7 Weeks to A-Race, What's left that I'm missing?

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July 8, 2020 at 1:39 pm #43399

briguy
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Okay so I’ve been following a plan now for 17+ weeks in prep for my A-race, and I have a bit less than 7 weeks to go. I’ve scheduled intensity (LT/Cruise/Tempo intervals by an large) twice a week with all other training Z1. I have some specificity weeks planned to do some mountain training. I’ve made great headway with the Gym ME program and I’ve never felt stronger descending trail or at the end of long runs as a result. I’m going to shift a bit away from the Gym ME to add hill sprints/bounding in the final 6 weeks or so, but that is the only other change remaining to my plan.

My question: Should I be re-testing during this period? I’m locked into Z1 for most of my runs, as Z2 tends to feel a bit too hard most of the time. I’m perfectly fine just doing Z1 though, but of course I want to be sure my zones haven’t changed. But if I am staying in a low Z1 does it really matter to much at this point? I think I’ve read it’s better to be conservative an undershoot the lower Zone than overshoot.

I don’t really want to re-test because it would be hard to fit into a week that already has base aerobic runs, 2 intensity runs, and an ME day squeezed in.

Beyond re-testing, is there anything else I’m forgetting? I’d like to bring this training cycle home properly by bringing back my “top end” after all the base/pre-work I’ve put in.
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Posted In: Mountain Running

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Anonymous on July 10, 2020 at 2:45 pm #43475

For testing, do you mean by HR or pace? For HR, dont’ worry about it. If your thresholds are close enough that you’re ~~stuck~~ blessed to be doing most of your volume in Zone 1, then they’re unlikely to change much.

But testing pace could be useful if you have a prior reference. But if you don’t, then don’t worry about it.

I would stick with your plan of threshold work and Zone 1. That will sharpen your ME work and make it race-specific.

Most importantly, don’t get greedy or try and get fancy. If you feel like you’re peaking in a workout and could do more intervals than are planned, DON’T. You want to peak for the race, not the workout.

To paraphrase Canova, in the last phase, there isn’t much you can do to make someone faster, but there’s a lot you can do to make them slower…

Good luck with your race!

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briguy on July 13, 2020 at 2:56 pm #43547

I actually was thinking HR/Zone tests. I guess I read so many posts on here about the tests and it gets me thinking. But I feel pretty comfortable with my HR zones after years of HR training and my zone 1 is pretty close to MAF and as such is probably on the conservative side anyway. And I’ve most likely “made my bed” now with regard to HR zones and now I just need to “sleep in it” through to the race.

But it’s interesting you brought up pace tests, what do you have in mind there? I don’t recall seeing any Pace tests in Uphill Athlete, just the HR zone ones. Would be keen to hear about any I could try.

For years I’ve done Joe Friel’s “ramp tests” to gauge increasing fitness during training cycles. And I even modified those to make what I jokingly call “ramp ramp test” as I do them on the treadmill at 14-15% grade. Because I’ve logged them in my training spreadsheet I can go back and compare to previous training cycles too. But they are really HR “tests” as the pace/grade is the same “ramp” in each iteration, and only the HR changes (hopefully for the better).

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Anonymous on July 14, 2020 at 12:26 pm #43583

Pace tests can be of all kinds. The simplest is just an outdoor time trial that you’ve run or will run multiple times. Or X laps on a track. Or on a treadmill.

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