I'm not yet retired, although I am able to at any time. I had switched over to having bonds in my portfolio (VAB) a couple of years ago from 100% stocks, but then COVID hit and Apple (a company I follow fairly closely) dropped down to what seemed to me to be silly-low levels. I sold the bonds and bought Apple, for which I was handsomely rewarded only a few months later. I then sold Apple (and a bit of Tesla), and rolled that money back into bonds. I thought it was as close to a guaranteed investment as I've ever seen, but I expected it to take longer to play out.
My eventual retirement (in 2.5 years, most likely) will consist of a period of 10 years which I'll need to finance from investments alone. Then, I'll be eligible for my pension(s), so most of my income will be stable and adjusted for inflation. It was important to me to have strong stability for those 10 years, to protect against SOR and sudden drops, etc, so I wanted the core money required to get through those 10 years to be in cash and bonds. Between my current holdings, and projected dividends (mostly from very stable blue chips), I have 8-ish years of base income in cash and bonds. I'll probably try and optimize the amount of income I can have during those 10 years by setting an investment value floor, i.e. I want to have a minimum nest egg amount to top up my pensions with when they start paying out, but there's really no point in holding onto more than that for tax reasons (and OAS clawbacks).
It's a very simplistic model, but it works for me. I'm using my extra cushion to sleep comfortably knowing I don't have to plan or pay any real attention to any major market drops for the next decade at least.
In 2008, I wasn't anywhere near than level, and it was gut-wrenching watching my portfolio drop like a stone, and thinking of the extra years of working I'd have to do. Luckily, I was armed with the knowledge that the best thing for me to do was to do nothing except stop paying attention, so I came out the other end just fine, and no extra years were actually added after all. I don't want to experience those emotions again though.