I am planning to use the 16 week Big Mountain Training Plan this spring to prepare for the summer climbing season. I have been using the TFTNA principles to regain my fitness after having surgery last spring. Thankfully my fitness has returned more quickly than I expected, and my AeT is almost within 10% of my AnT. I had a couple of questions about potential modifications to the training plan.

I see that in the updated plan there are recommendations about reducing the amount of Zone 2 work once the trainee’s AeT is with 10% of their AnT. I’m assuming that at this point all of the longer duration training events should be done at a Zone 1 pace? Should one of the weekly training events be done in Zone 3 as well? If so, I’m thinking maybe the steep uphill hikes would be a place to do so, but I would welcome any recommendations.

My summer hiking season will mainly consist of longer, single-day events. With this being the case, is it okay to combine the two weekly long workouts into a single big day or redistribute the training load such that one day is much longer than the other?

Thanks!