How We Coach, Part 7 of 10
Load and Recovery: How We Plan the Work and the Rest
The short answer: Training makes you tired first and fitter later, and the fitness arrives during recovery. So we plan load and recovery as one decision. Every week each sport gets a load measured in Training Stress Score, or TSS. Some weeks push, some hold and some pull back, recovery after a race is sized to the race, and recovery is there whenever you need it. This article explains how we measure load, why the steps up are small and the steps down are big, how we read form, and what it looked like in real weeks from Holly Koksel, Katy Walmsley and Ben Creswick.
Why fitness is built in the recovery
A hard session doesn't make you fitter on the day. It makes you tired, and it signals your body to adapt. The adaptation happens in the hours and days afterwards, when your body repairs and rebuilds a little stronger than before.
That gives load and recovery a balance to strike. If the load is too small, there is little for the body to adapt to, and weeks of training produce very little. If the recovery is too small, fatigue keeps stacking on top of fatigue, and the fitness never gets a chance to show. The athlete feels like they are working harder and getting slower. Both mistakes are common, and both look like hard work from the outside.
So the question this article answers is: how much load should each week carry, in each sport, and where does the recovery go so that the load turns into fitness?
How load is usually managed, and where that runs out
Many athletes manage load by hours, or by a fixed rhythm of a few hard weeks and one easy one. Hours are easy to count, and a fixed rhythm builds in rest.
Hours miss how hard the hours were. A week of long easy rides and a week of short hard intervals can be the same hours and very different stress. A fixed rhythm misses the athlete. It schedules the easy week whether or not you need it, and holds it back when you do.
We measure the stress of each session along with its time, track it by sport, and choose each week's load from how the last weeks actually landed.
How we measure load
We measure load with TSS, which combines how long and how hard each session was. A one hour session at your threshold is 100 TSS. An easy hour scores much less. A long, steady ride can score more than a short, hard one.
We track load by sport. Bike load and run load are planned and tracked separately, because running is harder on the body and each sport builds its own fitness. Swimming adds load too, and we count it.
From your daily TSS, TrainingPeaks builds three numbers we watch closely.
- Fitness. Your average load over the last several weeks. It rises slowly when you train consistently.
- Fatigue. Your average load over the last week or so. It rises and falls quickly.
- Form. Fitness minus fatigue. Below zero means you are carrying fatigue. Above zero means you are fresher than usual.
Because fatigue moves faster than fitness, a few lighter days lift form quickly while fitness barely drops. That is the whole reason a pull back week or a taper works.
Easy training still counts. An easy session has a real cost, especially when it is long, and we plan it into the week like everything else.
Where your load starts
When you join, your starting load comes from what you have actually been doing. If you have TrainingPeaks history, we rebuild the last six weeks of TSS the same way we will track it from now on, and that history wins over the hours you remember. Your first week is an easy introduction from your intake hours, guided by effort and heart rate. From there, the load grows in small steps as your body shows it can absorb it.
Starting from your real recent training protects you in the first weeks, when enthusiasm is high and the body hasn't adapted to the new plan yet. That is when new athletes are most likely to take on more than they can absorb.
Planning the week: small steps up, bigger steps down
Each week, each sport gets one of five load levels.
- Big Push. A clear step up.
- Small Push. A small step up.
- Hold. Stay where you are and let the body catch up.
- Small Pull Back. A little less, so you can absorb the work.
- Big Pull Back. A real step down, for recovery or a race.
The steps up are small. In a building phase, fitness rises about 3 to 5 points a week. Bigger steps come only once you have shown you can absorb them, because a jump the body isn't ready for gains a little now and costs much more later. The steps down can be much bigger, because recovery has to be deep enough to let fatigue clear. A pull back that only trims a little leaves the athlete tired and still not recovered.
Holly's weekly TSS by sport from May to August
What it measures. Holly's total weekly training stress from May to early August 2026, split into run, bike and swim.
The story at this point. Holly also coaches with ANC, and she was building for the Anchor Down 6 hour ultra in early August with IRONMAN Maryland six weeks later. Her load rose and fell with her blocks. Her biggest week, about 880 TSS, came in mid July during Aerobic Expansion, with a big share from long rides. The weeks around it were lighter. In late July and early August her load came down sharply into race week.
How to read it. Each bar is one week. Orange is run, navy is bike and grey is swim. Look at how the bars move up and down. No two weeks are the same.
You might see this in your own training if your weeks feel different from each other on purpose. The lighter weeks give the harder weeks time to turn into fitness.
One of Holly's sessions shows how load is planned down to the day. On June 21 she ran over 14 miles in the heat, with 145 TSS planned. She came in at 141, with her cadence a steady 177. Hitting the planned load in that heat was exactly the practice a summer ultra needed.
Reading form: useful fatigue and too much fatigue
Form tells us how the load is landing. In a building block, form usually sits below zero. That is normal. It means you are carrying the fatigue that drives the next round of fitness. A build where form never goes below zero usually isn't asking enough.
What we watch is how far below zero it goes, for how long, and how often it comes back up. Form that dips and recovers after a lighter week is useful fatigue. Form that keeps sinking week after week, especially with poor sleep, sessions slipping or "tired" in your comments, is fatigue the body isn't absorbing, and it is the moment to pull back before it costs a missed week.
Holly's weekly form from May to September
What it measures. Holly's form, her fitness minus her fatigue, at the end of each week from late April to September 2026. Orange bars are the weeks her form came back above zero.
The story at this point. Through her summer build Holly's form spent most weeks below zero, sometimes well below, while she trained through Base, Build and Aerobic Expansion. Her form came back above zero a couple of times in May and June after lighter weeks. Then it rose clearly in early August for Anchor Down, dipped again in her return to Specificity, and rose again in September for IRONMAN Maryland.
How to read it. Navy bars below the line are weeks carrying fatigue. Orange bars above the line are weeks she was fresh again. Look at where the orange bars sit: right before each race.
You might see this in your own training if you feel tired through most of a build and fresh just before your race. That pattern is often exactly what was planned.
The deepest weeks came in mid July, at the peak of her biggest block. They were followed by lighter weeks so the work could sink in. Then race week was a Big Pull Back. "I hate tapering lol," Holly told us. She won the women's race at Anchor Down in record heat, second of 72 overall.
A winter of steady load
Katy Walmsley's Boston build shows a different shape: a big early push, then weeks of steady load.
Katy's weekly TSS by sport from December to April
What it measures. Katy's total weekly training stress from December 2025 to April 2026, split into run, bike and swim.
The story at this point. Katy is a triathlete and a parent of three, building toward the Boston Marathon. Her load climbed through December to her biggest week, just over 1,000 TSS, around the turn of the year. After that, her weeks settled mostly between about 700 and 850 TSS, with lighter weeks placed between. In April her load came down for the taper.
How to read it. Each bar is one week. Orange is run, navy is bike and teal is swim. The run share of each week stays fairly steady. The bike and swim carry much of the rest.
You might see this in your own training if you train for a running race but enjoy riding and swimming. Your total load can stay high while your running load stays manageable.
That big week around New Year pushed her form well below zero for a short time. From there, her load held steady for weeks, and her fitness held with it while her running quality rose. Holding load steady is a choice too. Once fitness is high, keeping it there lets the quality of the hard sessions rise without stacking more fatigue on top. She ran a half marathon best of 1:34:09 and then a Boston PR of 3:28:46.
Recovery is planned, and it is on demand
Recovery happens at every level of the plan.
- Inside the week. Easy days around hard days, and a day off where your life needs it.
- Inside the block. Hold and Pull Back weeks placed where the fatigue builds up.
- After a race. A recovery plan sized to the race.
- Whenever you need it. If your body or your life says stop, we stop.
We plan recovery ahead, and we also add it the moment it is needed. Signs of fatigue include poor sleep, a resting heart rate that has crept up, heart rate variability that has dropped, very low form, sessions that feel harder than they should, or simply the word "tired" in a comment. When those show up midweek, we ease that week.
We never ask you to make up missed sessions. If a day was lost, the week moves on. A session is usually missed because of fatigue or life, and squeezing it in later adds load to exactly the week that needed less.
Easy days hold much of the recovery inside a week, so we protect them. When easy runs come in too hard, the whole week gets more expensive and the next key session starts tired. Ben Creswick told us early on, "I know i get a bit carried away sometimes lol," and much of his coaching was about keeping easy days easy. Heat makes everything cost more too. The same pace in the heat brings a higher heart rate and a bigger recovery need, so we read heart rate and effort alongside pace, and a hot session can hit its planned load at a slower speed.
Recovery after races, and between two races
How long you recover after a race depends on the race, because longer races leave deeper fatigue.
- IRONMAN or marathon. A flexible week first, then a block of Base and Durability at a reduced load, then normal planning.
- 70.3 or half marathon. A similar pattern, or three to four days off or light, depending on how the race went and what comes next.
- Olympic distance or 10K. One to two days off.
- 5K. Maybe one day.
After the last race of a season, there is a flexible week, then Base and Durability with strength back in. Strength also comes out of the plan in the days just before an important race and comes back once you have recovered from it.
Holly's summer had two important races six weeks apart, so her recovery had to do two jobs: let her body absorb a 6 hour ultra in record heat, and leave enough time to build again for an IRONMAN. After Anchor Down she had a short rest. Then she went back into Specificity for Maryland, and you can see it on her form chart: two weeks below zero again in mid August. On August 25 she ran a run test and called it "probably the fastest I've ever done recorded for those distances outside." Her form rose again in September, right before IRONMAN Maryland on September 19.
Ben ran 2:46:42 at the Victoria Marathon on October 11, third of 299 in his age group, three weeks after placing third in his age group at IRONMAN 70.3 Tri Cities. The week after Victoria was a Big Pull Back. When he started running again, his heart rate sat higher than usual. Angela's note: "HR sitting a little higher after a week off is totally normal. It should settle back down over the next few runs." His first full week back was 15 hours across 19 sessions, and he wrote, "Bike fitness is feeling GREAT." Recovery gave him that week.
How the weekly load changes with your situation
Your form dipped after a big week and came back up after a lighter one
That is useful fatigue. We usually push or hold next.
Your form keeps sinking and your comments say tired
We pull back now, often with a Big Pull Back, so the fatigue clears before it costs a missed week.
You missed sessions this week
We set next week from where you actually are, with nothing added back.
A hot week made every session harder
We read effort and heart rate alongside pace, and accept slower speeds at the planned load.
You just raced
Recovery sized to the race comes first, then the next block.
What load and recovery need from you
The numbers only tell half the story. Your sleep, your soreness and your comments tell the other half, and they are often the first sign that fatigue has gone past useful. Honest notes after sessions, and a message when you need more rest, let us change the load before the body forces it.
To put it in a few lines: fitness is built in the recovery, so we raise load in small steps, pull back deeply enough to absorb it, read form to tell useful fatigue from too much, and give recovery whenever you need it.
What this means for you
What this means for you
Your weeks will move up and down on purpose. Your form will often sit below zero in a build and rise before your race. After a race, recovery is planned for you. And at any point, if you need more rest, tell us and you will get it.
A good check for your own training: when did your form last come back above zero, and what did you do that week?
Keep reading in the How We Coach series
- StressLogic: how we decide your training
- Part 5: Adjusting as you go
- Race prep
- What TSS and weekly training load mean
Athlete stories from this article:
Coaching built around you
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