Ed, that’s fantastic to hear! I hope you’ll come back and tell us your story after you climb Mont Blanc — or any other new goal you have. We’d love to include more stories from older athletes on here (btw I’m 52:) )
Scott (John?), a call with Rebecca would be a great start to lay the foundation for improved overall and training-specific well-being. I’ve had a couple of consultations with her myself, and it has revolutionised not only how much benefit I get from the training but also simply how much energy and strength I have in everyday life. Rebecca has also written a number of articles on this site, and you could get a lot of useful information from them.
As for how to adapt a training plan, one way to begin would be to buy a plan that’s most appropriate for your goal (e.g. the 24-week mountaineering plan if you have a mountaineering goal) and simply repeat the base period for a few months, increasing EITHER volume OR intensity by no more than 10% each week. Since you’re older and it seems you haven’t been doing structured training of this type, I would actually consider not increasing more than 5%. I’ve been training for a few years now, but I’ve found that increases of 1%-2% are plenty for me as age does affect the load we can handle. It’s also very important to increase only ONE variable at at time, and to allow for sufficient recovery, because it’s during recovery that the body makes the adaptations that allow us to improve. Then, when you felt your base fitness was strong, you could complete the plan and then cycle through it again, timing it this time to coincide with your goal climb. During that first round you would also be learning about how your body responds to training, which is very important knowledge for being able to manage one’s own training well.
As Ed notes, if you wanted to sign up for the next round of the mountaineering group, that would be an excellent way to learn a huge amount about training in a short period of time while having the guidance of and direct access to UA coaches.
Hope this helps,
Jane
