[Nick M]

Hi all,

I’m well into my first sustained base building period in about a year following some interrupted training from injury and the arrival of Kid #2. As I continue to build volume, I was wondering how best to start incorporating speed work once a week into my base weeks. For some background, I’ve always been able to handle the uphill sprints prescribed in TFUA without any issues, and regularly incorporate sets of 20-ish second strides into my easy runs. My problem comes when I transition to more traditional intervals for Z4 or Z3 work, I almost invariably injure myself. I think this is partly due to my own lack of strength, and the fact that mostly these intervals were done in flat segments near my house in Philadelphia so they’re quite hard on my body.

A good, sustained strength program that started with PT and that I’ve transitioned into a max strength program is helping my legs feel more resilient than ever, but I’m still a little nervous about starting anything more intense.

I have the luxury of a long ramp-up to my B race (Marathon, 8000+ vert) and A Race (100K, 9000+ vert) in May and July respectively so no need to rush it. In general I’m not planning on doing any of these more than once a week during a standard 8-ish hour base week, and only once I’ve done a good block of hill sprints to get the power in my legs back. Here are a couple of approaches I’m thinking about:

1) Take this winter season and 2024 to rebuild my base after a much-interrupted 2023. So don’t sweat it! Continue to build my base and strength, do the hill sprints and my ME work, let the rest take care of itself.

2) After an appropriate amount of max-strength and hill sprint work, concentrate on a small number of Z4 efforts that are relatively short, and maximize rest in between. So 1 min or so, 2-3 min rest, make sure my HR recovers fully during each rest period, and slowly ramp up the number of reps per session so I know I can handle it.

3) Do a more standard number of reps of Z4 work, ie 4-6 to start with, with a more standard 1:1 work to rest ratio, but do them on an inclined treadmill to save the pounding. I.E. try to maximize the metabolic adaptations while keeping the impact on my legs pretty low. Again, move as slowly as needed during the rest periods to ensure HR recovery.

4) Same approach as option 3, but do more Z3 work on an uphill treadmill, again to save the pounding and the recovery cost while maximizing metabolic adaptations.

Curious what everyone thinks. Thanks!

Nick

[Scott Johnston]

Nick:

Welcome back to training. Let’s see if we can keep you from getting injured.  Add back hill sprints and strides 1x/week each. Include the gym ME program 1x/week for at last 10 weeks and longer if you have time.  Read the ME section of TftUA or the ME article on our site for more info.  That will increase the strength of your connective tissue as well as making your legs more fatigue resistant.  Both will help you with injury proofing.   would then integrate.  After the ME I would move to long sustained Z3 uphills.  This can be done on a treadmill (better on an incline trainer) or stair machine.  A marathon with 8k of vert will include a bunch of hiking.  Doing extensive Z4 on pavement unless you have a strong running background is asking for trouble.  You can do a much higher volume of Z3 work with less global fatigue and injury prevention.  And, it is more event specific for you.  If you do som e Z$ it should be uphill as well.  But I would do 10:1 Z3:Z4 volume for these races.

Scott

[Nick M]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for getting back to me, that sounds like a great plan. I’ve had a lot of success using the gym-based ME protocol for these types of races, and finally have room in my schedule to string together 10+ weeks of this kind of training before needing to do any Z3 work.

I’ll be sure to post an update or two to this thread in the spring as my training sharpens and I do the races just to report back on results.

Thanks again!

Nick

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