[kofu.anglais]

Hi all,

I am a fairly competitive trail runner competing mainly in Japan and Asia. I have a question about training hours. I just recently switched over to Training Peaks and am using their ATP to plan a few years ahead in order to keep from over training and hopefully to extend my running career. My current plan is based on hours spent training/running.

I wanted to know if this hour limit is extended to all parts of training or just my running. For example; I run 6-8 times a week as well as do some cross training (mainly swimming), commute by bicycle, hit two gym sessions a week and do stretching, proprioception exercises and core workouts at home.

If I use the hour limit to include all these activities I will not have much time at all for running. Is it safe to assume that the duration as laid out by training peaks is for my running hours and cross training only, or should I change my ATP to include all of these activities?

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on July 5, 2019 at 11:36 am #24525

You’ll want to include all of your training time in your volume calculations. The most helpful thing about TP is the fatigue metrics, and all training modes will contribute to fatigue.

If the prescribed volume doesn’t jive with the total volume of your current training, then maybe it’s too low?

You may also want to plan in shorter chunks, a year max. I find that training plans change almost immediately, and my general plan never resembles what actually happened. Multi-year goals make sense, but week to week plans that long in advance are too specific IMO.

[kofu.anglais]

kofu.anglais on July 5, 2019 at 8:08 pm #24567

Thanks for the reply, your reasoning makes a lot of sense. I will change the ATP to reflect my time spent training in different modes.

My concern was based on a note in Uphill athlete about adding only 10 percent of training hours per year. I moved from 300 hours in 2017 up to probably about 450 hours this year. I don’t want to overdo it and sabotage longevity so I was a bit conservative in my training time estimates.

The amount of different factors you have to take into account in training is dizzying. I am starting to get the hang of the dance though. As for planning in shorter chunks, I usually have a somewhat detailed 3 month plan with a broad plan up to a year including base phases, specificity, peaking for races etc.

I will spend more time going through Training for the Uphill Athlete and continue to hone the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on July 8, 2019 at 5:21 pm #24735

You’re wise to be concerned with longevity. Long-term consistency will make you fitter than any other approach.

How did the 450 hours feel compared to the 300?

It’s also worth noting that competitive runners usually have less total volume than other endurance athletes because of the pounding. That’s for year-round running. I’ve read that 500 hours is a pretty good number for runners, so you may want to add some lower impact activities above that threshold.

[kofu.anglais]

kofu.anglais on July 18, 2019 at 12:06 am #25130

Yes, I am glad to be looking ahead a few years in order to enjoy the mountains as injury free as possible and possibly get some good results in races.

The move up in hours so far hasn’t been difficult. I got some of my best results after adding intensity and increasing to two hard workouts during the week. I was not yet versed in the ten percent spread between AeT and AnT but I must have been pretty close because my performance jumped considerably. I am now carefully building and trying to calculate my AeT and AnT during rest weeks.

I will take the 500 hours of running training into account and perhaps invest in a road bike soon. Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate it.