Are you sure you don’t have to carry a tent? There is usually shared gear, even on guided trips, which gets divvied up right before you leave. I remember on my AAI trip up Mt Baker the shared gear really added to the weight of the pack. Plus all the mountaineering gear like crampons, ice axe, harness, helmet, etc. all add weight.
Rachel
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ParticipantRachel on May 10, 2019 at 3:52 pm · in reply to: Specific Period…I've been carrying too much weight? #21864Participant
I would do a nice long warmup for at least 20 minutes. Start the warmup walking really slow. The idea is to get your aerobic system “fully online.”
ParticipantRachel on May 2, 2019 at 7:35 am · in reply to: Hill sprint workout duration (from the book Uphill Athlete) #21314The hill sprints themselves should be short. Book says 6-8 10 second hill sprints, with two minutes in between. So 130 seconds for each rep (10 seconds plus 120 seconds recovery). 6 of those is 12 minutes total. 8 reps would be a bit over 17 minutes total.
So 35 for warmup, 12-17 for the hill sprints, and cool down of 20 minutes.
ParticipantHere’s more info on the HR drift test that gfilip is talking about:
https://uphillathlete.com/heart-rate-drift/I have both books and the new book has a lot in common with TftNA.
For exercise progressions, I googled about L-sit progression and you can start cross legged, or one leg at a time.
I worked my way to two unassisted chin-ups by using resistance bands to help make the exercise easier. Chin-ups especially will help work your biceps too, and are a little easier than pull-ups (but with all the benefits, I think). Push-ups you can do on an incline or knee pushups.
ParticipantRachel on April 18, 2019 at 5:43 pm · in reply to: Which terrain to build AeT? And some other questions. #20670I found the AnT isn’t as hard to get right the first try as AeT.
Just go all out for a half an hour after a long easy warmup (follow their instructions on the DIY page).
If you are a runner, run. I’m not much of a runner these days so I went up my local ski hill (hiked in the snow in November, then skinned up in March). I highly recommend doing a Strava segment for your AnT test because that helped spur me to keep going even when it felt like torture during the first 10 minutes (it got better somehow).
My AeT has increased by about 8-10 bpm in almost six months. This has felt very slow progress but recently my recovery has improved dramatically and I’ve been able to handle a lot more load. (It’s either the high fat diet, or the fact I’ve been diligently getting Vitamin D for two months, or both).
ParticipantYes the wrist monitor sucks. The last few days I was convinced my Suunto Smart Sensor strap was broken because of the erratic readings (it kept saying I hit 200 bpm, which is above my max, and I was doing a Z2 workout!)
It turns out the battery died, and my watch was using the optical sensor. Ooops. Btw, I find the Suunto smart sensor more comfortable than the Polar H10 but really both are great straps. The only time I trust the wrist HR is at night for overnight HR averages (and that’s because it shows a trend over time).
ParticipantRachel on April 17, 2019 at 6:55 pm · in reply to: Which terrain to build AeT? And some other questions. #20609I’ve spent way too much time reading the forums here so I’ll chime in with what I’ve learned so far:
Keep under zone 2 (under 130) even later in the workout.
Steep terrain is good because it mirrors your event. I would probably do a mix of flat and rolling and then make weekend trips to climb in the mountains if I were living where you do. But maybe you might have to add in some inclined treadmill or stairwell workouts to get more vertical in if those MTB trails are really gentle. I admit I tend to gloss over those flatlander posts because I live in the mountains.
Don’t bomb downhill, just go Z1 and count the entire time towards the workout. (if it calls for 2 hour Z2 uphill workout, count the entire time up and down towards the 2 hours). Although sometimes I like to jog downhill because otherwise my HR goes too high, still. (I think living at elevation is part of the issue too, our AeT is just lower here).
When I started following TftNA’s plan in the fall I was ridiculously slow too. I was cross country skiing and hiking uphill in what felt like slow motion. I’ve definitely sped up.
I did an AnT test at the beginning and it is helpful to know if you are aerobically deficient (so if you can add in the occasional Z3 workout or not) and I use Training Peaks so they use that number to calculate your training stress as well. I’m guessing based on your previous post about AeT that you probably are aerobically deficient though (the fact you could work out at an hour at a much higher HR in your initial test.) But you won’t know when you’ve fixed your ADS unless you know your AnT.
One more note that I wish maybe I had read when I started — I personally have found the most satisfying part is going from carb burner to fat burner. I was the kind of person who always had a Gu or Clif Blok handy just in case (and of course plenty of high carb snacks), or who would bonk on a long day, or just get really irritable when hungry. Now I can go for hours fasted with zero carbs and I don’t get hangry anymore. I started with fasted training then a few weeks ago went high fat low carb to help my training, and see if it would fix my allergies. It is helping with both although the first week or two was tough on training.
ParticipantI would say do both. Personally I like to mix things up to have variety and to avoid injury. And I still can’t run uphill at all under my AeT. At first I didn’t want to go up anything super steep because of how slow I had to go, so I walked up more moderate slopes. Now I’m doing more steep stuff again, still slow, but not agonizingly slow.
ParticipantI was thinking along the same lines as madanyang. I’d try somewhere between 130 and 135. You may have to slow to a walk and raise the incline
If you want to find out your Maffetone HR, you could calculate it here: Maffetone 180 formula. It might be lower than your AeT but it most likely won’t be higher. It worked pretty well for me to start but I also live at altitude (and AeT lowers with altitude.) At sea level it would have been 10 beats too low for me. As it was my starting AeT from a drift test was 133 bpm, and my MAF HR is 129.
Also I think if you do the test well rested you’ll have better results than if you are tired. good luck!
ParticipantRachel on March 28, 2019 at 7:29 am · in reply to: Recs for smallish fitness watch with decent wrist HR monitor? #19213I also use the Suunto Spartan Trainer but I pair it with a chest strap as well. The only time I trust the HR data is for overnight sleep averages. The Suunto Spartan does track sleep but if you don’t want it to just don’t wear the watch at night. Somehow I turned step counting off (or it’s broken, doesn’t matter to me).
A watch that was even cheaper (but it was huge on my wrist, the standard Suunto size, I have a small wrist) is the Ambit Run. It has fewer features and you need to pair with a chest strap for HR data. I used it with a Polar H10 and it worked well. It does have GPS, but you can just ignore it or probably even turn it off.
ParticipantRachel on March 22, 2019 at 10:53 am · in reply to: A Different Athlete Than I Was 11 Months Ago – Before & After Test Comparison + #18942That makes sense.
And good work by the way! It’s so nice to see progress from training.
I’m about five months in and have just recently started noticing the gains I’m making (Strava segments really help me too, so I can see how I improve over time.) Sometimes it feels like a very slow process.
I’ve also wondered about how much fasted workouts hurt my recovery. On one hand I’ve noticed a ton of improvement in my fat adaptation by doing so many fasted workouts, but then sometimes I wonder if I could put in more hours if I did fewer fasted workouts. It’s tradeoff for sure.
ParticipantRachel on March 22, 2019 at 7:24 am · in reply to: A Different Athlete Than I Was 11 Months Ago – Before & After Test Comparison + #18913I’m curious why your AeT and your top of Z2 are so different. I thought that the top of Z2 by definition is the AeT.
ParticipantRachel on March 14, 2019 at 11:07 am · in reply to: Transitioning from skimo to mountain running with the Foote plan? #18358From what I’ve read here, if the difference is more than 10% then Z2 work feels easier and is supposed to help you increaese your AeT as well. If you have < 10% difference then Z2 is supposed to feel a lot harder, hence more Z1.
ParticipantI really like EE’s quilts, I think we own at least four of them. We have both the down and the APEX quilts. I use the 20 degree down quilt most of the time (I live in the Rockies so it’s dry, but I also used it on Timberline Trail last summer, too, and it wasn’t dry at all).
I use my APEX one to layer over the down in colder weather, or by itself when it’s really warm at night. I have a 40 degree APEX quilt which I would use at 55 or higher because I sleep cold. I think it would be great in the Pac NW.
I haven’t been able to go back to sleeping bags after trying out quilts. I do recommend going one size wider than you think you need, it doesn’t weigh that much more and it helps to prevent drafts when it gets colder.
ParticipantI warm up with resistance band pullups and also with my TRX by doing rows. You could use rings or even webbing to do rows.