Hi! My wife and I are planning to run the Via Valais this year, and subsequently bought the training plan for the event. Currently we’re in a transition period before the 16 week plan commences.
Due to it still being winter in the mountains, I’m skiing more than running right now, though that will change in the coming months. My skiing is a mix of backcountry touring, skinning uphill at the resort, and lift serviced downhill skiing.
I’m curious to hear any others’ strategies on logging downhill skiing workouts in TP. I’ve found my TSS fudge factor when skinning at the resort, since that activity is consistent and repeatable. I’ve also read that some think Alpine Skiing should be logged as ME style workouts, only counting the time actually skiing (10-25 mins/hour, depending on group/skill/lift lines).
I’m opposed to logging downhill skiing as any type of moving activity where mileage and vert are logged, since it drastically and erroneously impacts weekly totals. So I’m partial to logging the effort as some type of workout, I’m just looking for some type of rubric that others have found reasonable. Similar to the “add 10 TSS per 1000 feet of elevation” or “add 10 TSS per 10% of bodyweight carried for this workout”.
Currently I’m using 1 TSS/min of actual downhill skiing, but this feels a bit low when I compare an hour of downhill to a 60 TSS hike, the downhill leaves my legs feeling more worked.