The Problem
When you take a day off or schedule a vacation, miles are removed from your plan. Without redistribution, those miles simply disappear — your total plan volume drops, which can leave you under-prepared for race day. Research on 300,000+ marathon runners shows that even small training disruptions measurably affect race performance.
Optional Redistribution
After marking a day off or applying a vacation, you're offered a choice: redistribute the removed miles across your remaining training, or skip it and accept the reduced volume. This is always optional — you decide what's right for your situation.
Pre/Post Split (40/60)
For vacations with "Rest of plan" or "Next N weeks" scope, miles are split 40% before and 60% after the vacation. Front-loading less avoids fatigue going into your break, while back-loading more gives you a gradual ramp-up when you return. This follows coaching guidelines from Jason Koop (CTS) on managing training around planned disruptions.
Scope Options
You choose how far the redistributed miles spread:
| Scope | What It Does |
|---|---|
| This week | Spreads miles across remaining easy runs in the same week |
| Next N weeks | Spreads across a specific number of upcoming weeks (with 40/60 pre/post split) |
| Until a date | Spreads across all weeks up to a chosen date |
| Rest of plan | Spreads across all remaining weeks, excluding taper (with 40/60 pre/post split) |
How Miles Are Distributed
Redistribution follows four rules designed to keep your training safe:
- Proportional by week volume. Higher-volume weeks absorb a proportionally larger share. A 30-mile week gets more added miles than a 20-mile week.
- Only easy runs are adjusted. Quality workouts — tempo, intervals, hill repeats, race pace, and long runs — are never touched. Adding miles to hard sessions increases injury risk, so redistribution only targets easy-effort runs.
- 15% weekly safety cap. No single week can increase by more than 15% of its original volume. If a redistribution would exceed this, the extra miles are left unabsorbed and you'll see a warning suggesting you spread over more weeks.
- Single-session spike guard. No individual run can exceed 110% of your longest easy run in the preceding 4 plan weeks. This is based on a 2025 BJSM study of 5,200 runners that found single-session spikes are a better injury predictor than weekly volume changes.
Taper Weeks Are Protected
Taper weeks are always skipped during redistribution. The taper phase intentionally reduces volume to prepare your body for race day — a meta-analysis by Bosquet et al. found that 41-60% volume reduction over 2 weeks produces optimal race performance. Adding redistributed miles there would undermine this. If your selected scope extends into the taper, those weeks are automatically excluded.
Race Proximity Warning
Within 3 weeks of race day, redistribution is discouraged. Your fitness is built — the research shows that consistency in the preceding months matters far more than any single week's volume. You'll see a reminder to trust the training you've already done.
Cross-Training During Time Off
When you take time off, the preview suggests cross-training alternatives (swimming, cycling, hotel gym) to maintain cardiovascular fitness during your break. Even light cross-training preserves aerobic adaptations better than complete rest.
Warnings
Before you confirm, the preview will flag potential issues:
- Big weekly jumps — any week increasing by more than 10% is highlighted
- Spike guard — individual runs that would be capped to stay within 110% of recent history
- Unabsorbed miles — if safety limits prevent full redistribution
- Taper proximity — if your scope reaches into the taper phase
- Race proximity — within 3 weeks of race day
- No easy runs available — if there are no eligible workouts to absorb miles
Viewing Redistribution in Your Plan
In the plan overview, weeks with redistributed miles show a teal +X.X indicator next to the weekly total. Pre-vacation weeks are labeled with a "pre" badge so you can see the 40/60 split at a glance.
Editing and Removing
Redistribution settings are saved alongside the vacation or day off that triggered them. If you remove a vacation that has linked redistribution, the redistributed miles are also removed — your plan returns to its original state.
Layer Order
Redistribution is the final layer applied to your plan, after vacations, injuries, and manual edits. This means it sees the true state of your workouts — including any reductions — before deciding where to add miles.
- Vacations (date ranges with load reduction)
- Injuries (severity-based workout modification)
- Manual edits (your one-off workout changes)
- Redistribution (proportional miles added to easy runs)
Related Research
- The 5,200-Person Study That Changed How We Think About Running Injuries — why single-session spikes matter more than weekly volume
- Effects of Tapering on Performance — the meta-analysis behind taper protection
- Estimating the Cost of Training Disruptions on Marathon Performance — what missed training actually costs you
- What To Do If You Missed Training — evidence-based return strategies
- Race Time Impact of Missed Training Days — how quickly fitness declines
- How to Reschedule a Workout or Long Run — workout priority and rescheduling rules
- Load Management and Injury Prevention in Elite Athletes — ACWR and load monitoring
- ACWR and Injury Risk in Runners — acute:chronic workload ratio explained
Key Takeaway
Redistribution keeps your total plan volume intact when life gets in the way. It splits miles 40/60 around your break, only adds to easy runs, caps weekly increases at 15%, guards against single-session spikes, and never touches your taper. It's always optional — you're in control.
Load redistribution runs inside the Pheidi app — sign in to use it.
Research & evidence
Science behind this feature from pheidi.training.
- Running Training Plan: The Complete Guide Pillar hub linking 48+ deeper dives — start here for the full picture.
- Handling Missed Runs 10-day rule, make-up strategies, and when doubling up backfires.
- Load Management Injury Research (2025) Current evidence on what actually reduces injury risk.
- Tracking ACWR in Practice How to compute and monitor workload ratio in day-to-day training.
- Session-Spike Injury Study Single-session spikes predict injury better than weekly jumps.
See also
- How Vacation Scheduling Works What happens to your training plan when you schedule time off: date-range blocking, load redistribution, and graduated return to normal volume.
- How Injury Management Works How Pheidi adjusts your training plan when you report an injury: severity-based volume reductions, graduated return-to-running, and pain-based progression gates.
- How Safety Guards Work How Pheidi protects you from training load spikes and injury risk: ACWR monitoring, session spike limits, and weekly volume caps based on running research.