Hi UA community!
This spring my two sons and I are climbing Rainier. Disappointment Cleaver route. I bought “Training for the New Alpinism”, and designed a training plan for myself. I turn 50 two weeks after our trip, but I am a runner and in fairly decent shape (I like to think, anyway).

In mid-April I’m also running a trail half-marathon. My typical running is 3x/week, usually just 3-4 miles. And I usually run one half-marathon a year. When I train for halfs, I use a Hal Higdon 12-week plan.

My question is this: I’m 6 weeks into my 8-week “Transitioning to Training” period, from the book. Around the time that I’d be starting my “base” period I would also be starting the 12-week Higdon. I’ve been trying to reconcile/merge the two plans. At my age (and after a rough bout of covid+pneumonia), I can’t really ‘run’ without getting quickly into Zone 3. But I feel good when I run. Not conversational, necessarily, but I feel good on runs up to 6 miles so far. Higdon would have me running 4x/week (two short runs, one medium mid-week run, and one long weekend run, adding a mile each week). Doing this would seem to conflict with my mountaineering training, which only allows for one Zone 2-3 workout per week, the rest being Zone 1 and strength/core.

If I had to prioritize, Rainier is definitely my priority. But I’d prefer to not bonk my trail half in April. Any advice on how to train for both would be appreciated! There’s a part of me that thinks if I can run a trail half in April, I’ll be pretty okay for Rainier? But I don’t want to come to Washington unprepared.

Thanks!
Patrick Burke