Why today says what it says

Families of rule

• Health. Outranks everything. No distance is offered against it.
• Recovery. A race, a layoff, one unusually big day behind you.
• Rhythm and load. Days in a row, days this week, the ratio.
• The key session. The long run, and the rest day that protects it.
• The plan working. Nothing to flag; build the base.

Why the order is the model

The ordering is the safety argument, not an implementation detail. A sore shin outranks the schedule; the schedule outranks the load numbers. Anything above a rule can override it.

So there is no score, and no way for a good ratio to argue its way past a symptom. It also means two identical-looking weeks can come from the same rules reaching different answers, because a different rule got there first.

What it never does

It does not diagnose. The niggle rules route you — bone, tendon, muscle behave in opposite directions and are managed in opposite ways — and then get out of the way.

It does not chase a missed session. A long run that does not happen comes round again; it is never squeezed into the following day.