[Andrew Bollard]

You mention that you’re just finishing your transition period and that your objective is in September, so there’s really no rush to either 1) add ME or 2) add a load-bearing aerobic activity on the same day as ME. You still have all of May, June, July, and August to work with. Trail running has a very high impact on the legs, so if you’ve had a lot of DOMS from ME in the past then programming trail running on the same day as ME sounds like it could leave you really beat up in the following days. In any case, you’re just finishing the transition period and starting the base period, so ME should be further down the pipeline.

Gym-based ME is still ME, so it works best when you’ve maxed out your aerobic capacity and max strength for a given training block. Ideally, you would get your AeT to within 10% of your AnT before contemplating an ME program for best results.  You could program a 6-week block of max strength instead of 8 weeks, which is still long enough to see gains. Can you put some numbers on your current strength? E.g. are you deadlifting 2 times your bodyweight, squatting 1.5 times and benching bodyweight. My understanding of mountain hunting is that there can be a significant strength requirement depending on the size of the animal being hunted and carried out of there.

When you do eventually start ME and you want to incorporate some aerobic activity on the same day, could you program something lower impact like unweighted hiking, or even swimming or cycling? That’ll leave your legs fresher for the ME session, which is the “money workout”. I’m 4 weeks into an ME block myself, and I’ve incorporated 30 min cycles on most weekdays as I find them great active recovery. See this screenshot as an example: 

By programming ME mid-week and incorporating lots of active recovery, I can still do 3 aerobic capacity sessions, including long ones at the weekend, so that I maintain my aerobic base. The usual caveats apply that we all need to individualise our training to suit our circumstances, so don’t look at the above and take it as a rule to be followed. It’s just a practical example of what programming something the same day as ME could look like.