[warren.m.meyers]

Hi UA,
I just finished listening to the podcast with Scott & Luke on ME and training for Tor Des Geants. It was excellent and I really appreciate the discussion’s deep dive into training methods and their outcomes, so thanks for spending time on that. Listening to these types of conversations are really insightful for self-coached athletes and hopefully this style can be continued in future episodes.

During the podcast it was a noted that Luke’s ME block ended about seven weeks before TdG and that he shifted to more intense hill intervals (not sure if these were sprints or longer threshold style intervals) in his last several weeks and saw some significant gains in PR times. I’m curious, what is the utility/ intended training effect of running these intense hill intervals so near to the goal event when the athlete’s average pace is so much slower during the event?

Thank you!
-Warren

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 1, 2021 at 3:58 pm #50280

Warren:

The ideas behind going to a conventional interval training block after the ME black is:

The ME training provides a base of support for the more globally taxing intervals. The ME builds fatigue resistance in the legs so that the athlete can get more out of the intervals that come later. If the legs fatigue in an interval session then after the fatigue sets in the global load, the muscle fiber recruitment and hence the training effect of the workout will be reduced. SO we make the legs less likely to fatigue before we do the intervals.

The reason for the intervals is that we do want to boost the anaerobic threshold. And they have a high ME component so they maintain the gains made during the ME block while shifting to more race specific training (More than ME).

Luke did a 4 week taper before the TdG so plenty of time to recover. Yes, this event is competed at well below the aerobic threshold. But the prior training include prodigious amounts of Z1-2 volume and we’ve had very good results with capping the pre comp training with intensity.

Scott

[l.tregan]

l.tregan on February 10, 2021 at 2:00 am #50663

On that specific question:

>what is the utility/ intended training effect of running these intense
>hill intervals so near to the goal event when the athlete’s average
>pace is so much slower during the event?

I believe a reason to add intervals for ultra is a way to do something and maintain the training, while still providing plenty of time to relax and do some tapering.

Is anaerobic useful by itself on ultra ? Maybe a little, eg. if you want to catchup on a group in the last meters of a big ascent before they loose you on the downhill. Little pushes here and there can help, because for many people speed will decrease as soon as you are alone.

Happy to have Scott comment further.

loic

[hubea]

hubea on February 16, 2021 at 11:15 am #50907

Scott, I listened to the podcast and really enjoyed it. What resonated with me was the small number of miles Luke did. I plan to do TdG next year but can’t do big mileage.

So I’m intrigued by introducing ME into my training. How often should you do a ME session a week?

Thanks
Andrew