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Trail Running Series: Base Training to Course Specialization
15.1k Plays1 year ago
Director of Coaching Chantelle Robataille and coach Alyssa Clark are back in the second episode of the trail running series. They discuss the basics of training for trail running including aerobic base building, metabolic efficiency, and proper training progression.
They move into discussing and debunking common myths in training for ultras. Chantelle and Alyssa wrap up with advice on specializing your training to fit your race profile and strategies. Join the two for a lively discussion of all things trail running!
Visit us at www.uphillathlete.com, email us at [email protected] or see us on instagram @uphill_athlete
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Transcript
Introduction to Uphill Athlete Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. Our mission is to elevate and inspire all mountain athletes through education celebration. My name is Alyssa Clark and I will be your host
Guest Introduction: Chantal Robitai
00:00:11
Speaker
today. We are joined by return guest, our director of coaching, Chantal Robitai.
00:00:25
Speaker
Chantel is going to help us unpack the basics of training for trail runs.
Trail Running Basics & Preparation
00:00:30
Speaker
We will then tackle how a runner specializes to their training, depending on what type of race they're doing and considerations they should make for different races. Chantel, it's awesome to have you. Hey Alyssa, great to see you. Great to see you too.
Chantal's Trail Running Journey
00:00:44
Speaker
So I know.
00:00:46
Speaker
We've talked about your background in getting into coaching, but I know you're also an avid trail runner. So I'd love to hear how you got into trail running and racing.
00:00:57
Speaker
Kind of by accident. I was really into adventure racing, and I moved to Switzerland at some point. When was it? 2008? Something like that. And I didn't have a team to run with anymore, so I just was running around on the trails.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I had a really awesome coworker who also liked trail running, so I would join him sometimes. And he was doing the first year that I made this friend, he was running TDS.
00:01:33
Speaker
by default because he had applied for CCC, got rejected. In those days, they would say like, TDS was like the ugly stepsister or something. Nobody would- Yeah, it still kind of is and it drives me insane. It's the best course of the series, but I digress. He was doing a TDS and he was like, oh, do you want to come and
00:01:56
Speaker
support me on the course. I'm like, yeah, that would be cool. And then I learned about this whole other world sort of by accident, by default, being there and then decided to challenge myself with a couple of trail races myself because there are a lot of great ones in Switzerland. And then it just sort of grew from there. Yeah, just kind of by accident. It's awesome.
00:02:20
Speaker
That is the best place to get started. Wow, it does not get much better than that. And yeah, it's crazy how over there it's just so much a part of the culture.
US vs Swiss Sports Approaches
00:02:30
Speaker
It's just like what you do in especially they tend to be I feel like a bit more invested in seasons than we are over here where they're like, Oh, yes, now it's a ski touring season or schema racing.
00:02:42
Speaker
Now it is trail running. Here's some alpinism thrown in there, whereas we, I think, tend to be much more monofocus of like, I'm a trail runner. That's what I do. Yeah, that was totally different. It wasn't weird that someone would want to do other stuff too.
00:02:58
Speaker
You know, everyone I knew that, you know, as I met more trail runners, like everyone else was also skiing. And a lot of those people were also doing a lot of, there was like a big trend for a while that like a lot of like hardcore mountaineers and even mountain guides, like their summer sport would be trail running. But if they were too beaten up for that, then they were road bike, they were road bikers and they were like smashing, you know, five mountain passes in a weekend or something. So
00:03:24
Speaker
It wasn't like it wasn't weird to be doing different things, whereas you're absolutely right. Like now that I'm in the US, it feels like maybe there are people that do a lot of different things. But yeah, it was a little bit more siloed here, like in terms of like being a.
00:03:39
Speaker
a trail runner or you were a skier and just living for that season. I don't know. I like seasons and maybe I'm not afraid to suck at new things, so I like to just mix it up and do as many cool things as I can for what's around me. Oh, I totally agree.
00:03:59
Speaker
I tend to get, especially the racing season has now become the entire year. And so I think it's really easy to get caught up until like, Oh, I've got a race. I've got to stay in running season. And if you look at, I mean, Killian, for example, he is a jack of all trades. I mean, doesn't even identify as a, a trail runner, which just cracks me up.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, he just he's a mountain athlete. And so I think that's awesome. Anyway, if we've we've gone on about that, but I think this is important.
Building an Aerobic Base for Trail Runners
00:04:31
Speaker
Let's start off with the basics, though, if we're looking at training, what does aerobic base building look like for trail runners? Because it does look a bit different than Mountaineers, but the same principles apply. So if you want to kick us off on on that, that would be awesome.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's the most important thing to think about is that the basics still apply. And particularly when we are thinking about like, I feel like these trends tend to happen a little differently in different places, right? Where now we see in a lot of even American mountain towns that you have a lot of people that are going to be doing, probably thanks to Killian, you know, getting excited about doing some uphill skiing and some, you know, skimo or maybe even racing a little bit of skimo over the winter and then transitioning back to trail running.
00:05:19
Speaker
So, you know, it's that maybe is changing a little bit. But regardless of the sport that you're doing, you know, base building in pretty much everything, anything you do is going to be important. And so you know, we have like we have different ways of moving around and you know, we've got like
00:05:39
Speaker
And then there's different ways of training. And typically, you know, our training on the whole looks like, you know, we can do our, our, our favorite hashtag, Alyssa hashtag on sexy basics. Your, your basics really are, you know, 80% of your training is going to look pretty easy and comfortable and 20% of it is going to look harder and a little bit less comfortable. Um, and then like, maybe, maybe there's like a tiny bit that's like really uncomfortable, but for the most part, that's how it's going to look.
00:06:10
Speaker
And so when we think about like aerobic base, think about anything that is like a base, that means that there's going to be stuff layered on top of it, right? So you want to maintain, you want to either you're thinking about no one really wants to maintain their fitness, but you're going to want to maintain a certain amount of aerobic fitness, even if you are switching to other things that you're doing in other seasons, even if it's a little bit more couchsurfing, you're still going to want to maintain some level so that you're not just
00:06:26
Speaker
Thanks for watching!
00:06:39
Speaker
starting from zero every time you get panicked, you know, if you live somewhere where it's snowy, you get panicked when the snow starts to melt because you haven't been running. And if you have been keeping a certain aerobic base over the winter months, which isn't all that hard to do, then there isn't a need to panic, right?
00:06:59
Speaker
take off the skis and go for a run, and it might feel a little bit weird, but you're going to be fine. You're going to be able to breathe and feel happy about how you're going about it. But the main thing is to
00:07:11
Speaker
maintain a good aerobic base. It does mean running for what some people think is boring and slow. But I like to think of it as enjoying the scenery. You're taking your time and you're not exhausting yourself and it's that awesome feeling of like, I could go forever. And that's what your aerobic runs should feel like. And if you're doing that for
00:07:34
Speaker
six hours a week, that is actually kind of maintaining a base. And so then when you want to build onto that and you're getting a little bit, now you've signed up for your first race and it's, hopefully you're not thinking about this when it's three weeks away, but you're thinking about this when it's like maybe 15 to 20 weeks away, you're going to want to think about like, okay, so I'm here now running
00:07:58
Speaker
you know, moving around six hours a week. And I'm going to change that from whatever modality to running if you are changing modalities. And I'm going to want to get to race day. What does it look like from to get from here to there? Typically, you're going to want to start with building that aerobic base a little bit more. So rather than being able to run comfortably at about six hours a week, you're going to want to extend that a little bit, probably more like eight to 10 hours a week.
00:08:27
Speaker
and making sure that that is really comfortable before thinking about messing around with anything else.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
Transitioning from Skiing to Running
00:08:36
Speaker
I think the only thing I would add, if you are coming off of a ski season or another type of exercises that ligament and tendon, like those need to be strengthened. So you do have to be a little bit careful of jumping into the running and making sure that you aren't moving too fast into that, um, to make sure that those can catch up because running is so, um, load bearing and kind of.
00:09:01
Speaker
fatiguing just in terms of the pounding. Yeah, good point. And easing into it can look very different. Exactly. It could mean if you're used to already doing six hours of something, it may be not mean you're going to switch from that to six hours of running. So you're going to be doing maybe six hours of an aerobic-based activity. Maybe you start off with
00:09:25
Speaker
just increasing your running days per week. So maybe you start off and you are going to run maybe three days a week and you do something else that has a little more lower impact on the other days of the week. And then you're going to move that up to four days a week and then you're going to move that up to five days a week. And you might stay there five days a week.
00:09:44
Speaker
Running for the rest of your season and that's totally fine but you want to definitely check in on how you're feeling and you may also have to and don't feel bad about it but you might have to do some walking which you know is it very important ultra running skill anyway.
00:10:00
Speaker
So you might be starting off with like running 10 minutes and walking one, or you might start off with like running when it's more or less flat and you're going to, you know, walk or hike when it gets to be a hill. And again, you need to do that anyway in an ultra running race because most people are not killing internet and they're not running the whole thing. Most of us are mere mortals. I think even he walks them. I don't think he runs everybody. Yeah, he does walk them. He does walk them. Yeah, so I think that that
00:10:30
Speaker
leads us really well into the next point which is, and we're seeing this a ton coming out about zone two trading and zone two articles.
Zone Training in Ultra Races
00:10:41
Speaker
What does that look like for a runner in a mountain mountainous area? I mean, I can just answer part of it already is like, I have so many runners that I have to remind where they're like, Oh my gosh, I was out of zone two this entire run. I'm like, well, you can walk like walking is great. Please walk. Please practice that. Uh, so yeah, I mean, what does it look like? How do you get your runners to shift the mindset to walking is okay.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, that can be tough, especially if someone's coming from a traditional running background, like they've run cross country, or they've run track, or they've run marathons, because then, especially if they're coming from a marathon background, or like a collegiate running background, it's all about splits and laps and, you know, times and paces and all of these things. And for trail running,
00:11:30
Speaker
You know and even if you're an ultra run here and you're running on road all that stuff kind of goes out the window it's really comes down to effort and time because you know we're gonna be out for a long time and so you know having a specific pace isn't always gonna work.
00:11:47
Speaker
If we're running a long race, we're also running through different environments. So we might be going through different levels of altitude. We could also have pretty significant shifts in the weather, right? On a race day, we could start at 35, 40 degrees Fahrenheit and we could get to 90 degrees and then go back to 40 degrees if it's a 200 miler. Like, there are going to be a lot of shifts.
00:12:11
Speaker
And so we hear a lot about like zone two training and it's nothing new. There's nothing in the sports or training world that's new. It's just like buzzwords or whatever that just keep coming back. So, you know, none of this stuff is like earth shattering news. Um, but really what zone two is, is zone two is the upper limit. We think about like zone two training that is sort of the upper end of your aerobic training zone. So that is going to be,
00:12:41
Speaker
comfortable, nice, easy breathing. And that is where you're going to spend a lot of your time. You know, zone one is going to feel it's still easy, but probably a little bit easier. That might be more like a recovery style run, you know, where you're like, I think about if you think about a recovery style run zone one, that's like,
00:13:03
Speaker
We could be almost talking as easily as we are now, right? If we talk about zone two and we were like going along and recording a podcast as we're moving, which maybe we should do one day. We should totally do that. I'm down. It would be a real zone two podcast. And we could be running along and we could still be having a conversation, but maybe I'd be taking a breath, you know, after every five or six sentences.
00:13:29
Speaker
But I could still converse pretty easily. And that's what zone two feels like. And that's where you should feel most of the time. And if you're doing a trail race, unless it's something shorter, like if it's a 50K or shorter, that's going to be different. You're not going to be spending most of your time zone two. You'll be spending some zone two, some zone three, and maybe beyond a little bit.
00:13:52
Speaker
But if it's longer than that, if it's longer than a 50K race, then you are absolutely spending the majority of your time in zone one and zone two. And so for many reasons, we have to get comfortable being there. Absolutely. And I think the other part of it, too,
00:14:10
Speaker
And the reason why it's so important or one of the reasons why it's so important is that keeping a lower heart rate, so keeping in the zones below your aerobic threshold allows you to keep eating and
00:14:26
Speaker
ultra marathons, trail races are eating games. And what happens when you go yeah, when you go beyond when you start getting into that zone three, zone four, is that you are a only burning carbohydrates. And B, it becomes a lot harder on your
00:14:46
Speaker
body to get blood flow to your stomach. And so you start feeling nauseous, you start having a lot of trouble getting food down, and you're already playing a losing battle where you're not able to take in enough, like your body can't process enough calories per hour as it's burning. So really, what we're trying to do is delay the onset as much as possible by taking in fuel. And so if we
00:15:16
Speaker
go too far into zone three and zone four. I mean, get really nauseous and we can't take in anything we are really hurting ourselves. So and I say this from experience because I very often get far too excited to go out way too hard and then surprise I get nauseous. And so if you
00:15:36
Speaker
back yourself off. It will pay dividends later in the race because you'll be able to keep eating and you'll be able to at least partially keep up with your fuel stores and be able to be more successful throughout the race. Yeah, that's a really good point, Alyssa, about efficiency. And also, I think we think about when we're training, yes, we're training our muscles and we're training our
00:16:04
Speaker
brains and we're training our hearts and our lungs and our ligaments and our tendons and all those things. But also what we're training is our metabolism. And so we have, you know, our, and our metabolism is what is responsible for keeping us alive, keeping us moving. And you know, we really have when we're doing zone two training,
00:16:22
Speaker
we are helping to improve our aerobic metabolism. We're teaching our body how to keep moving and how to continually create and process and use energy to keep us going. When we get out of zone two and we are then, you know, then our body is more reliant on our anaerobic energy pathways and anaerobic doesn't mean no oxygen. It just means that there is no oxygen needed to
00:16:52
Speaker
create that energy. So when we are working in zone three, rather than zone two, then we are more reliant. And it's not like 100. It's not like a switch flips or anything, your body doesn't know these systems, right? But we are more reliant on our anaerobic energy pathways. And so we are burning more carbohydrates at that point in time. And so when
00:17:19
Speaker
The body can do that and it can hang out there and it can do that, but it's got an hour of time. That's it.
00:17:25
Speaker
That's all it's got. So we think about like, I like to think about it like a pack of matches. Like you can only burn so many and that's your zone three. You've only got so much of it to use. So you've got to use it like really sparingly when you need it. So maybe there's times on a workout or in a race where you are going to get into zone three, but that's got to be strategic. Like maybe you're going to go a little faster because you're in a Congo line going up a hill and you want to get around some people so that you can get to your,
00:17:53
Speaker
comfy place do it, you know, or you are Not feeling really great and you see the aid station and you want to have a little time to Use the porta-potty and refuel it whatever use it like use it carefully
Aerobic vs Anaerobic Training
00:18:11
Speaker
But understand that when you are in that state and you are working harder like that, your body is working so hard to keep you moving. Also, if it's a hot race, your blood flow is really in competition and in high demand.
00:18:30
Speaker
gotta keep the brain going we gotta keep the heart pumping we gotta get some blood to the skin to cool us off we've gotta get blood move into all those muscles to keep us moving and what's the last on the list the stomach
00:18:46
Speaker
So we don't have much going to the stomach when we're working hard like that. And that's why typically we end up feeling like a sour stomach, like we don't want to eat or we don't feel hungry. Or even you think sometimes if you do a hard workout, do a tempo workout or something like that, you don't feel like eating. And that's exactly why.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's, and that is often people's kryptonite in races. It's just like I couldn't take any calories down or I was throwing up and just had nothing left. Yeah, I like to the kind of the simple way that I like to explain it to people when we were talking about what fuel source we're using is that
00:19:28
Speaker
with a marathon, the common thing is hitting the wall at mile 20. A very simplistic way of looking at that is you burn about 100 calories per mile of running, you have about 2000 calories of carbohydrate stores if you're completely full. So
00:19:45
Speaker
right there is about mile 20. And so that means that you have really been mostly burning carbohydrates, and that by shifting by becoming really efficient at zone two, you are able to and also being able to take in the flu or the fueling, you can push that mile 20 wall back far enough.
00:20:13
Speaker
In ultras, it I mean, it does happen, people bonk, etc. But you're hoping that you're never really going to hit that that wall like people do in marathons, because most of the time we aren't redlining quite as much as a marathon. But that's kind of the example I like to use a really easy way to think about how we use our fuel sources is with that that wall analogy.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah. And that's the thing to remember is that like we are typically it is like a endurance eating contest. We have to be able to keep eating, you know, and, uh, that's a good analogy of that. You know, we've, we can only, our body can only store so many carbohydrates. Um, but we have plenty of fat stores, so we've got to keep bringing more carbohydrates in to keep us going.
00:21:05
Speaker
And so if we are working at a lower intensity, we will be able to keep eating. And as long as you keep on top of it, like nibble, nibble, sip, sip, you know, the whole time, then you should be fine. You know, and you know, just to keep that going little by little and not upsetting your stomach rather than I mean, there are those people that can like, slam half a pizza and keep moving. But typically, you know, they're moving pretty slowly after the fact and in order to digest.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, I've never been I've never been able to be one of those people either. I'm jealous. Yeah, so I think this was a great way to talk about that aspect of running. We could go on for podcasts and podcasts about that. But let's go to some common questions about building mileage.
00:21:57
Speaker
First of all, how do you build carefully and safely? Do you do back-to-back runs? Do you just run long a whole bunch and you're good, like you're ready to go?
Adjusting Training Variables
00:22:08
Speaker
Do you run 100 miles in preparation for running 100 miles? Can you help us unpack some of these? Oh man, that's a lot in one question. That was a lot. That was a lot in one question, but it's always that annoying answer. It depends. It depends on who you are.
00:22:22
Speaker
Um, and what you're training for and what your training history is and all of that stuff. Typically speaking, um, you can, you know, we think about the different variables in training. So we have volume. How many hours are you running in a week? Um, and typically for trail runners, we are tracking things in, in terms of hours per week, you know, our, how many hours we're running each day, how much we're running over a week.
00:22:48
Speaker
Typically not in miles because that's not as easy for ultra runners. But you're tracking volume, whether you're tracking it in miles or in hours. And then we have intensity. So how hard are those sessions going to be? Are we talking zone one, zone two, zone three, zone four? That's your intensity. How hard are you working?
00:23:10
Speaker
So that's another element that goes into your training. And then we have density of the training. So out of those days of the week, how close are they together? How are they distributed? So where do your rest days fall? How many hard workouts are done in a row? What are you doing back to back? All of that stuff. So when we look at all of those variables, over time, if we are changing those variables, we don't want to change more than one variable per week.
00:23:40
Speaker
So if we are, if someone is running five days a week and they are working towards a hundred miler or something longer and they're building up to running six days a week, if we are running five days a week this week and next week we're gonna run six days a week, we are not gonna add another variable on top of that. So let's say this week we are running five days and we are running 10 hours. Next week we're gonna run six days, we might also run 10 hours.
00:24:10
Speaker
and see how the body responds having one less rest day in a week. If that goes well, then the next week we can then look at increasing one variable. So now we're okay with the six days a week, then the next week we can run a little bit more. And then how much would that be? So if we look at the volume piece of the puzzle, most people can safely increase their volume about 10% per week. That's pretty safe for most people. If you're doing something like,
00:24:40
Speaker
like a running camp, whether you're doing that as an organized running camp or you're organizing a little training camp on your own for four days, you can probably double your volume in that short little time, but that's going to be a transient thing. You're going to have a little bit of extra rest before that. You're going to have a little bit of extra rest afterwards and then go on with your training. But typically speaking, about 10%
00:25:03
Speaker
Increase per week is pretty safe for most people but know your body, you know if if that feels like too much then your your increase in in volume increments Might be a little more conservative and that's okay And then also you think about the the density of the workout. So if you're doing let's say you're doing a phase of training where you are doing some faster work, so maybe you are doing some
00:25:31
Speaker
some zone three intervals or something like that, you know, if you're adding those in, maybe you want to make sure that you have a rest day in between those two. Right. So you're going to have a rest day in between those two and you're not necessarily going to have them back to back. Some people can totally handle those back to back, but then they might do those back to back and then have a rest day or have a recovery day, something like that. So you always want to think about, you know, where those variables are going to fit.
00:26:00
Speaker
But you wouldn't suddenly from one week to the next change from a zone two focus to a zone three focus and then suddenly start piling on the volume. So again, you always want to think about what are the variables in your training and changing only one variable at a time and making sure that those changes that you make are going to be sustainable and that they're in smaller increments.
00:26:30
Speaker
Definitely. That makes a lot of sense. Going and touching on two other parts within that there.
Back-to-Back Long Runs
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's a whole bunch of depends. But the back-to-back long run is often a tool that runners use during ultras. And I'm kind of a, it totally depends on who I'm coaching and how well they respond to it. Yeah, because I think that there's kind of this camp of either you do the back-to-back long runs or you're a not back-to-back long run type of person. And I think that there's a lot of gray area within that.
00:27:07
Speaker
And personally, as a coach, I have some athletes that like that works really well for them. And so that's what I do. I in my own training often, well, I get just get a lot of just a lot of volume because I've I'm a runner who can handle a lot of volume.
00:27:23
Speaker
And so my feeling is that back to back long runs are really dependent on the individual independent on where the individual is in their journey what they're trading for and i often like to especially if i have someone who's doing.
00:27:40
Speaker
mountainous races where hiking is going to be a big part of it is that I will have them hike one of the days and so they're on their feet for longer but it isn't necessarily the pounding or the fatigue of another big longer running day so using hiking as a tool because and my coach has been really good about teaching this to me is that
00:28:06
Speaker
If you went from a 10-minute mile to a 5-minute mile running, that would be incredible. Like a 5-minute difference. Holy crap. It is not that hard to go from a 20-minute walking mile to a 15-minute walking mile if you practice. And so if you think about actually practicing walking and walking quickly and efficiently, you can make the same percentage difference
00:28:36
Speaker
which is incredible and can save so much time. So I'm a huge advocate of practice practicing walking with purpose rather than when you get into a race and you start feeling really tired. And so you just start dragging and all of a sudden you're walking a 3045 minute
00:28:52
Speaker
mile and if you practice efficient walking, you can move quite quickly and really not lose that much time. Yeah, that makes a big difference. We talked a lot about metabolic efficiency and teaching your metabolism to be flexible. It's the same with your pace and your mode of movement. It should also be flexible because if someone is only training on
00:29:19
Speaker
you know, flat ground all the time and then they go to the hills and it's going to obviously it's going to be hard. So you want to have, you know, some good flexibility and diversity, especially, you know, you want to think about and I, I know this was a sort of plant thing we wanted to talk about as well, but thinking about what kind of race you're preparing for and making sure that you are training in a way that is specific to your race.
00:29:44
Speaker
And when we're planning our training, we think, want to think about these variables, but that is that too. We want to, when we have that figured out, then we want to layer in a couple other things, right? We want to practice dialing in our nutrition and our hydration plans. We want to practice with the gear that we're going to wear, but we also want to think about like what kind of terrain are we going to be running on? Is there any elevation or is there any big climbs or is it going to be,
00:30:10
Speaker
What other factors? Is it bad water where you've got like long time running on the road and a significant amount of vertical and we have heat and we have altitude. Like it's got all the things to throw at you. So you want to think about, you know, the variables of training. You should also think about the other elements of your race that you can layer in and make sure that you're practicing as well.
00:30:38
Speaker
So that if you are going to be doing a race where there is a good amount of walking or power hiking or uphill hiking, you want to be as efficient as you can with that. Definitely. I mean, for example, I have still yet to finish Tour de Jean but have also brand Moab 240 in October.
00:31:00
Speaker
people think, ah, two 200 ish milers, training should be similar. Actually, my training for both was quite different because Moab, in comparison, is barely a third of the elevation gain that Tor is.
00:31:18
Speaker
For tour, as I said, it was just a ton of walking fast and so the more of my focus was how do I hike as efficiently as possible and prepare my legs for really long downhills. For Moab, you can run a lot of Moab and so the focus was more on how do I keep running
00:31:37
Speaker
at an efficient pace for just really long periods of time on less technical terrain. And so even within, you know, this crazy 200 mile distance, there is so much specificity that you can get within it. So with that being said, when should
00:31:56
Speaker
I or a runner be thinking about putting this specificity into my training? When should that start approximately?
Race-Specific Training
00:32:06
Speaker
Well, typically speaking, when you think about when you're kind of organizing your training, you always think about like, where am I now when I'm about to prepare this plan? And then where, where do I need to be? So like we said, hopefully you're around 20 weeks before, um, so that you have time to, um, you know, if you haven't been running,
00:32:26
Speaker
or not running too much for a while, you've got a little bit of a time to kind of get back into it. You've got time to build a little bit of a base. And then you want to think about like, okay, what is specific to the race? So typically for most trail runners, you know, if it's over a 50K, then what is specific to your race is probably zone one and zone two. Plus,
00:32:49
Speaker
The other elements that we just talked about, right? Is it vertical? Is it a certain type of terrain? What are the special elements that you need to plan for and prepare for? So that's going to be what your specific period looks like. It's going to be, again, zone two with those extra things. Then if we start with zone two, then what do we do with this other segment of time? And you think about that specific stuff, like race-specific stuff, we're looking at probably eight weeks.
00:33:18
Speaker
know, six if you're in a time crunch, eight weeks if you have the luxury of time. Then in that other time, what what else can you be working on? So what what are some areas where that are not specific to the race, but still going to going to be important. So we talked about metabolic efficiency before, if we just trained at zone one and zone two all the time, like that's great in some respects. But we are
00:33:44
Speaker
you know, our bodies need to be as efficient as possible. We want to optimize all of our abilities, right? So we want to pay, of course, we want to pay attention to our aerobic capacity and aerobic energy systems, but we also want to spend some time developing our anaerobic energy systems as well. So in those times, that's when you can bring in some higher intensity
00:34:07
Speaker
you know, that is at zone three and zone four. You can do that, you know, further away. And then you're going to kind of when you're sort of minimum eight weeks before your event, that's when you're going to want to come back to the more specific work. So you're going to come back to more of a focus on zone two and zone one.
00:34:26
Speaker
you're going to be making sure that you have a good understanding of the maybe course profile. So maybe you're going to put some vertical targets in place for yourself. So if you look at the race course, for example, and find out what is the
00:34:44
Speaker
What is the elevation profile look like? And does the elevation gain match the elevation loss? Or is it different? Because you might have a course that is net uphill or net downhill. So that's going to be important in terms of preparation. You're going to want to kind of mimic that in your training as well.
00:35:06
Speaker
So you're going to want to try to, and also the surface or condition. Um, if it's a road, if it's a road ultra, for example, like now we're at a time in the year where there are some road ultras coming up, we've got the keys 100 and Daytona and all of that, probably that people have been preparing for. And you want to make sure that you're spending a good chunk of your time training on the road. So your body is prepared for that, but it's also nice to get a mental and physical break by doing some of your running on the trails, but you're going to want to
00:35:35
Speaker
in that specific period be more on the terrain that is more specific to your event. And if you don't live somewhere where you can mimic that, then you want to try to find ways to bring that in. So maybe you are doing some hill repeats to make up some vertical.
00:35:52
Speaker
Maybe you are doing some time on a treadmill with a 15% incline. Maybe you are in your strength workouts, maybe you're doing some step ups or box steps. And some of the muscular endurance workouts that we have at uphill athlete are really helpful for that too, to prepare your body for the for that different type of strain that it takes.
00:36:19
Speaker
Absolutely. No, that was great. I, I guess I'll touch on the, the, if you live in a flat area and you are having to work in that incline, that those step ups is something that we often don't consider is that we think so much about the uphill and it's actually the downhill that causes the most stress on your body. So it's really important to make sure I always focus on strength for my athletes who are in flat areas and
00:36:47
Speaker
are needing to do downhills because your quads can get really destroyed. I mean, I think we've all felt doms, which is delayed onset muscle soreness, which is that quad tearing like, oh my gosh, I feel like my quads are about to rip in half feeling. So it's really important if you do live in a flat area to make sure you're actually doing some of those step downs where you're really focusing on strength as a
00:37:14
Speaker
part of getting ready for the race because the downhills will be challenging. Yeah, and I think the other part just to give a glimpse of what I do when I'm preparing for a race and hopefully this will help is that I'll pull up the elevation profile pretty early on. And I'll pick out kind of the major details of the race. So for example, I have a race coming up and there's about
00:37:41
Speaker
A three, it's for me, a relatively flat race. It's about a 3000 foot climb to start. And then it's kind of these like 1000 foot to less like kind of poppy Hills. And so I focus on, okay, I want to make sure that I feel really comfortable tackling what a 3000 foot climb right at the beginning feels like. And I think that it gives a lot of confidence to runners. If you.
00:38:10
Speaker
Find one of the most challenging or two most challenging climbs in the race and know that you can do that no matter what, whether it's on a Stairmaster, whether it's on a treadmill, any of that be like, okay, I know what it feels like to climb continuously for three, 4,000 feet if that's in your race. Um, so I pick out like, okay, that's a major detail. And then I go, all right, I'm going to have a downhill about the same. And then I'm, I need to be good at powering through thousand foot climbs.
00:38:36
Speaker
and being able to run off of them. So then a lot of my training besides kind of that bigger climb is running to me like kind of those smaller hills. I also try to do some research on what type of terrain is. So for example,
00:38:55
Speaker
if, so I've done hurt, hurt is notoriously technical. And so I try to get on as much like running the worst part of the trails in California that I can find mud, snow, dirt, like any of that, whatever I can get, because California isn't as technical for the most part as Hawaii. And so I'm trying to find how do I get myself prepared for these technical aspects? If I say I'm running in, um,
00:39:24
Speaker
Well, California and a race I'm this is like, so Vermont is also very technical, but the Vermont 100, there's a lot of dirt road running, which isn't as much so you do have to be good at being able to run smoother surfaces. So it's really important to
00:39:44
Speaker
figure out not only the race profile, but also the terrain surface and practice how you're going to move along that terrain. If there's sand in the race, if you know it's going to be kind of snowy and muddy, like make sure you're taking that all into account. So A, you're prepared mentally, but B, like your feet are prepared, your muscles are prepared, and also just going into it with the confidence of I've done everything to get as specific as I can.
00:40:13
Speaker
and handle what's thrown at me. And the last part is that all that probably will change. So it's just making sure that you do the best to prepare but also preparing for the adaptation that
00:40:28
Speaker
it will probably never end up exactly as you think. Yeah. Especially the, I'm just thinking about some of the big races in California this year after the big snowfall like what that's going to be like. But that's a good point. And we live in a, you know, this is very different than when I started trail running, you know, back in 2008, like there was not really, no one was really putting out race reports or I was running a lot of small races where there
Researching Race Conditions
00:40:53
Speaker
wasn't really a lot of information. And now like you could look up,
00:41:00
Speaker
amazing at sharing their race reports, race reviews. So doing a quick little search shouldn't be hard for you to find the information, to find the elevation profile, to look at some of the features. Some people, you know, like have running with GoPros. I can't imagine, but thank you for those of you that do so that I can see what the terrain looks like when I'm trying to learn and read more than one, you know, different years for different conditions. Like you said, Alyssa, it could it could totally change.
00:41:23
Speaker
You can look up all kinds, like people are so,
00:41:30
Speaker
And I think that's really important because I think about like Leadville, for example, and a lot of people think like, oh, Leadville, it's a high altitude race and there's hope past. You got to climb it both ways. And so it's going to be like super hard climbing. And all these people are training for Leadville and they are not doing any consistent running. Well, what is Leadville actually?
00:41:48
Speaker
a really runnable race with the exception of footpaths. So people are just getting slammed because there are really lots of really awesome runnable sections on fire roads that are just gravel roads with little and I would see people on like
00:42:03
Speaker
A tiny little climb like 100, 200 feet and they're having to hike it because they just haven't practiced actually running. So you want to think about those, what are the aspects and details of the course and practice the different ones? Like, is it a big climb at the start?
00:42:20
Speaker
Is is it like rolling hills and then it's a big sting in the tail with a big climb at the end is it a couple of big climbs and then like mentally try to bring some of that stuff into your training so that you can know how that feels.
00:42:36
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah, I would also say, and I was making generalizations, but within, like you automatically think, oh, Colorado, just as you were saying, it's got to be rocky. It's got to be really tough trail. And then Leadville is super runnable. But you're a, for example, not no, it's one of the hardest, one of the hardest races in the US, I would say.
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, and so I think it's really important. It's so important to do that research. And as you were saying, I mean, I will look up YouTube videos of people to just be like, okay, that's what part of the course is. And of course, you're not going to get the whole sense of it, but you're going to get some sense of it that can save you from
00:43:19
Speaker
not realizing that Leadville scares the crap out of me because of how runnable it is. That's kind of why I haven't put my name in the hat. Yeah, I was like, oh, man, it's too fast. But yeah, I think that doing your research is probably
00:43:34
Speaker
one of the most important things and also not getting carried away by the name of a race. I think as we see more and more races come to prominence and gain notoriety to really make sure that the course is something that you're going to enjoy, not just doing it because it's a name.
00:43:55
Speaker
So for example, you know, you could and not that all these races aren't amazing, but there could be a race where like, oh, I've heard that name a bunch of times and then you come to realize, oh, it's a road racer. Oh, it's some type of race that I don't actually enjoy running that surface. I don't really want to train on that surface. And so I would say just be open minded and do your research about
00:44:16
Speaker
the type of race that it is because just because something's iconic, it may not actually be that much fun to train for. Yeah. And knowing what are your strengths as a runner. Like you said, Alyssa, Leadville scares you because it's a fast.
00:44:34
Speaker
runnable, you know, it's a fast runnable course, with the exception of, you know, two big climbs. And, you know, you would be more suited to like, high lonesome or URE or something would be like more within your comfort zone, whereas to many other runners, running URE or high lonesome would be really frightening for them, you know, and so it's just a matter of knowing like, what kind of races do you enjoy? What kind of trails do you particularly enjoy?
00:45:01
Speaker
Do you want something with loads of people that's super hyped up or do you actually enjoy something where you might be alone most of the time? Thinking about all of those elements are really important to think about. You're going to put a lot of time and money and blood, sweat and tears and sacrifice, family time, social things, all kinds of stuff. You want to make sure that
00:45:26
Speaker
what you're putting in is all going to be worthwhile. I've heard so many stories of people saying like, I did that race and it was totally not what I thought it was going to be. They're kind of disappointed. I feel like with the information we have out there, there's no need. There's the blogs, the race reports, the
00:45:47
Speaker
Facebook groups like get out there hop on some you know some open forums and ask people about their experience and you will be surprised like we all love running you know we and we are usually pretty happy to talk about running so put it out there you know within your your networks and your social networks if there's a race that you feel like you can't find enough information out there on and chat with someone who's done it and I think that that's also really important to
00:46:17
Speaker
get to know some of the ins and outs of what to expect.
00:46:23
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think that goes also to a safety point where, I mean, I'll use URE, I did that a couple years ago, is that URE has some pretty gnarly thunderstorms and there's a high likelihood you're going to end up on a high pass and there might be a storm rolling in. And if that's something that you're like, that's not what I want to do, then you really have to take that into account. And also from a perspective of
00:46:50
Speaker
Packing for the race, you know, knowing what to carry, it's like safety is something not to take lightly.
00:46:56
Speaker
And so I think just the more and more we get into the sport, the more people we have in it.
Wilderness Knowledge & Safety
00:47:01
Speaker
We just have to keep hitting home that trail races, particularly trail races are not something that we can do without having some wilderness background training or knowledge. We shouldn't be going out because being in a race doesn't mean that something can't happen to you. There's not this kind of magical bubble
00:47:23
Speaker
of protection just because you're in a race. Yes, there are definitely more safety measures, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be self-sufficient as well. So I think just keeping that in the back of our head and making sure that we go into these situations prepared as well. Yeah, that's a great point. And I think probably most people don't think about
00:47:47
Speaker
course information and studying course information as part of your training, but if you haven't, hopefully our little chat today will change your mind because that's a really important one. Yeah, it's like, what do you do if you're on a 13,000 foot peak at 2pm and a Colorado thunderstorm is rolling in?
00:48:09
Speaker
And the races often give you a lot of documents to prepare you and they're really good at safety briefing, but it's your job to read them and to make sure that you feel prepared to handle it as well. So awesome. Well, Chantel, is there anything else that we should touch on before we sign off?
Community Support in Racing
00:48:29
Speaker
Um, I would say like, again, just bringing home the point of like, we are, you know, there are a lot of races out there. There are more and more runners, which is really exciting. And I think one thing that is really cool about, um, ultra running is the participation from people of all different ages, like from twenties up until their eighties. And like, there's still a man, couple of men and women that are still doing like,
00:48:56
Speaker
Timed hundred-mile races which is amazing so it's still kind of a new sport there's still a good amount of longevity and there's a lot of good information out there so you know if you're preparing for whether it's your first race or not your first race there's lots of resources out there you know you don't necessarily have to be working with a coach but if you want to work with a coach there's lots of
00:49:21
Speaker
great coaches out there that can help you. There's lots of podcasts like ours that can give you information and guide you along the way. And then there's also kind of in between options too, you know, joining groups, whether it's a live group or it's an in person group. Get some help, you know, you don't have to do this alone. And I think a big part of what we do is the community that we have around us. So
00:49:49
Speaker
you know, don't be afraid to put your hand out there and get out of your comfort zone a little bit and be able to learn from others in our community and also share what you have been able to learn yourself from your running.
00:50:02
Speaker
I love that. I think that's one of I mean, all of us, I mean, both of us even just here have had someone who put their hand out and mentor us or helped us along the way. And I think that's such an integral part of this community. And it's part of it's not so much the challenge of
00:50:20
Speaker
us versus them or anything like that. It's like us versus the challenge of the race and the challenge of pushing ourselves to new distances and new adventures. And so it's not yes, there is a competitive element to it if you want there to be but that's not at the heart of it. Yeah, that's a great point. I love that.
00:50:44
Speaker
All right, well, Chantel, thank you so much for this great conversation. If you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying the uphill athlete podcast, please rate, review, and subscribe or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, it's not just one, but a community. We are uphill athlete.