Thanks! I’m glad it’s helpful.

1. I’ve been meaning to write an e-book on just this question, but I’ll try and briefly summarize it here.

For that season, I was training for ISMF-format skimo races. That includes 4-6′ sprints, 30-45′ verticals, and 90-120′ individual races. In order to do that, I wanted to give myself more “gears” to work with. So using a Canova-esque approach, I used speeds between 70% and 130% of aerobic threshold plus sprints. The fastest and slowest paces were emphasized in the beginning of the cycle and then both ends of the spectrum moved toward race pace as I got closer to race season.

In general:

* Sprints: 6x 8″ progressing to 8x 10″ or 4x 15″ with 2-3′ passive rests
* 130%: 30-30s with the recovery interval at 65%. Starting with (2) 10x progressing to (1) 24x
* 117%/110%: Work intervals at 117% with the “recovery” interval at 110%. Durations starting at 1’/3′ and progressing to 3’/1′. Very hard! And very good prep for short sprint format events.
* 105-107%: Typical AnT work
* 97-103%: Aerobic threshold work alternating above and below, starting at 4′ and progressing to 12′. (Note: My AnT and AeT thresholds are just under 5% apart, so these are almost as tiring as AnT work.)
* 90-97%: Long intervals at the beginning of long sessions or on their own for shorter sessions.
* 80-90%: Medium length sessions at a constant intensity
* 70-80%: Super easy. Most of my volume was in this range.
* < 70%: Super duper easy. The second biggest chunk of volume.

2. This is the 117%/110% of AeT range, ideally dialed in with an event-specific time trial. Then the work interval is about 92-93% of TT pace and the recovery interval is 85-88% of TT pace. The typical format is five alternations, lactate sample, five more, then another sample.

Note that the “recovery” interval is about AnT intensity, so these are very stressful. If there’s a big gap between AnT and AeT, these intervals will likely erode a base fairly quickly (a la Crossfit or worse).

3. I used max sessions early on and tried to maintain them throughout the year. I think it’s best to use max before ME work.

For ME, I used the first of the two progressions that are described in Verkhoshansky’s Block Training System. It took me two summers to get strong enough to get through the progression.

The progression uses 35-45% of max squat for weight, half-squat jumps and split-squat jumps, high volume reps, short rest intervals and long recovery intervals. After the progression, my legs felt much, much stronger.

4. The UA progressions are very similar to the Verkhoshansky protocol, but with less weight and higher cadence to make them more run- and skimo-specific.

I never used weighted carries because they’re too slow and the cadence is too low. They would be appropriate for mountaineering objectives, but not for running or skimo.

As I mentioned, it’s on my to-do list to write a longer description of this process. Hopefully I get around to it!

1. Is the reason you chose to compute your pace percentages from AeT
because that was you “race pace”?

The main reason was that I wanted to learn more about Canova’s approach and what his speeds feel like. My skimo race pace—at least judging by average HR—is right between AeT and AnT, so my funnel converged toward that intensity.

Or because it’s just easier to determine?

This too. By using AeT as a benchmark, I can test it much more often with far less fatigue.

And I found that just using Canova’s formulas for different intensities was close enough with higher-end work. For example, for 30-30s, I would now never do a 4-minute time trial. Once thresholds are 5-8% apart (so AeT is a high percentage of AnT), then just using 130% is close enough for 30-30s. I’ve tried this with a few athletes with close thresholds and had good results.

However, Canova’s paces will never work for someone with ADS or, probably, a newly narrowed aerobic gap. I suspect the paces in that context would be much slower than race pace.

I know Canova computes his paces from race pace, but in running you can do that.

For sure! That would be ideal.

2. Were there any tricky things converting Canova’s philosophy to skimo training?

Good question. Canova’s volumes are usually in distances. And his athletes are usually running a marathon in just over two hours. So I converted all of his distances to durations assuming a pace of 3’/km. So if he prescribed intervals of 7km, I would use 21′.

One thing that could be tricky is adjusting session lengths and overall volumes
to a different sport. I presume that your overall training volume (and session length)
were longer than what marathon runners do.

Yes, good point. From what I’ve read pro-runner macrocycles are ~500h/yr. The season I described in that article was 730 hours. I think the lack of pounding in the winter on skis (and roller skis in the summer) allows for higher volumes.

1. Microcyle periodizations. Canova doesn’t have much
volume modulation week-to-week. Namely, there’s no
“recovery” week where the volume would be significantly
lower.

Was that also the case for you, or you had 2-3 weeks of
high volume (or intensity) followed by an easier week?

Good question… I always took recovery weeks every three to four weeks.

2. How long were your long long sessions (in hours or percentage of weekly volume)?
Just one a week?

Even better question. Because the longest ISMF event is ~2 hours, IMO there isn’t much point in having super long sessions. I think it’s better to have more frequent long sessions that are faster.

My bigger weeks varied between 17 and 19 hours. My longest sessions were between three and four hours (at ~80% of AeT). Doing Canova math (converting from kilometers to minutes), the longest he has his marathoners go is ~3 hours, also at <= 80% AeT.

Ack. I said “80-hour weeks” when I meant months. #corrected

Also, @xcskier, based on your other forum comments, I suspect that you already know that a plan has to follow the athlete rather than vice versa. I went in that direction just to describe the popular perception of training which, as usual, is way off the mark.