Solo parenting. A family trip to Indiana. Life.
The plan hit a 10-day wall between Week 3 and Week 4. No structured training, minimal movement, zero Hyrox sessions. This is what coming back looked like.
The Context
My wife Emma was out of town Thursday and Friday of Week 3. She went straight to Indiana from there. I had the kids solo, then we all flew to Indiana Saturday and came back Tuesday.
Between June 26th and July 4th I did a small run, a short row session, and a brief bike erg session. That’s it. Ten days of life replacing training.
This happens. It will happen to you if you’re running a 20-week plan. The question isn’t how to prevent it — it’s how to respond to it.
The Response
Week 4 started July 6th. Instead of trying to make up lost volume, I treated the week as a reload — moderate sessions, reestablish the habits, no benchmark tests, no heavy pushing. The unplanned break already served as a deload. No need to artificially add one on top.
The first session back — Monday July 7th — was the Zone 2 run I’d been building toward.
7km on the treadmill at 6:13/km. Nasal breathing only. HR 131-144 the entire run. Zone 2 time: 35+ minutes. Zone 3+: essentially zero.
That’s back-to-back weeks of solid Zone 2 data. The aerobic base is starting to respond.
Wednesday added intervals at the track in the evening with my kids — 10×400m averaging 4:12/km, best rep 3:55/km. Two-a-day: Zone 2 in the morning, intervals in the evening. They have to be separated by at least 4-5 hours or the legs cramp and quality drops on the intervals. Learned that the hard way when I tried to stack them too close together.
Thursday — Titan Up for deadlifts. Hex bar, 225lbs, 3×12. Light front squats at 125lbs. First lifting session since the back tweak. Back held up completely. Nerve impingement in the leg that’s been limiting squat depth felt fine at this load.
Friday — Couldn’t hold 10km long run pace after TUF the day before. Legs were too sore. Did 4km run + 20 minutes Zone 2 bike erg + 10 minutes Zone 2 rowing instead. The bike and rower both stayed in Zone 2 — 76% and 77% respectively. Not the 10km run I wanted but 38 minutes of solid Zone 2 across three modalities is still meaningful aerobic work.
Sunday BFT — The sim was split into a running first half and station work second half. Running average HR: 165, Zone 4+5: 74%. Stations average HR: 160, Zone 4+5: 63%. HR recovery: -70 bpm. The running half was hard. The stations felt more controlled.
The Pattern I Noticed
TUF lifting on Thursday is wrecking Friday’s long run. Two weeks in a row now — Thursday deadlifts, Friday legs too sore to hold long run distance. The fix is structural: move TUF to Wednesday. That gives the legs two days before Friday’s run instead of one.
Simple adjustment. High impact.
What Week 4 Taught Me About Hyrox Training
Breaks happen. The plan doesn’t need to be perfect to work — it needs to be consistent enough. Ten days off in a 20-week block is not a crisis. Trying to compensate with a massive comeback week would be.
The right response to a training break: restart at moderate volume, reestablish the habits, trust the process. The fitness doesn’t disappear in 10 days. The aerobic adaptations from Weeks 1-3 are still there. The body just needs a clean week to get back into rhythm.
One more thing: Zone 2 running is starting to feel different. Less like jogging and more like running. The pace hasn’t changed yet — still 6:13/km — but the effort feels slightly lower at the same HR. That’s the aerobic base adapting. It’s working.
— Austin