[briguy]

I’m a Fast Twitch runner who has slowly (over a period of 5 years) morphed into enough of a slow twitch runner to BQ a marathon in my 40s. I did this with lots of running, but also some cross training (cycling, elliptigo, uphill treadmill walking – all Z1) baked in. Most of my interest now is in racing trails, with climing/uphill focus preferably. My A-goal race is in 12 months.

My problem is in structuring out the next 12 months. Even though that A race is out there, I also have a handful of other races I’d like to do well in along the way. None of these are as long, intense, etc as my A race.

Do I structure a long Base period, with 3-4 weeks of “sharpening” prior to each of those B/C/D races? Or does it not even matter what I do as long as I maintain a base for the next 5 months and then structure a 26-28 week plan for my A race?

I feel like I have a good opportunity here to maximize my potential so I want to set it up as best as possible. There is not any guidance that I can see in my Uphill Athlete book to address this specifically.

Note – To add color to the mix, I am also coming back from a surgery in mid-2018 that sidelined me for about 6 months. But I have been back at it and did that same A race a few weeks ago with no issues, just not as fast/strong as I would like.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 8, 2019 at 9:20 am #28110

You’re right that there is not any guidance for 12 month plans. It’s pretty hard to do more than a very general ‘big picture’ plan that far in advance. If your goals are all running related and going to take place next spring/summer/fall then I would keep building base all fall and winter using a 6 month plan that finishes with a B/c race. You’ll want some recovery after that race then roll into one of the existing plan templates for a mutli-race season.

You do not say the length of any of these races are. Normally the shorter the event, the more “intense” is the effort. Longer races must by necessity be done at a low intensity or you won’t make it. If these are long races (over 2 hours) then we’d normally plan to be building volume all the way to the A race. I’d not recommend much taper/sharpening for the C/D races. These should be planned to fit into your normal training scheme. You train through them, using them as workouts. The B race will want a mini taper.

I hope this helps.
Scott

[briguy]

briguy on September 9, 2019 at 6:16 am #28150

Thanks Scott.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to actually say what the A goal race is, it’s the Pikes Peak Marathon which is now just a bit less than a year away of course.

Actually I just signed up for a B race which fits right in the middle at roughly 6 months out from PPM. It also sorta fits PPM profile too, with a big climb and turnaround to a big descent. It’s not at altitude of course, but it makes up for it by being about 10-12 miles longer than PPM, so it’s a solid fit for training for PPM.

Looks like I can run out a 25+ week plan for that B race derived from my UA book, then recover and start up another 25+ week plan for PPM. All the little C/D/E races along the way can just fit in with training with little/no tapers.

I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with a UA plan under my belt.