9 month training window with sub mountain objectives

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Topic
October 31, 2020 at 12:41 am #46424

henderson_alan
Participant

Hi, a brief summary of my situation:

1. I have a 4 week mountaineering expedition planned for August 2020 in Kyrgyzstan, with objective to summit a number of unclimbed peaks. This is my #1 objective (9 months for now)
2. Secondary to this, I have 2 ski touring mountaineering trips scheduled for end of 2021 winter season. 10 day Ecrins Haute route (April – 5 months from now), 2 week trip to the Caucasus summiting Kazbek and Elbrus (May – 6 months from now).

Risks

Having read your forum and book, I understand the ski Mountaineering trips will require a reduction in training pre event, and likely a week (or more) rest upon completion. So ultimately will derail / “take cash out of the bank” equivalent to a 5-6 weeks towards my ultimate Kyrgyzstan objective. However I am hopeful given 9 month timeframe from now until end objective, 3 month gap between final skiing and Kyrgyzstan, and careful management of training programme, all objectives can be achieved at high performance.

Proposal

I am intending to start the 24 week expedition mountaineering programme this week, complete stages one and two (16 weeks), adapting some of the routines in stage 2 to reflect immediate ski mountaineering objectives, tapering off ahead of the 1st ski trip, and then some maintenance work in the 3 weeks until trip 2.

Upon completion of skiing and rest, I’ll then re-do components of stage 2 mountaineering plan and complete stage 3, ahead of final Kyrgyzstan objective.

Question

Do you think this broadly makes sense for a high level plan?

Thanks a lot,

Alan
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Posted In: General Training Discussion

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Anonymous on October 31, 2020 at 8:11 am #46429

Alan:
Great questions. They’re quite common. Having an intermediate goal does not need to derail your preparation for the main goal. What you need to be sure is that you are well prepared for the ski trip in 5 months so that you do not drain you bank account too badly during it and require a month to recover.

Because I do not know your current fitness level I can’t give detailed suggestions but I can offer some general guidelines.

The first 5 months of the 24 week expedition plan are only laying a base for the harder work to come later. If you are at a fairly low level of fitness then you definitely should do those 5 month of this 6 month plan. If you are at a higher level of fitness (maybe you can manage no 8-10 hours of training a week and have a decent strength background. The I would jump to week 9 of the 24 week plan now and then after a short rest from the ski trip do the final months of the 24 week plan.

Scott

Participant

henderson_alan on November 2, 2020 at 11:21 pm #46491

Excellent, thanks Scott. I’m going to start from week 1 as while I’m fairly strong cardio wise, I think my strength needs a full train.

Alan

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