A physical goal should leave room for changes in the life supporting it.

Bodies live inside circumstances. A training plan built during a calm month assumes that sleep, work, health, and everyone else’s needs will hold still, and they will not, so a plan with no flexibility eventually asks you to choose between the goal and the life around it. Most people choose the life and then feel they failed at the goal, when what failed was a plan with no room in it.

Build the adjustment in before you need it. Decide now what a reduced version looks like on a bad week, so changing pace is part of the plan rather than proof of quitting.