[Andy Reed]

A couple of thoughts on this one. My advice for this particular event would be to gradually increase your easy volume over adding in an extra ME workout. It appears that you have some strength training already programmed into your training, and the Bryce 50 isn’t going to have a ton of vertical (I’ve run the 100 mile edition). There is a fairly substantial long and relatively flat section here, and I think in terms of specificity, more Z1/2 would be the best bang for your buck, as it is for almost all ultra events. If you can get in 3 or 4 downhill training sessions in the final 6 weeks, that should get your quads ready for the downhills. You don’t need a lot of this downhill stimulus however, and remember it does risk injury, so don’t go crazy – try to mimic your race pace and overall grade if possible. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

[Andy Reed]

Something I have found very useful for some athletes is monitoring HRV – the app HRV4training is the best. A few good studies have looked at HRV guided training, and anecdotally I have used this myself. I use HRV as ‘one last final check’ – a green light if you like, before going hard. Once a good baseline HRV reading has been achieved (several months is ideal) you can then use HRV with decision making. If you’re feeling good, and the effort is easy, as in the above scenario, AND the HRV is good, then I believe that is an IDEAL time to add in some intensity, whereas if the HRV is a bit off, I would tend to hold back. I would certainly not let HRV guide all of my training, but it’s a good confirmation that all systems are go!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31490431/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26909534/

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