeling strong and healthy. After all, the nearly 300,000 runners in the study still showed up to marathon race day and completed 26.2 miles your body in a way that you didn’t know you had to,” says Baird.

The key is being strategic about your next move after you miss a workout. We got you covered on how to make sure you make smart adjustments to your plan.

to make up for missed intensity.&rdquo How Missing a Workout Can Affect Your Run Performance, You have two options: Skip the workout entirely or swap it out. But before you do, consider.

For example, if you skipped a workout due to illness then you don’t necessarily need to reschedule it, says Kate Baird, C.S.C.S., certified strength and conditioning specialist, running and metabolic testing coordinator, and exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

You also don’t need to reschedule a workout if you skipped it because you felt you needed a rest day, says Hart.

In both cases, missing a workout could be beneficial because your body needs rest to adapt to training, Hart explains. So simply return to running and your training plan when you’re feeling better. And if you missed a quality workout (like an interval session, How Missing a Workout Can Affect Your Run Performance long run), just make sure you hit each quality session the following week, says Hart.

One caveat here is if you only run three times a week. In that case, Baird recommends swapping your rest day with the workout you missed.

Also, if you miss a long run, “you might want to reorganize what’s happening in the subsequent week, so that it’s not such a huge jump on that next long run,” says Baird. The reason: There’s a link between injuries and rapid progressions in mileage or intensity so you don’t want to make a drastic jump.

While you can’t predict when you’re going to get sick and take a week off from running, you can scan your calendar and predict when a vacation or work trip may force you to take a week off.

“The more you can plan and adjust, the better,” says Baird. “You’re not going to try to make up time. You’re not going to add more miles the next week to make up for missed miles. You’re not going to add more intensity to make up for missed intensity.”

How to Build Fatigue Resistance deload weeks in your training, so you can pick back up where you left off after your vacation. These recovery weeks tend to happen every two to six weeks, depending on the rhythm of your plan.

Also—and especially if you take an unexpected week off—monitor the length of your longest run to avoid any big increase in your mileage, like going from a seven-mile long run to 10 miles, as we mentioned earlier.

If you missed two weeks of training, you want to be more strategic about your next move. Baird recommends using one of two strategies: The 10-percent rule and the acute-to-chronic workload ratio (ACWR).

The 10-percent rule states runners should increase their training volume by no more than 10 percent each week to avoid injury. “A lot of people use this, and it works really well,” says Baird. For example, if the last week of training you completed consisted of 10 miles in total, then you don’t want to run anymore than 11 miles when you return, so adjust your plan accordingly.

The acute-to-chronic workload ratio compares how much exercise a person does in a short amount of time to a longer period of time, like a week to a month. You can monitor this ratio if you have a Garmin device, Apple Watch, or utilize TrainingPeaks. (It’s often referred to as “training load.”) Each of these programs can indicate if and when your training load is too high so you can scale it back.

When you return to running, follow the plan as closely as possible—don’t worry about making up missed workouts. But be prepared to make some changes, based on your ACWR or 10-percent rule. That means you may have to slightly adjust your quality workouts—like doing fewer interval repeats or lowering the mileage of your long run—so you’re not increasing volume or intensity too quickly.

You can also skip an easy run to keep mileage lower, says Hart, especially if you usually have more than one a week.

mdash;so you’re not increasing volume or intensity too quickly improve your fitness, if you miss about a month of training, you may want to reevaluate those goals. This could mean looking to run a different race if your aspirations are tied to a specific distance.

“If you miss two to three weeks, you’re going to feel that, you’re going to feel a little bit of a decrease in fitness,” says Hart. “This is a time to scrap it, pick a new goal race, pick up where you left off, and push everything out a little bit.”

This is also the time you can reconfigure your training approach. “You might have to go back and strengthen your body in a way that you didn’t know you had to,” says Baird.

Yes, Sometimes You Should Change or Skip Your Long Run—Here’s How strength training or stretching as you gear up for a goal race can lead to constant injuries and delays, so you want to make sure you have time for these forms of exercise as well, Baird adds.

Monique Lebrun

Monique LeBrun is a health and fitness editor who is based in Easton, Pennsylvania. She covers a wide range of health and wellness topics, with a primary focus on running performance and nutrition. Monique is passionate about creating content that empowers runners to become the best versions of themselves. As an avid runner and parent, she loves spending time outdoors with her daughter, who often accompanies her on weekend runs as her personal mini run coach.