Hi everybody, I’m looking for some guidance/comments on my use of TrainingPeaks as I begin training for the year. For background, I used TrainingPeaks with the 24-Week Expeditionary Mountain Training Plan last year for a Denali trip and became pretty familiar with the program, UA fudge factors, etc. This year I’m focusing heavily on running and am signed up for the Eiger Ultra Trail E51 race this summer (51k, 3100m vert). I have 28 weeks until the event so I’m doing an 8-week transition according to the guidance in TFtUA, then a 20 week plan as laid out in the book. I’ve got a few questions that I hope y’all can help with:

1. I opted to use the basic 400-hour/year training volume from the books based on inconsistent training after Denali last year as a starting point for my plan this year, so for the first week I’m using 50% of average weekly volume (8 hours) as a starting point. I’m adding the two recommended strength sessions on top of that so the first week looks something like 4 hours of aerobic work plus an hour of strength work on top. Would you recommend proceeding like that or adjusting all of the running time based on planned strength time?

2. I usually go to the climbing gym and/or outside about three times a week but I’m not focused on specifically training for it until after my race. I don’t plan on logging training time for those efforts, but would you recommend adding in any TSS values? I’d prefer my CTL value to purely represent prep for the race, but I understand how the fatigue value could be useful with it included.

3. Same question for resort skiing over the next few months, though that’s more of a 1-2 a month deal.

Thanks!