[Scott Johnston]

I think you might want to consider planning for a race in the fall rather than in the spring. With illness being much more prevalent in the winter, this would at least give you a chance to have a clear runway with health up to your race date.

I don’t really see how you can mitigate the effects of missing 3 to 4 weeks of training four weeks out from your race I don’t think there’s any special training that could offset the loss to aerobic fitness that occurs with that long of a layoff.

I hope this helps.

Scott

 

 

[Scott Johnston]

Felix:

Thanks for writing in with your question.  The gym ME program will make your legs stronger for the uphills, but where this program really pays off is in preparing people for downhill running.  The eccentric loading in the jumping exercises helps build fatigue resistance in your legs.  Walking lunges are a great exercise for glutes and hamstrings, which will help you.  However, the gym ME does include lunges done in a more dynamic way.  with as much vertical as you have in that race, where you will be hiking steeply for much of it, I would add weighted uphill ME work as well.  If you do not have access to steep hills, you can use a stair machine in a gym to very good effect for this and for high volume unweighted aerobic volume.  Evoke coach Jack Kuenzle trains a lot this way on stair machines and holds many mountain fastest known times.

I hope this helps.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

It depends…..Stair machines like the Stairmaster (escalator type) are great aerobic base training, and especially if you run hills a lot, the stairs will transfer over well to uphill running.  They probably won’t make you faster on the flats though.  But they are a great way to add non-impact foot-borne aerobic training volume.   More aerobic base training volume in a modality this close to running will help improve aerobic capacity.  Don’t expect it to make you much faster as a runner except uphill.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Mike:

Regarding the race’s final weeks, there are several different directions the training can take, and their relative value is open for debate.  In this case, there is no “right” answer.

The purpose of the longer sprints is to keep the ME stimulus going a bit longer in a more running-specific modality than the gym.  As you probably noticed, that plan was written by Mike Foote.  He felt this was a useful training stimulus to put the finishing touches on power and muscular endurance.  I have used it with runners myself, although it is not my preferred method.

I recommend rolling from the ME block to longer, more aerobic uphill Z3 running.  This also helps keep the ME stimulus going in a more running-specific modality but at an intensity that is more similar to the demands of these races.

If you choose that second method, I would keep the 10-second sprints but move them to 1x/10 days, giving you more time to add Z3 runs.

As with many training questions, there is no right or wrong, and you need to experiment with what works for you.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Ty:

Great question!  On the days you are feeling really good, push the HR and speed up into the upper Z2 range. Those days may take a bit longer to recover from due to that mechanical load you are referring to, so don’t push this effort if you are tired.  On most days, stay in the lower half of Z2.  On those days when you can tell you’re tired, drop down into Z1 or shift to a non weight bearing modality like cycling.

I hope that helps.
Scott

 

 

[Scott Johnston]

Ski Erg endurance training will help mountain runners who use poles. It can also act as recovery when your legs are hammered.  If using it for recovery sit on a stool.

Scott

 

[Scott Johnston]

Thanks for your critique of the Zone 2 article.

However, you must understand I am not attempting to, nor am I qualified to, present an entire course on the metabolism of exercise in one article written for lay people.  You are correct that there is much, much more to say about the biochemistry of metabolism as it relates to endurance performance. But where does one draw the line in detail? How far down the rabbit hole does one go before they lose the audience?  Is it necessary to be able to explain every step of the electron transport chain to have a general idea of the function of  mitochondria?  How important are these details to the athlete or coach?

The audience I am addressing is largely not well versed in exercise physiology (nor am I).  I am attempting to make accessible some of the more important points related to endurance training without going too deeply into the physiology.  As I have mentioned in many places, we create models for complex systems to help us grasp them.  A model I am using,  the vacuum cleaner, is of course not physiologically 100% correct but it helps people understand that lactate can be moved to other tissues where it can be used as fuel for metabolism.  In my mind that’s the important point that when I first wrote about this many, many years ago, was not even mentioned in training literature.  I had to dig deep into the science literature to figure it out.  Of course the heart has a great affinity for lactate as a fuel.  And of course the Cori (gluconeogensis) cycle in the liver is another place where lactate can be converted to a more usable form.  But are those trainable?  Not that I know of. Whereas the lactate shuttle and the aerobic capacity of  ST muscles are extremely trainable and directly related to performance.  Does the understanding of the heart muscle and the Cori cycle in the liver help improve performance?  Or does it mainly interest the physiologist?

I could  have explained that the enzyme Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) has two isoforms. The isoform present in Fast Twitch muscle fibers converts pyruvic acid into lactic acid while isoform of LDH in Slow Twitch muscles converts lactic acid to pyruvic acid.  But the vacuum analogy gets the same message across in a simpler fashion.  I also didn’t discuss the transport proteins MCT1 and MCT4 responsible for the lactate shuttle. The vacuum cleaner analogy encompasses all this in one simple image that most people seem to be able to grasp easily.

As for the CP omission: I make no excuse for that. I also don’t discuss protein as a fuel for a similar reason.  For events lasting many hours the contribution to the total energy supply from CP is minuscule. Yes, I understand that in intermittent high intensity exercise there may be some aerobic adaptations that will help restore CP stores more rapidly.  But aerobically generated ATP is going to supply  99.999% of the energy for long duration exercise.  It is pretty basic: I want to help people improve their ATP recycling ability because that’s what going to propel them in long duration events.

Lastly regarding oxygen delivery vs extraction:  You might want to read https://evokeendurance.com/understanding-max-vo2/

The reason I emphasize the extraction end of the oxygen transport is that this is the area where we can have the most impact with training athletes.  A conservative estimate would put 90% of the people who come to us for coaching and training advice in the “Aerobically Deficient” category. This article might interest you https://evokeendurance.com/aerobic-deficiency-syndrome-ads/ . Those with ADS have poorly functioning aerobic metabolisms in the propelling muscles. The only fix for that is a high volume of Z2 training. With the thousands of athletes with ADS we have dealt with over the years we typically see 20-30% performance gains (measured as running speed at aerobic threshold) just with Z2 training over the course of a few months. These sorts of gains by focusing on the delivery side are just not possible. In the process of curing their ADS there will of course be cardiac adaptations in response to the high volume of low intensity training that will result in a stroke volume increase.  Whereas a focus on improving stroke volume (oxygen delivery) would normally entail a low volume of high intensity training that would only exacerbate their ADS.

As you probably know, stroke volume is a first wave response to exercise that peaks relatively early in those new to training. Children being the most trainable in this regard and adults the least trainable.  It is unusual to move the VO2 needle much in adults with a significant training history.  IN some cases elites will show a decline in VO2max while increasing performance.

It is our mission here at Evoke to provide the most actionable information to the mountain endurance athlete community to help them improve their performance.  To do this does means some oversimplifications in our explanations.  But we’ve been using these methods for over 30 years with everyone for Olympians to rank beginners with excellent results.

 

[Scott Johnston]

Josh:

You are not alone in getting very sore from the ME workouts.  I suspect that in the past 16 years of endurance training you had a lot of muscle fiber type shift to more ST from FT. That is a well documented phenomenon.  The ME makes people sore due to the eccentric loading in the jumping exercises.  To mitigate the soreness: Do fewer sets,  jump less dynamically and do not add extra weight.  You can still make good gains with a less aggressive approach.  Hopefully even with the soreness you have seen some performance gains on your easy runs.

As for the hill sprints:  I’ve not heard of people getting sore for those. It might be that these too need to be dialed back in intensity to allow you more time to adapt.

Soreness from the ME and soreness from the Hill Sprints might be carrying over from one of these workouts to the other and causing you not to adapt.  Don’t blindly follow the plan (or any plan).  Adjust it according to how you respond to it.  That Big Vert plan was one of our best selling plans at UA and we got a great deal of very positive feedback about its effectiveness.  We coach using those same principles. So we know the principles work. But, if you are not seeing gains or failing to adapt you need to be willing to adjust to make it work for you.  The first place to start is to dial back on the intensity of these 2 workouts so you are not so sore.

I hope this helps,

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

I’m sorry to hear of Bjorn’s experience. Overtraining is something you don’t want to wish on anyone but your worst enemy.  But I have seen some very high level cycling coaches recommend a drift test for determining AeT.

Bjorn makes a very good point in that the muscle loading in cycling is VERY different from running.  If you try to cycle at your running AeT your legs are going to be the limiter very quickly unless you are well trained as a cyclist too.  That’s because cycling isolates a much smaller muscle mass than running does.  Many runners who end up using cycling for recovery or to get them through an injury will feel like cycling at their running AeT HR is like an ME workout for their quads.  This may have been what happened to Bjorn. I’ve seen it happen before to others.

At the very least do a 1 hour HR drift test on the bike and see what you get for a AeT.  Then be sure that in your easy riding you do not feel like your legs are blowing up.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Ahhhh:  The age old question of whether to measure training load by distance or time.  There is no “correct” answer.  This same problem arrises when you run on variable terrain.  A 1 hour run that gains and looses 2000ft is not going to cover nearly as much distance as one that gains and looses 300ft.  That is why most mountain athletes use time/duration and time.  By using Training Peaks TSS and the altitude fudge factor to adjust TSS for vertical gain and loss you end up with a training load that is comparing apples to apples (or at lest coming very close).

hrTSS (heart rate based Training Stress Score) on flats for an hour at AeT will normally be 60.

Add 10TSS for each 1000ft/300m gain and loss in the workout

Add 10TSS for every 10% of body weight you are carrying for that workout.

This way you are calculating the training load or training stress of the workout and you can compare running flat, running hills, hiking or ski touring.

I hope this helps.

scott

[Scott Johnston]

Tom Evans uses the sled push/pull for both pure power as in replacing hill sprints as Josh is suggesting or in a ME protocol of 30sec-1min on with short rests for 9-10 min.  We often do these facing backwards so the VMO muscle gets hit extra hard.  This is great for improving down hill running strength.

Tempo is an admittedly vague term that is used often in running training.  I think of it as the top of Z2 to lower Z3 range of HR. We often prescribe this by lactate and target in the range of 2-3mMol/L.

I hope this helps,

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Chet:

Most of the same guidelines apply for older adults as younger ones.  Don’t do so much volume at high intensity or such high intensity that you are forced to decrease your aerobic base training by more than 5-10%.    Rest as long as you need so that you can complete the desired training.  If you are doing these in Z3 the rest time even after a 10min effort should be not more than a couple of minutes.  If you need longer you probably went too hard. If up into Z4 then roughly equal rest to work.   Active rest will always be better than stopping completely.  There are no formulas for this. If you don’t see in improvement in performance week on week of this sort of training, you might be doing too much or going too hard in these sessions or going too hard in your easy days.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Grant;

The meeting did take place in which we discussed the attendees specific programming questions. Unfortunately the recording got all messed and we could not post it.

Sorry,

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

jt:

Thanks for the question.  You will not get stronger, relative to your friends who are doing more high intensity hills than you by staying in Z1-2 on the uphills.  That intensity is for building aerobic base capacity which is the MOST important step in developing endurance.  But at some point you will need to add some uphill intensity to get stronger/faster and with more endurance going uphill.  The FT fibers needed for strong uphill running are not being recruited in your current easy uphill running.  There is nothing wrong with that but with a 5omiler coming up it is time to add uphill intensity.

I would suggest long Z3 reps rather than Z4.  Both have positive training effect but the Z3 work will be much more event specific to your 50miler speeds than will Z4 intensity.  You will also be able to handle a much higher volume of uphill Z3 running than uphill Z4 running.

It sounds like you’ve been doing a bit of Z4 hill work which will set you up well for this Z3 stuff.  I’d start with something like 3x10min on uphill terrain that mimics some of the steeper grades in your race.   I can’t tell you exactly what to do because I don’t know enough about your history but since you are relatively new to running I’d ease into this with 1-2 session a week.  If the first week goes well bump that to 2×15 the next week.  You won’t have time for more than a couple of weeks of this stuff before you need to start tapering.  If the intensity is correct you should be fine with short recovery between reps of 1-3 min.  If that’s too short you are probably going too hard.

The fact that on your flatter runs you are in Z1 and your buddies are in Z2 bodes well for your ability to handle the 50 miler. None of them will be sprinting up the hills  in that race. Minimally touching Z3 in that race will be your best strategy so you have some gas left for the last 10miles.

I hope that helps.
Scott

[Scott Johnston]

That uphill test can be done with our without a pack.  Of course the results (with and without) will probably quite different in terms of HR and speed. Whether you choose to wear a weighted pack is up to you.   A weighted pack AnT test would be useful for comparing with a AeT on similar terrain without weight so you can see the spread between AeT and AnT.

An uphill AnT test, especially if it is steep (>10%), will probably not be helpful in establishing an AnT HR to compare with a flat running AeT test.  The modalities are enough different that about 50% of the people will have very different uphill AnT and flat running AnT.

If much of your running is on the flat I would recommend doing the AnT test running on the flat.

If you are training for mountaineering, flat running is a good way to accumulate a goof volume of aerobic base training but you should definitely include a significant volume of vertical each week using natural terrain or gym machines.

I hope this helps,

Scott

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