Trail and ultrarunning are exploding in popularity. In 2004, there were approximately 20,300 ultramarathon finishes. Last year, there were over 143,000. Because of this, races are filling faster than ever, and lotteries have decreasing odds. For those who got their pick of races, consider yourself lucky. If you didn’t get your first choice, now is the time to start formulating a backup plan. Either way, it’s worth considering how to structure the best training approach with a strategy that covers all facets of preparation for race day.
Where to Begin
Consider the demands of your race(s) by gathering all the information that’s available to runners. Unless it’s an especially small, grassroots or inaugural event, such information is generally ubiquitous—it just takes time to sift through key information. Make sure you’re aware of where you’d be likely to finish relative to other competitors. This is easier to do if you already have a few races under your belt. Find previous race results to understand if you’d typically be a front, middle or back-of-the-pack finisher. From there, estimate how long the event will take to complete based on prior finishing times (assuming no major course alterations). Race duration tends to be much more insightful than distance and elevation because this will inform pacing, nutrition and gear choices. This can also help you determine the best times for different training intensity levels and focus areas—what will temperatures be, how much vertical gain and loss does the course offer and how steep are the climbs? Long climbs and descents or many short uphill and downhill sections should be trained for specifically. How many aid stations are there, how far apart are they and how many allow crew and/or drop bags? Lay out the details first, then prioritize them. From there, start to formulate the gross approach for the months that lay ahead.
Once you have a good idea of the race demands, take an assessment of your current strengths and weaknesses. Be honest with yourself about your general fitness level and your race experience, and review how well your training simulates the terrain of the course(s). If there is a wide disparity, you may need to spend some time on the treadmill, plan a training camp on the course ahead of time or find a similar environment as your race approaches.
Training Intensity Considerations
Go back to the part where you estimated how much the time the race will take. If your race will take you about 3 hours or less to complete and you are a relatively fit athlete, there’s a good chance you will spend a lot of time at higher intensity levels on race day—think lactate threshold and V02 max. For events lasting between 3-12 hours, you may spend some time at threshold, likely little-to-none at V02 max and a lot of time at your endurance/zone 2 and zone 3/steady state intensity. When runners are likely to be in motion for more than 12 hours, with the exception of elite competitors, the intensity is relatively low. Most athletes in races of this duration will spend a large majority of their time in zones 1 and 2. With these parameters, start at race day, build in a 7-14-day taper and continue working back to the start of your training plan. The most specific training intensity should be planned within the closest proximity to the race. So, if you anticipate spending a lot of time at the lower intensity levels during your event, that type of training should be focused on during the 6-10 weeks before you begin your taper. Your weekly elevation gain/loss should match that of the course during these closest-to-the-race training blocks. Moving farther out from race day, plan the intensity that you might use a little during the race, for most runners that would be 1-3 blocks of 2-4 weeks each focusing on improving pace and power at threshold. As you get even farther away from the race and closer to the timeframe when you begin the concept of your long-range plan, it’ll be important to integrate training intensity levels that you likely won’t tap into during your race. Consider V02 max training to be appropriate during this period, assuming there is a basic level of fitness from which you are starting from so that injury can be avoided. A good rule of thumb for this very high intensity training is to complete the intervals on an uphill grade—something runnable but doesn’t require pure leg speed to reach these high intensity levels. Because leg speed is often a limiting factor for many trail runners, especially athletes without shorter distance training experience or who have been exclusively mountain runners for many consecutive years, this can be jarring from a structural standpoint. Again, this is where assessing one’s relative strengths and weaknesses comes into play. It’s vital that athletes consider their training history, fitness and physiology and combine that with a long-range plan to progress steadily.
Final Considerations
Be sure to think through nutrition strategies, gear needs (throughout training) and if heat training is necessary. Heat adaptation training can, in the simplest terms, go into a passive or active ‘bucket,’ and garners a deeper discussion. Today, just assume it needs to be a consideration for most spring, summer and fall events in the Northern hemisphere. Nutrition should be practiced to some degree in all, or at least most training sessions to understand what works for a runner’s unique physiology and environmental temperatures. Lastly, the more training that happens with race day gear, the more streamlined systems will become, allowing runners to spend more time moving forward and less time hassling with things that could have been dialed in during training. Don’t overlook the small details.
Go into the season with confidence. Set aside the time to thoroughly understand what you’ve committed to, what needs to occur so you can be confident in the preparation and race day plan at the start line and throughout the race. You’ll surely need to troubleshoot problems at least a handful of times. The more thought and preparation that has gone into the long-range plan, the more readily solutions will be created, and a successful outcome becomes possible.