[jobois]

I am on week 13 of your 20-week training plan and feeling pretty solid working through the program. My end goal is the VT 50 miler at the end of September. For my long runs I am adding more miles on to go longer for the 50. My question is- these last few long runs ahead I hope to get up into the White Mountains of NH for them. The Whites can be hard to run in places and my pace slows down to 3-4 miles per hour on the technical terrain making the run more time on my feet than a dirt road run. For example, I did 20 miler yesterday and it took 6 hours- do I still need to add on miles or does the extra time on my feet provide enough stress on the body? Thanks for your thoughts.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 2, 2017 at 2:57 pm #5985

jobois:

Sadly my response to your post got lost when our site got hacked a couple of weeks ago. Here is what I said then.

Your training terrain should be similar to your race terrain. The VT race is relatively mellow compared to the terrain in the White Mtns of NH. In your race you’ll be required to run more and hike less than if you were on steeper terrain. While there is some gain to be had from a period of very hilly training you should do that earlier on in the program so you can use that strength to help you run faster in the flatter course of VT.

I hope this helps and sorry for the delayed response.

Scott