[peter.s.tran]

I did the 24 week plan 2 years ago, last year I trained and completed an ultra marathon. This year I started the 24 week plan (with a little bit more running), but I’m really interested in increasing my speed for fast, 1 day, car to car climbs.

I’m currently in base period week three. Box step ups, 6 reps at 65#. Do you think changing my steep uphill Wednesdays to include some high z3/z4 weighted intervals would best? Other thoughts?

Thanks!

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 25, 2020 at 9:47 am #38735

It depends when and how much. Z3/4 would be sharpening sessions, so they should come within the last four to eight weeks of your objective. Also, the volume of those sessions should not exceed 5% of your training volume, especially for long objectives. Even less than 5% is probably best.

[peter.s.tran]

peter.s.tran on February 25, 2020 at 9:59 am #38737

I was thinking of something like

+ 20 minute warm up z1
+ 2 minute z3, 2 min z1
+ 3 min z3, 2 min z1
+ 4 min z3, 2 min z1
+ 5 min z3, 2 min z1
+ step back down 4/3/2/, 2 min Z1 in between
+ 20 minute cool down, z1

That’s a total of 23 minutes of Z3/4 training. My current training volume is 10.5 hours a week, volume for the last 8 weeks averages 12 hours per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 25, 2020 at 12:54 pm #38744

Peter;

That approach will build more speed for sure. It’ll make your legs a bit stronger which will allow them to last longer. But, for long/all day car to car climbs it is going to wb the high volume of Z1-2 training that is going to make those days easier and faster. When it comes to events lasting longer than a couple of hours, real speed is never the limiter. This will be especially true if these car to car days are going to require you to carry gear.

Like Scott Semple says: I would not bother add ing these till the final couple of months. Then I would do them on as event specific terrain as possible.

Scott