Last month was the month to overdo it. Don't make the mistake of pushing through fatigue right now — the risk of taking a week or two off, right here where it matters most, is very real. A lot of athletes fall into what I call panic training, cramming volume because they can feel the event getting close. It almost never works.
One analogy that has stuck with me for managing stress: all stress goes into one big bucket. Life stress, training stress, work stress, relationship stress — it all goes in the same bucket. When it overflows, you have to stop and let it empty. As athletes, our job is to keep that bucket as empty as possible from everything else so we can fill it with training. You drain it through rest, sleep (7 to 9 hours consistently), hydration, and time with people you care about.
The problem is that for most of us, that isn't realistic. Kids need to go to school. Chores need to get done. Your job needs to keep running. All of that has to be factored in when you're deciding what the right training move is on any given week. You can't get around biology. Forcing it when your body is telling you to back off just makes you slower — and keeps you slower for longer. The sooner you accept that and start looking for solutions in the other areas of your life, the sooner the training starts working again.
None of that means you train scared. I actually think if an athlete never fails an interval, we're not pushing them hard enough. Testing your limits is the whole point. You will often surprise yourself when you stop protecting yourself from the possibility of failing — that's the beauty of sport.
But sometimes taking a step back is the fastest way forward. Consider all your limits, pull the right levers at the right time, and you'll find those limits are well beyond where you thought they were.
The season is long. If you did the work over the winter, the worst thing you can do right now is burn out. If you didn't — cramming it in now doesn't fix that. Just pick a race later in the season and find a sustainable way to build toward it!
– Joe Lewis, Lead Boundless Coach
April 8th, 2026