– How much effect does moving training types within a week have? For example, in my current program there are two Z2 hikes a week, on Saturday and Sunday. The way my schedule works, the best days for me to do them may be Thursday and Sunday.
Within reason zone two type hikes are fairly forgiving with regards to rearranging the schedule. I have several athletes that will do a fairly beefy mid week zone to session as well as a Sunday. As long as you’re recovering from the workouts that should be fine.
– How much effect does swapping the “hard hike” and the “easy hike” or the “recovery” hikes have?
You can swap them but there are times like the day after an intensity session or a muscular endurance session where a really easy or recovery level hike makes a lot of sense.
– If I am due for a “recovery” or “consolidation” week and I have a couple of Z2 hikes planned (I am taking a mountaineering course with scheduled hikes) is it better to push the recovery or consolidation week back?
If your schedule is such that a busy week falls on what would normally be a consolidation week I would probably push the consolidation week back instead of making it a pseudo consolidation week that ends up not really getting at the goal. If the week of the mountaineering course ends up being a fourth build week and you’re carrying some fatigue you might consider just doing easy zone one work on Thursday and Friday of that week for instance to make sure that you’re not drained heading into the weekend.