I'm sick or injured – how do I pause my plan and how do I get back into it?

Illness, injury and vacation are part of every training year. Here we explain in detail how to handle them in Trait – because the way to do it isn't obvious at first glance.

Illness or injury: pausing the plan

For illness and injury, everything works via the Readiness Score. You don't need a Pro subscription for this.

1. On the home screen, drag the Readiness Score down – all the way to 0% if you're sick or injured.
2. Trait asks “What's wrong?”. Choose “I'm sick” or “I'm injured”.
3. Trait suggests pausing your plan. Confirm it.

While the plan is paused, the Readiness Score no longer shows a value, just the note “Let us know when you're fit again”. Only your training plan is paused – an active Pro subscription continues to run independently.

Healthy again: getting back into training

1. On the home screen, tap “Let us know when you're fit again”.
2. Trait asks whether you're ready again and offers you a return-to-training phase.
3. You have two options:
   • With return-to-training: The next one to two weeks (depending on where you are in the week) are replaced by return-to-training sessions. After that, your original plan continues.
   • Without return-to-training: Your original plan continues right away.

Important: Once chosen, a return-to-training phase can't be undone. So think beforehand about whether you'd rather start gently after a longer break or jump straight back in at full intensity. More on this: Can I undo the return-to-training phase?

Only slightly under the weather?

Not every minor ailment is a reason to pause the plan. If you're just feeling a bit drained, you can lower the Readiness Score a little and view alternatives for today's session – from an easier session to a rest day.

Vacation: a different route

Vacation doesn't mean “not ready”, so it's not handled via the Readiness Score. You have two options:

• Pause the plan completely: Home screen → orange box → Training plan page. There you'll find several settings for your plan, including pausing. This is currently the only way to fully pause the plan for a vacation.
• Our recommendation – Light training mode: Vacation doesn't have to mean not training at all. Some people want to push hard on vacation, others just want an easy run now and then. That's exactly what the training mode is for: set it to Light before your vacation and switch it back afterwards. This is only possible with a plan in individual training, though, not with a fixed target time.

In brief: I'm going on vacation – do I need to pause my plan?

Why it's done this way

Trait doesn't rewrite your plan on its own, but gives you the tools to steer it yourself – for illness, injury and vacation just as much as for a single bad day. Why that's intentional is explained in Why doesn't Trait automatically rewrite my plan?