Base Z2 walk/run time increases, UA migration help, general befuddlement
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Hi Scott & all!
Just migrating here from Uphill Athlete’s Eiger North Face plan to Evoke’s 14 week ice/mixed. I’m primarily an alpine climber and have trips upcoming to Wyoming, Canadian Rockies, and Scotland. Approach/fast movement endurance is particularly important to me.
Question is this: the base period aerobic workouts each say to add 20% more time each time. The run times actually programmed into the Training Peaks schedule is:
- week 1: 30 min & 30 min (no increase)
- week 2: 30 min (no increase) & 50 min (66% increase)
- week 3: 45 min (10% decrease) & 1:05 (44% increase)
- etc.
None of them are actually 20% so I’m left a little confused. To complicate matters further, I’m also migrating into week 4 from my previous UA plan (so that I meet my objective timeline). On the UA plan my Z2 runs were about 1:20 or so.
So…am I to ignore the 20% increase language and just do what Training Peaks says. OR do I add 20% more minutes each time “Base” shows up as an event in my calendar? Or…is there some methodology to this I’m missing?
Sorry to be so nitpicky. I’m 52 years old and have found it’s fairly easy to injure myself (I had meniscus surgery 2 weeks ago) so I want to make sure I’m not messing this up. If I just do what Training Peaks tells me, I’d be dropping down to 45 minutes and 1:10 minutes next week. Otherwise, at 20% increase (over my UA work) I’d be doing 1:36 and 1:55 Z2 runs, which I’m ready for–but feeling like I’m “ready for” things is what got my injured last time.
Maybe this one needs some description tweaking to reduce befuddlement. (I’ve also put this into a coach consult question via the web form, so if that’s the best way to answer, that’s OK with me too.)
THANKS ALL! GLAD TO BE HERE!
Christian
Remember that any “stock” plan is a sort of one-size-fits-all, which often means it fits no one perfectly. This is especially true when it comes to aerobic volume. Due to injury concerns, we will always err on the side of caution. You should continue the aerobic training at the volume you are accustomed to.
Another thing to consider is that in most of our plans we do not use the Training Peaks workout builder. That’s because, for aerobic base runs, it seems rather like massive overkill to use workout builder. I mean, how hard is it to remember something like “run for 60 minutes at aerobic threshold, right? Now, if there is an internal session, then workout builder can be quite handy, especially if the work rest periods vary in duration.
In your case, since you are at a much higher running volume than this plan calls for, you should not increase your weekly volume by 20%/week The higher the running volume, the slower the volume progression must be. To avoid injury when you are already doing some 1:45 runs I suggest keeping the increase to more like 5-10%/week
I hope this helps.
ScottHey Christian,
Thanks for writing in – we really appreciate the participation and feedback…
I see the issue, and it’s a wording one. The 20% more time you are referring to: The plan meant to add 20% duration to the individual workouts’ planned duration based on the modality one chooses, not to week-to-week duration. So, for example, in week 1; Base workout with a planned duration of 30min, one would do 35min (..ok, technically 36min.) on trails/outdoors. Same logic goes for the base workout of week 2…week 7. The rational is outdoor tends* to be less sustained effort than indoor machines, thus a bit more duration is warranted.
Aside from the above, I reflect Scott’s comment as well – very few should be adding 20% more volume of running per week, and if so they should be very intentional about why and be able to handle that increase.
Hope this helps!
-Seth
*not always.
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