Scott Johnston
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Welcome to Evoke. Your story sounds like many we hear. It is hard to balance actual training and having a life. It sounds like you have done a good job figuring out what works for you. The Mike Foote plan is for serious runners with serious goals. But you can scale it down to fit the running schedule you indicated works for you. The gym ME progression is easier logistically for most people to manage than the steep weighted hikes, and we have had hundreds of rave reviews of that Gym ME. I have used it with many athletes, from world-class to recreational, with fantastic results. I would encourage you to try that out if you have not. even if it means reducing the running volume. The MF plan with the gym ME will be a good prep for that first group of climbs on your list. For the second group, I think you will want to shift to the weighted carries in the ME phase. But that can be done ver effectively on a stairmaster. So, easier logistically.
Scott
TP uses either your avg HR for 60min or 95% of your avg 20min HR. I suspect your race time was closer to 20min than 60 min. Notice that 175 is 95% of 183. If you recall our suggestion for an AnT field test is 45min. I think your confusion comes mainly from the short duration of the 5km. For most recreational runners, a 10km is going to be a more accurate test of AnT.
Scott
Sara:
I’ve never seen this occur before. You didn’t just eat a high-glycemic sugary snack like a candy bar before the test, did you? 🤦♂️ I thought not but figured I might ask because if you had very high blood glucose levels, metabolism in all your cells will be disposed to shift to using that glucose for fuel because glycolytic metabolism, even “aerobic glycolysis,” uses less oxygen than the breakdown of fats for energy.
From what you say, when you started exercising, your fat/carbs ratio improved and began to look more normal. That’s good news. But if I were you, I would monitor your RMR or even blood glucose levels. I have no affiliation with this company, but I do know some athletes that use this device for monitoring RMR, It s not cheap, but probably cheaper than a few trips to the lab.
I hope this helps.
Scott
Eddie:
It was Vern Gambetta whose name I couldn’t recall during the book club talk. He has been the S&C coach for many pro sports teams as well as running and swimming teams.
I’ll check out Cal Dietz’s work and get back to you here.
Scott
Alex:
It looks like you did the test correctly and did the calculation right as well 148/141 give s a drift of 5%. So your starting HR of 135 is your AeT and the top of Z2.
There are a lot of variations of the run/walk progression and you will need to determine the ratio or running time to walking time as you move through this. When you can run longer than 2 minutes without having your HR spike above 135 then you can extend the run time. When your HR drips below 135 in less than 2 minutes you can shorten the walking time. The rate of progress will largely be determined but your run/walk volume and your genetics and age. Be patient. It will improve and in a few months you will be a different runner and in a year you will be running 10-20% faster at AeT than when you started. It does work. For more information on the drift test please refer to the following article.
Scott
Updated Thinking on Aerobic Assessment for Mountain Athletes
Great question! It’s hard to keep in the HR zone 2 when you’re trying to stay close to the top of it. Short bumps up into Z3 during your aerobic base runs will not have a negative effect on the aerobic base you are building. I’m glad you are seeing gains. Don’t lose sleep over this. Now if you spent a continuous 15-30min in Z3 that’d probably have some negative effect. From the sounds of your note it sounds to me like you’re doing this very well. Keep it up and retest your AeT after 6-8 weeks and see if your AeT hasn’t moved up 5-10 bpm as well as your pace.
Scott
Thanks for writing in with your questions. Sorry for the slow reply. I have too many plates spinning right now. Great questions and you have hit on real challenges most of us face when we are trying to fit training around “life”.
I like option 1 the best. Keeping the strength/power and later ME on one day makes sense as it will allow more time on other days to keep the aerobic volume up and or to have some recovery sessions or a day off. I have used this often myself. Strength/power in the AM followed by ME in the PM. The AM session seems to wake up the legs nicely and I’ve not felt much lingering fatigue when hitting the ME session later.
Not a big fan of skipping the day off so ditch option 2.
Stacking back to back workouts like in option three can be done but if at all possible do the strength before the endurance.
I hope this helps and good luck with the training.
@Josh: That sort of stacking of power followed by max strength is a good combo. Smart move.Scott
Kolini
Dada is correct that running will be best but cycling can help you add non-impact volume when your legs are beat. There are central (cardiac) adaptations that occur with high volume aerobic work that will help increase cardiac stroke volume even though cycling won’t benefit the peripheral muscle adaptations much.
Scott
You bring up some very good points. As you point out; there is no simple answer.
For good measure you could toss in the intensity at which blood lactate has its first appreciable rise (or rises by 1mMol/L according to some sources).
There is even a newer method of defining this point using HRV. I’m not familiar with this but as I recall: By noting when HRV decreases by, I think 25% this corresponds closely to the gas exchange test for VT1.
The physiology definition of VT1 (first ventilatory threshold which many would call the aerobic threshold) is the intensity at which the rate of ventilation (volume of air inhaled and exhaled in a minute) increases fasted than than the rate oxygen is extracted by your muscles (VO2). Up to that intensity these two markers increase in lock step. Beyond that the ventilation increases faster than the O2 extraction. This point is hard to find without a gas exchange yes in a lab. Ventilatory markers of conversation and nose breathing only roughly correspond to it and vary quite a bit from person to person.
Your observation that nose breathing and conversational breathing paces vary a good deal from day to day is consistent with what I have said for years. It depends on your recovery status and your training modality.
I can’t say much more definitively except that we have seen pretty good agreement between the gas exchange test and the HR drift test. Beter than the perceived ventilation markers of nose breathing and conversational pace.
Scott
There’s no reason you can’t do this type of workout using a Hypoxico generator. I recommend you start with unweighted box steps though. We often use Hypoxic training on steep treadmills. You might want to read this article for more thoughts on this type of work.
Scott
Willem:
Thanks for your question and I apologize for my slow reply. walking backwards uphill is actually a clever idea, although I’m not sure if carrying the pack on front or back really makes much difference. But, hey I’ve not done it and it sounds like you might have played around with it.
We do use backward walking on inclined treadmills and dragging sleds to strengthen the VMO (vastus medialis oblique) muscle. That’s the teardrop shaped muscle just above your knee on the inside of your thigh. It gets heavily involved in descending when you knee goes out over your toes. To train it you do need to step well back (uphill) so that the toe of the upper foot is behind the downhill foot and the knee has a significant bend in it.
Descending scree is always going to be tough due to the instability and balance issues and I don’t think this backwards walking should be tried on scree. I think you will end up falling a lot. 🤦♂️
I hope this helps.
ScottBalfer:
Sorry to be so slow responding. I thought I responded, but it looks like my reply didn’t post. So here goes:
First, do not rely on your AW to give you any meaningful estimate of your VO2max. Besides, what you are exercising for is to improve your aerobic performance, not to move a needle on a measurement that is a proxy for performance.
Your early lactate numbers are not outrageous, but they do indicate someone with what we call aerobic deficiency. While it could be related to metabolic efficiency at 130-135, another contributing factor for the lactate dropping after 90 minutes is that you began to deplete muscle and liver glycogen stores, and your metabolism was forced to switch to more fat for fuel. Muscle glycogen depletion is one of the most powerful signals to your genes to make beneficial aerobic adaptations.
I would recommend you do a HR drift test as described here.
We have used that test to establish the upper limit of zone 2 with literally thousands of athletes, and it correlates very well with lab gas exchange tests.
As for what to do next:
Do the HR drift test to set the top of Z2. Do all your endurance training below that HR value. Drop the VO2 max workouts. They are slowing your aerobic adaptation. High-intensity training with a large accumulation of lactate and the concomitant hydrogen ions H+ down-regulates the gene expression for the aerobic adaptations you are looking for. There is a time and place for high-intensity training, and it does have a beneficial effect on cardiac stroke volume, but your limitation is peripheral (muscular metabolism), not central (cardiac output), and you need to focus on the low-hanging fruit. You might want to read this article .
If you choose not to do that, I would continue what you are doing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the way you know your training is working is by measuring performance, not a performance metric. Do a time trial at 115 or what ever HR you choose. Train using that upper limit and repeat the time trial in 4 weeks. That is usually long enough to see measurable progress.
You may also find this book a useful resource.
I hope this helps.
ScottAlex:
With the long time frame you are working with, you certainly can extend the 24-week plan. As for how much you can increase the volume of the endurance sessions, I’m afraid I can’t offer a blanket prescription. It depends on how well you’ve been handling the volume you’ve been doing. It is entirely likely that the plan, as written, is too light of a load for you. We consider the plan to be the minimum that we recommend a person be able to handle before tackling a big mountain objective. I’d suggest making small changes and seeing how you respond after a couple of weeks. A jump of 50% is too much for me to feel comfortable recommending to anyone.
With as much time as you have, I would recommend at least one 8-week block of max strength training followed by an 8-12 week block of ME. See if you do not see bigger gains by becoming stronger before doing the ME and hence get more out of it. That’s been our experience.
Scott
Thanks for writing in with your questions. You may want to listen to the book club recording I just did last night on Chapter 6 of TftUA on Strength. We should have it uploaded to YT very soon. You can find it here.
In the meantime, here are my thoughts on your questions:
Hill sprints, as you might recall from pages 179-183, are very short near maximal efforts.
The outside muscular endurance workouts are long-duration sub-maximal efforts.
They can be used concurrently (in the same week) during your training. I’ll be going into more detail on how to implement these modalities in the next book club meeting in late September.
As a rule, general strength comes earlier in the training cycle than hill sprints if one is deficient in general strength. At some point, you’ll replace the general strength with the hill sprints.
I hope this helps,
Scottmhsc: Thanks for writing in with your questions. Trail/mountain running is an ideal way to build that aerobic base. I have personally coached some of the fastest mountaineers and alpinists in the world, and all of them used running as their primary modality for aerobic base training. You might want to read this article https://evokeendurance.com/our-training-philosophy-put-to-a-test-by-elite-alpinists/.
A mix of running and hiking will do the job, and if you are new to running, you will need to be very gradual in your approach to adding volume. You may be aerobically fit right now, but the connective tissues in your legs are not strong enough yet to handle the repetitive pounding that running imposes on them. Run on soft surfaces (treadmills are excellent for this if you don’t have dirt access easily). It is hard to give you a blanket recommendation without knowing much more about you. But here is a conservative approach: Start with no more than three days of running/week and no more than 30 minutes at a stretch. Do this for four weeks before considering increasing volume. If all goes well, you can start by adding 10% to each run. I know this sounds like a crazy, slow process. The single biggest reason people stop running is lower leg soft tissue injury from overuse. Most people become impatient and ramp up too fast.
This ‘break’ would be a good time to also focus on building strength for the pack carries. Box step-ups and downs in a gym with a barbell using the max strength protocol from your 24-week plan will do a good job of building that specific strength. This will establish a good foundation of strength for when you shift to more event-specific muscular endurance training.
I hope this helps.
Scott
