In order for a training plan to provide a route to serious fitness and endurance on only an hour a week, each of those minutes needs to count. This means that those minutes need to be performed at really high intensities. Working at such intensities is daunting enough (sometimes it feels downright impossible!) at the best of times--if you're not fully recovered going into a session then just forget about it.

One of the beautiful things about quick but brutal training is that recovery usually happens relatively quickly. Although I often feel completely crippled immediately following a workout, I rarely feel any effects the next day. But experience has taught me that unless I'm doing an exercise that is significantly different than the one I did the day before, I need a full day of rest between sessions. What this means is that I'll put at least a day of rest between lower body cardio efforts (such as running and biking) or upper body ones (such as swimming and rowing). I'm happy, however, to do upper body strength work (chin-ups to failure for example) on a rest day between run interval workouts. In addition to needing to be physically recovered before each new training session, mental recovery also needs to be considered. Although different people will be able to do different amounts of true high intensity work, trying to do too much can quickly lead to mental burnout. In my opinion, 3 to 4 workouts a week is ideal, with two or three of them being all out, high-intensity, to-failure suffer-fests.

I will typically use one or two baseline workouts a week, and If I'm training for general fitness/maintenance, I use a range of disciplines each week so that all my workouts are different. A given week might involve a running Baseline Workout, an upper body strength session, a rowing Baseline Workout, and then a longer (still 30 min or less) bike ride on the weekend. The following week (or even two) might be different BWs but at least every two to four weeks I will start repeating BWs to check progress. I call these two to four week chunks 'cycles'. Four cycles (8-16 weeks) makes a 'block'

At the end of a block I'm usually pretty fit and nearing the point where exceeding previous performances on BWs is damned near impossible. The mental and physical challenges of week in and out work are adding up and it's time to do something big! As mentioned before, these regular (4+ times a year) big efforts/races are key aspects of the program--they act as motivation for the daily grind, serve to develop the mental characteristics needed for future (and more and more ambitious) challenges, and also provide an opportunity for your body and mind to reset itself. These big efforts should mark the edge of your ambitions as an athlete and that edge should advance over time.

Ideally (and likely), if you've picked an appropriately difficult race, you'll be pretty wrecked afterwords. Good! Take some time to reflect on the mental side of things and just let your body rest. Take at least one full week off of training. Depending on how you feel, get back at it the following week, aiming to complete one of the early (unmodified) Baseline Workouts from your last block. If you fail to do so (and you'll usually know whether in the first few minutes of the workout) take a couple more days off. Active recovery (yard-work, easy family walks or bike rides, recreational hikes) are fine during this 'time off' but don't overdo it. You may 'feel' fine--but when you get on that treadmill and recently attainable efforts seem well beyond you you'll realize just how hard you'd been working and how important recovery is for this kind of training. When you are able to get through an earlier BW, you're good to start your next training block.