[kathleen]

Good Morning – Scott, I recall reading that you are working on an article in which you discuss the ratio of endurance:ME when preparing for ultra events. I apologize if I’m not stating the subject of the article correctly. I’m delving more deeply into the extreme end of ultra distance again this year. I’d like to be more specific in the addition of ME rather than sort of guessing and hoping it would work out (which it did, thanks in good part to your advice!). If the article is published I’d love to read it!

Cheers!

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 2, 2018 at 9:17 am #14246

I’ll let Scott J. speak to the specifics of a ratio with ME, but I can comment on general proportions of intensity.

In order to maintain aerobic capacity in a long-duration event, I don’t think that you want the minutes of high-intensity training to exceed 5% of total training time. This’ll vary by individual, but that’s a rough guide.

(I say “minutes of high-intensity” to distinguish it from counting volume by sessions.)

I hope that helps.

[kathleen]

kathleen on November 2, 2018 at 9:36 am #14247

Thank you Scott. It’s fun and interesting to contemplate what differences, if any, there are when preparing for and doing events of 200+ miles which include massive amounts of vertical as well. I suspect it may come down to being my own best experiment of one but the 5% guideline is very helpful.

Kathleen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 2, 2018 at 4:58 pm #14258

200 miles!!!! Eeeesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 5, 2018 at 2:53 pm #14292

Kathleen;

Luke Nelson finished the Tor de Geant 330 km (100,000 vertical feet gain/loss) race in Italy this September in 8th place using an ME strength training integrated into his program. In the 9 months preceding the race his average weekly mileage was 48 and his average week vert was 15,000 feet. We did a 16 week block of ME training during which he completed 13 gym ME workouts. This was all he could handle and still get the vert we were after. One workout a week is plenty for runners. More than that and his legs could not recover. The ME work for mountain runners is very important in that it will delay and reduce the effects of neuromuscular fatigue.

Luke is working on an article for us about the race and the training that preceded it. Here is an article discussing the type of workout Luke was doing. https://uphillathlete.com/mountain-climbing-strength-workout-muscular-endurance/

Scott

[Land]

Land on November 5, 2018 at 9:17 pm #14297

Check out the Science of Ultra podcast, the latest episode is an interview with Luke Nelson, mostly about TdG. Great stuff! I too have had a couple of tiring days in the Portneuf Gap…