Missed runs and the long run after a break

Everyone misses runs. A work trip, or a child got ill. Then you want to catch up: run the missed distance on top, or make the next long run longer straight away. TriCoo does not do that. Below is why, and what happens to the plan.

Missed training is not added to new training#

Missed minutes are not added to the next sessions. An easy run you missed stays missed.

If a long run or a fast session was missed, TriCoo may offer to move it. It looks for a day within 3 calendar days after the missed session, inside the same week. Only if it fits into the weekly limit and does not land next to another hard day. The move comes as a suggestion, you accept it with one tap or decline it. There is no second such move in the same week. If no day fits, the session stays missed in the plan. There will be no two hard days in a row just to catch up.

More about moves in the help article How the plan adapts to your life.

No record and a missed run are different things#

Sometimes your watch does not send a workout. That is not yet a missed run. Nor is it a rest day. No data does not mean a missed session: TriCoo marks the day as unknown and does not count it as a confirmed miss. A week with unknown days does not become the base for load growth. If many unknown days pile up, the plan may switch to calibration.

If you did run, you can add the run by hand. The sport, the duration and your effort rating are enough.

The long run after a missed one#

TriCoo takes the runs you have done into account. Usually a new long run adds up to 5 minutes. If a missed long run is confirmed, the next increase is dropped.

An example. Your last completed long run was an hour. The plan set the next one 5 minutes longer, and you missed it. If you have not run longer than an hour yourself in the last month, the new long run will again be no longer than an hour.

Even if the week came out normal in total, a single run should not jump. One of the TriCoo limits looks at your longest run in the last month and does not let a single run move far beyond it. This is a calculation rule with exceptions. It does not protect you from injury.

Why we look at a single run#

There is a well known 10 percent rule: add no more than a tenth of your volume per week. It was tested in a randomised trial with 532 novice runners. They were training for a 6.7 km race. One group followed a 13-week programme based on this rule, the other a standard 8-week one. In both groups about one in five got injured. Buist et al., 2008.

In this trial the 10 percent programme did not lower the injury rate compared with the standard programme. It does not prove that gradual growth is useless.

In another study 5,205 runners were followed for up to a year and a half using their Garmin watch records. Overuse injuries were more common after a run that was more than 10% longer in distance than the longest run of the previous 30 days. No such link was found with weekly volume growth compared with the week before. The study is observational. It shows a link, but it does not prove the cause and does not give a safe limit. Frandsen et al., 2025.

That is why a normal weekly total is no reason to make one run sharply longer.

A break of a week or more#

After a confirmed break of 7 to 13 days, TriCoo limits the first week to 85% of your usual load before the break. Other limits can lower the volume further. This is a careful coaching number, it does not measure lost fitness. The next week also grows carefully.

The longer the break, the more careful the start. After a very long break TriCoo starts over, with easy weeks and no long run.

The reason for the break matters too. If an illness is marked in TriCoo, the return follows its own order. TriCoo will not offer to move sessions missed on illness days.

If the race is close#

The training phases are tied to the race date. A missed week does not shift them. TriCoo will not catch it up in the following weeks: load does not rise faster than allowed, even when the race is close. The taper stays where it is.