“Couch” to mountain race
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After a period of basically being inactive since my son was born a year ago, I’m signing up for the Cirque Series race at Alta for August of this year. It’s 7 miles with 2500′ of vert. I’ve never had the impulse to run a road marathon, but that kind of short, high elevation gain mountain running really appeals to me.
I would say I have a relatively low level of running fitness and experience; I’ve sporadically run every now and then in the past, but never really focused on it. For reference I just did a 4 mile zone 2 run on flat terrain at an average pace of 13:24 (elapsed pace…13:57). In some ways I have perhaps a little more hiking fitness as I’ve spent the last few years hiking steep trails in the Wasatch.
I would love some advice on how to structure my training week to give me the best chance of success at this kind of running event. I have access to plenty of elevation in the mountains near me, but I’m not sure how much I should be focusing on that vs. just generally improving my running on the flats. For instance, should I be doing a flat road run maybe once a week, and spend the rest of the time hiking? And what proportion of flat running vs elevation hiking/running should be done in Zone 2?
Hi MountAire,
Thanks for writing in.
I’ll almost literally throw you a manual on how to train rather than tell you exactly what to do here – Training for the Uphill Athlete. From the sounds of it, you will get a lot of use out of this book now and in the future. It has step-wise instructions on how to plan your volume and intensity for such events, plus will answer more of the inevitable questions.
Other point of advice, that trail race is steep enough and at high enough elevation that you will almost certainly be power hiking most of the uphill portions. I suggest focusing on both running and hiking modality in your training. Also, take very seriously the descending portion as that is a lot of concentric loading on legs otherwise not so accustomed to it. This is where the muscular endurance protocol (outlined in the book) is key to incorporate.
Happy training!
-Seth
I’ve run the cirque series and the races just over the mountain in Jackson Hole. in particular the 7 mile cirque race in Alta is a “mountain running style” i.e up then down. there are 4 things going on 1) uphill grind: you have nearly 5 miles to ascend 2500ft…aka not that steep. lots of people will be hiking, the fittest will run the whole thing 2) altitude 8500 – 11,000ft. if you are not acclimatized you really need to be careful not to dig an aerobic hole you can’t get out of( but if you’ve raced The Rut, Mammoth, Sky Peaks…its very similar) 3) run back down is steep, you are losing all the elevation in half the distance you climbed…upper section is technical , your quads will take a beating 4) high altitude sun and heat. do not under estimate how hot and dry it is up there…hydrate properly. my suggestion for your race: do a lot of hiking in preparation. practice understanding the line between sustainable running at 10% + gradient and when it makes sense to hike. there is no substitute for vert in your training. if you live near altitude, practice your pacing up high
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