Dear Dada,

many thanks for all your input. E.g. for community I want to share further points.
I have got some feedback form an uphill coach who I asked this also in terms of my hut-to-hut 8 weeks TP I am using at the moment.
The reply was: “Regarding your high intensity workouts, if you cannot sustain the pace for the workout why not drop from Z4 to Z3? See what Scott said in the forum topic:
Zone 4: 165-176. This is HARD aerobic/anaerobic work. You can begin to use this right off the bat but many people find that they cannot sustain the high intensity/HR for the full duration of the Z4 interval session because of local muscular fatigue. A world class athlete might be able to 4-6×8 min in Z4 and maintain the high power output throughout. Lesser athletes might find that part way through interval number 2 they are so fatigued that power and HR are dropping off due to local muscular fatigue. They can’t do much hard sustained work yet and need to drop down to Z3 to build a base to handle this work.”

I also asked a friend of mine who is training sprint athletes: He said, my ramp is too steep at the moment and I should start with some flatter one.

I also re-read the uphill athlete’s book. There it`s stated that sometimes it is better to train muscle endurance before Z3 or Z4 intervals, if they are too hard. Just to say again, the Z4 interval works, HR is high but pace is slowing down significantly. I do not have issues with Z3 intervals; however, my decision now is to add ME workouts with walking up with weight in my backpack – we do have a historical stair here, height difference around 350m and its really steep – in mean 47%. I did this in the past some weeks with 3 to 4 reps at Z1/Z2 without weight, will do it now with 15KG water carry aiming for 2 rep. at the beginning in Z1/2. Then I will add ones a week Z3 intervals. Next after this will be going from Z3 to Z4 intervals. Those I trained and struggled are 3-3min/3min, maybe I will do at the beginning those I did the last season 8min 30sec/30sec two times…

I also followed the TP including core strength and general strength twice a week. I also saw in the book – totally forgot this – that there is a test in terms of strength and I am in level 3. Such I can reduce this strength plan to less exercises being more specific for me. This gives me more time to keep my aerobic base training being 90-95% of all.

So, I will watch this the next 4 weeks and fingers crossed it will improve my endurance for the planned Venter traverse

Heiko