[Izzy]

Hey team,

I’ve been training for a 50k with 7.2k ft of climbing and as I haven’t raced in years I signed up for a 25k with 2.5k ft of climbing as a mini practice run.

My AET gets a few months ago was 158 and I’ve been trying to do the bulk of my training under AET with intentional Z3/4 sessions thrown in. I have a good 12+ year history of competitive swimming, long distance biking, alpine climbing, backcountry skiing, but this is my first time attempting to run for performance not just training.

For this race I was expecting to have to stay in or around AET but from the off I was operating above. I felt good the whole time and have attached my HR values and race stats. I took in a sip of water and two GU packets during the race, one immediately before. I was waiting to hit a wall but didn’t, instead feeling really good the whole time and I recovered quickly.

I’m looking for insight into what adaptations I may have to make for longer races or simply other things to pay attention to.

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[Izzy]

Izzy on April 30, 2019 at 10:00 am #21190

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous on April 30, 2019 at 11:09 am #21203

Izzy:

Nice job on your first running race in a while. It sure looks and sounds like you did a good job of pacing yourself and managing energy. This race being shorter allowed you to push to higher a higher average HR than you will probably be able to maintain in a 50km race with almost 3 times as much vertical. Based on what I see I can make only two significant recommendations. One is to do one run/week that is longer than what you have probably been doing. I’d keep the Z3-4 in the mix although you may need to reduce the volume of Z3-4 during some of your bigger volume weeks. I’d also recommend 1x/week doing down hill speed work. It is the downhills that destroy most peoples legs in these longer races. You need to increase the specific muscular endurance, especially in the quads so your legs don’t give our 3/4 the way through your 7200 feet out climbing and descending. I’ve also had very good luck using the program discussed late in this article with mountain runners. Luke Nelson swears by it.

Good luck with your training. It seems you are doing a great job with it.
Scott