[MarkG]

Hello. I have a query about maximum duration of Aet sessions. The guidance seems to suggest up to 2 hours. If I wanted to extend these to 4-6 hours is that advisable or would it better to do 3x 2hr sessions?
I am currently training for a fell race which normally takes me about 6 hrs 30 minutes, but also have aspirations for a Joss Naylor Challenge which at my age has an 18 hr time allowance, all of which I would probably need.
I’m 62, have 30+ years of regular training behind me and currently have an Aet of 130, LT of 153, so am working on my aerobic deficiency, but my goal is to maintain an efficient effort over 6-18hrs.
Thanks.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 3, 2020 at 9:19 am #46500

Mark:

The length of your Z2 runs will depend to a great extent on the the state of your aerobic base. If your AeT is high (close to your Ant) then even a 2 hour run at AeT if too much and you need to do your longer runs in Z1. These can be several hours long depending on your event.

On the other hand, if you are aerobically deficient then doing 2 hours (or more) at the top of Z2 will speed up the aerobic base development.

Scott

[MarkG]

MarkG on November 3, 2020 at 10:12 am #46504

Thanks very much for your reply Scott, I’ll gradually build up time spent at the top of Z2 until I get my Aet up another 10bpm or so which should put it about 10% below LT. I’m quite happy to do longer than 2hrs at that intensity and will extend that as well.
Cheers.

[Emil]

Emil on November 3, 2020 at 10:57 am #46506

You may progress faster if you cap the duration of the long run. You may be risking overuse injury due to the repetitive eccentric loading, or slower recovery at the least. Doing too long a long run may actually result in higher training stress because of the heart rate drift.

[MarkG]

MarkG on November 4, 2020 at 2:22 am #46517

Thanks, a good point to bear in mind but most of my long sessions are in the hills so there’s a lot of variation in ground and stride length etc, so hopefully repetitive strain issues should be less likely. My target events are all in the region of 6-18 hrs, so I really do feel I need some good long days out.