Training Plans.
The Training Plan is the heart and soul of this app. There may be other bells and whistles but everything revolves around the plan. If you are like so many other runners out there, the value of the plan isn’t necessarily to make you the next Jim Walmsley but to provide a guide to help you get to the start line of your race as the best runner you can be and without being injured or overtrained. Others like the fact that the plan keeps them accountable and can provide that extra little motivation to get out the door and log your training for the day. Some runners have incredibly busy lives and don’t want to have to spend time thinking about what sort of training session they should do today. They just want it spelled out for them so they only have to focus on training and not planning. New runners to the ULTRA community might not have any idea where to start and may not have experience with creating training plans. Whatever category you fit in, this is why you are here.
Annual Plan
The training plan is built using an algorithm that takes the information from the System Setup, the Treadmill Tests, and the Race Selection to determine the Annual Plan. The Annual Plan is a high level view of all of the weeks in the training year. The Annual Plan will give a snapshot of each week and assign an overall Intensity, Total Distance, Long Run, Recovery, and Elevation Gain.
Week Number is the column on the far left. This indicates which week of the annual plan you are currently on. This column will also tell you the date of the first day of that training week. If you see a negative number in this column, that means you are in “pre-season” training. Pre-season training is very beneficial as it helps to prepare you for the heavy run loads of the upcoming season.
Intensity is measured on a scale from 1-6 and is determined by how many easy, medium, and hard training session are in each week. An Intensity value of 1 would mean that there are only easy days in the schedule for that week, whereas an Intensity value of 6 would mean there are 2 medium intensity and 2 high intensity days that week. Unless you are an Elite athlete or select High Intensity preference in the System Setup you will see mostly Intensity values of 2-3.
Total Distance describes the total number of miles (or Km) that are run in that week. As you will see in the Annual Plan, your Total Distance will steadily increase from week 1 until your Big Week and then it will decrease until race day. Volume is one of the most important training metrics for an ULTRA runner. Speed work, intervals, and hill repeats are much less important to the 100 mile racer than to a 5K road runner. Building up a good base of volume in your legs is the foundation for the durability you need to be able to keep hammering 24 hours into a race.
Long Run is the distance of the longest run for the week, AKA the Long Slow Day (LSD). The LSD is a staple of the ULTRA runner for much the same reasons as Volume. The LSD will be a part of the plan every week as you build toward the race. As with Volume, the Duration will steadily increase throughout the plan until the Big Week when it will then decrease until the race.
Recovery is measured on a scale from 1-5 and is determined by how many Recovery or Off days are scheduled for that week. A Recovery value of 1 means that there are no Recovery or Off days for that week whereas a Recovery value of 5 means that there is 1 Recovery day and 2 Off days. Most plans will have a typical weekly Recovery value of 3-4 meaning 1 Off day and 1-2 Recovery days per week. Our philosophy is that it is much better to be well recovered than injured or overtrained.
Elevation Gain is measured in feet (or meters) of climbing for the entire week. The Elevation Gain will be solely determined by the Race Selection. If, for example, you want to run a 100 mile race with 20,000 feet of elevation gain this would be 200 feet/mile. This number will be used to set your Elevation Gain for the Big Week. If your plan has 70 miles scheduled for your Big Week, then you will also have 14,000 feet of elevation gain for that week. The feet/mile of climbing will increase from week 1 of the plan up to the Big Week and then back down until race day.
Weekly Plan
Each week of the Annual Plan is broken down into a weekly view. This view gives you a look at what is planned for the current week. Each week will start on Monday and end on Sunday. The Weekly Plan will give you the Zone, Distance, and Elevation gain scheduled for each run that week. You also have the ability to scroll forward and backward weeks at the top of the screen. At the bottom of the screen will be the total distance and elevation gain planned for that week as well as the actual distance and elevation gain that you earn during each run.
Today’s Run
This is the screen that you will come to each day when it’s time to train. This screen will tell you the type of run (Steady Climb is pictured below), Distance, HR Range, Estimated Pace, and Elevation Gain. Below that will give a brief description of the type of run. You may choose a different run type by clicking on “Choose Alternate” and scrolling through the menu. This will not change the distance, zone, or elevation gain for the run; only the type of run that it will be. For example, if the plan has you scheduled for a flat and fast run but you want to hit the hills today and do some power hiking you can change the run type here. If you select Off Day, there will be a dialog box asking for the reason. This will be helpful so that you can revisit at the end of the season to find out if you were sick or overtrained at some point in the training plan.
Once you press Start Run the app will ask if you are running outside or on a treadmill. Once you choose, you’ll be ready to start your run for the day and the app will track your progress!
