I’ve been enjoying increases in my total sets and intervals in my 30/30 workouts. From 2x5 early in the plan to 3x6 last week. This week (today specifically) I am being prescribed 4x9. This is a 100% increase in work time (# of intervals * interval duration) from last week (9min vs 18min).
Looking just at load, the increase seems aggressive, but manageable, at this stage in the plan. Load increased by about 30% from 63 for last weeks workout and 83 for this weeks workout.
I believe that Athletica is looking at weekly load and daily load only when building workouts, which appears to be working great for anything up to Z4. I think that Athletica should consider looking at work time for workouts that contain intervals targeting Z5 or higher.
I plan to reduce my workout today to 4x6 and see how I feel at the end. If I feel good I may add a 5th set to get it closer to the prescribed workout. Based on how I felt after last weeks workout I’d be surprised if I added a 5th set.
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Hey Jack, sorry for late reply. I had a look at your training. Impressive the way you’ve been knocking down those hills sprints.
In the future, it’s helpful if you attach screenshots for us. For example, showing this:
would have told me instantly that there was something off in the prescription. There should only be one Main Set (marked with star). Unless you added the second set? I also suspect the AI Coach humbled a little here. 30seconds uphill with 20sec recovery. Most people will struggle getting back to start of the hill in 30sec. Sorry about that. Going forwards toward your 5K, those hill sprints seem appropriate for you, exept for September 11. I would take it down a little bit and perhaps keep it around 3x6. The point is to hit the target and walk away, not bury yourself with one workout and feel fatigued for days after. What do you think?
The heavy HIIT load in your case is likely related to your time availability settings. It’s trying to maximize your load within your constraints and this can sometimes mess up the plan. We are working on a solution going forward. Always trust your gut feeling. If something feels too much, it probably is. 
You are going great!
MJ
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Thanks for the response. Next time I will definitely include a screen shot. I think that the final state of my workout may have led to confusion.
I left the workout alone until the day of. I wanted to see if the 4x9x30/30s would change but it did not. It was as you said you’d expect, a single main set. And since you so nicely looked ahead for me, I’ll paste a screenshot of the Sep 11 structure. To the best of my recollection the workout for last Thursday was identical to the one on Sep 11:
The 2 main sets that I ended up doing (each with 2 sets) was me, probably, over thinking things. I first dropped the 4x9 to 4x6. I probably should have left it alone at that point.
But then I thought, "if Coach thinks I can do 4x9x30/30, maybe I should at least do 4x6x30/20s? But what if I can’t do 4 sets of 30/20s? Maybe I’ll just do 2 sets of 30/20 and then 2 at 30/30… " and so I ended up with the jumble that you see 
And I agree with you that it seems likely that the coach is “trying to maximize your load within [my] constraints.” Makes sense to me. I’d love to see, as I mentioned, load be used as a secondary consideration for workouts that have intervals at Z5 and above. At that point it feels like stress, as Dr. Seiler defined it in the recent podcast, becomes the primary consideration.
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I will bring this up on our discussion with the team. Too much of a jump is against what we stand for. Thank you for bringing this up 
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