[Brandon MacMullin]

Just purchased the first ultra training plan and planning my workouts.

The issue I’m seeing is the vertical guidance (300 to 500 feet per mile) for the weekly aerobic hill run will not result in much horizontal mileage if I stick with the prescribed workout duration. For context, my favorite training hike is 6 miles with 3500 feet of elevation gain and takes me about 3-4 hours to complete depending on conditions.

My question is should I follow the workout duration and vertical guidance and not worry about horizontal mileage?

Or focus on workout duration and horizontal mileage and worry less about the vertical?

I am new to ultra running and the maximum distance that I can currently run on a relatively flat trail is 10 miles. My goal trail run is 32 miles with 8400 feet of elevation gain.

Thanks in advance.

[Krizz]

I am no expert, but can tell you what I do. I keep it simple by following the plan’s duration and intensity guidelines, then in my longruns I try to get as much gain per kilometer as my goal race. Sometimes that means going slightly into Z3 on uphills or dipping slightly into Z1 on downhills, but generally I aim to stay in top half of Z2 for the most part.

Looking at your goal race of 8400ft/32miles = 263ft/mi — so your training plan’s requirement of 300-500ft/mi is more than the requirement. I would prefer to run the long run of the week on similar trails and with similar elevation gain to the goal event (also carrying all mandatory race kit, it makes a difference!).

[Scott Johnston]

Brandon:

I think Krizz has given you some good advice.  With mountain running we can just track distance.  10km with 1ooom elevation gain and loss is going to take several times longer than 10m with 300m elevation gain/loss.  It is best to distance and vertical. Use the time as a rough guideline.

I assume the 8400ft is gain and loss so you will end up where you started? If so the average grade is 10 32miles=169,000ft.  8400/169000= 5% but that is just if you only go uphill the whole way. If you go up 8400 and down 8400 the grade will have to be twice that 5%.  I would focus on the vertical requirement and let the distance fall where it may.

Scott

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