The Tao of Training (Endurance)

There are as many different training methods as there are athletes. What works for one athlete or sport may not work for another athlete or sport. Running is no different than any other discipline in that everyone wants to find the perfect way to train but almost no one has it down perfectly. There is a lot of nuance to training. It is a very complex dance of pushing human performance just far enough to elicit a physiological response but not too far so that the body cannot adequately recover. This dance, and the method of training that I’ll talk about, is called periodization.

From a very high level, periodization is a series of training blocks where the athlete “loads” their body with training stimulus and then lets the body recover so that the stimulus can be absorbed. There are 3 main areas of periodization that are most critical for ultrarunners which I will cover over the next few blog post. Those 3 areas are Endurance Training, Strength Training, and Nutrition (yes, you should periodize your nutrition too). Under the umbrella of periodization there are several different methods that a training plan can use. This is where a lot of the nuance with training comes in to play so I will discuss the most basic form of periodized training (linear) which is also the basis of the training plan used in Ulra App.

Endurance Training

There are some very basic principles to discuss before we get into how the plan comes together. I like to start at the very highest level and work my way down to the more detailed aspects of training. The very highest level to look at is the entire training year. I think it’s very important, at the absolute minimum, to plan out the entire year (Macrocycle). Many athletes, myself included, actually plan out several years in advance and periodize each year building towards a specific goal. I’ve currently got the next 5 years planned with some pretty epic races in my sights.

Macrocycles

The year is typically broken down into larger sections such as Off Season, Pre-Season, In-Season, and Post-Season. I typically combine Off Season and Pre-Season since there is little difference for endurance athletes. I like to look at the Off/Pre-Season as the time to build strength and muscle mass while slowly adding back some runs. The focus of this portion of the training year is not building endurance but instead building durability, gaining back muscle lost due to high volume running, and injury prevention. The focus switches during the In-Season portion of the year to sport specific running with some strength training mixed in to maintain overall fitness. Post-Season has a primary focus of recovery after the last major race of the year and may last anywhere from a few weeks to several months.

Mesocycles

The In-Season portion of the year is further broken down into Mesocycles which are basically blocks of training with the same goal or purpose. These blocks can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. I like to use the terms Base, Build, and Peak to describe these blocks but there are many other terms that can be used depending on the source.

I think we are all pretty familiar with the term Base training but I’ll give my interpretation of what it is and why it is important for ultrarunning. Base training is focused mainly on building volume, or weekly mileage, using runs that vary in length throughout the week but are all low intensity runs. If any higher intensity runs are included at this point in the training plan there is a much higher likelihood of injury or overtraining (unless you are an Elite athlete). Ultrarunners, specifically, have much less sport specific requirement for high intensity training and this is certainly not the time for it. Each week, the total volume increases which helps to build durability as well as aerobic endurance. I will talk about durability quite a bit so I want to take a second to explain what I mean. Durability is how well your muscles and/or body hold up to the constant pounding. Almost every non-Elite ultramarathoner who has run a 100 miler will tell you that the biggest factor that ate into their finish time all stems back to durability. Most people will have severe muscle pain or cramping which leads to walking or stopping for long periods. Some people’s quads give out on the downhills or calves can’t take the climbing. Many people will develop knee pain or IT band pain. No one will tell you, “If only I could have maintained that 7:00 pace a little longer I would have won.” All of these issues have a root cause of poor durability. One of the key training sessions during the Base phase is the Long Slow Day. These are the longest runs during the week and serve as a milestone of fitness throughout the training plan. Each week during Base training the Long Slow Day increases in distance (with the exception of Recovery weeks). During the Base phase of the training plan, runs are kept mostly in the Zone 2 (Aerobic Threshold) range with maybe 1 run in Zone 3. An easy way to tell if you are staying in Zone 2 is if you can easily breathe through your nose the entire time or easily hold a conversation with someone while running. The Base phase will take up the majority of your training and may last a couple of months. As the Base phase progresses it may be broken up by one or more Recovery weeks. A Recovery week has the overall volume decreased for that week as well as an increase in Recovery or Off Days. These Recovery weeks are crucial for helping the body to be able to make the necessary physiological adaptations to the training stimulus.

Following the Base phase comes Build. If Base training was successful then you’ve laid a very good endurance foundation on which you can now Build additional fitness. Build phase is typically 4-6 weeks in length and starts after a much needed Recovery week. For most ultrarunners, Build will inject a little more variety into your weeks. Constant running in Zone 2 can get monotonous if you are stuck on the same routes all the time. Build begins to incorporate a little more intensity into the plan by adding another Zone 3 run. Zone 3 is what I call a Tempo Run and is that area where most people find themselves running. The effort in Zone 3 is too hard to just be able to breathe through your nose but not so hard that it feels uncomfortable (like running a timed mile). Too many ultrarunners find themselves in a Zone 3 trap where every single run they go on are in this zone. This is a dangerous place to be and leads to a plateau that’s really hard to break free from. I really like to mix these runs up by doing slow hills or even power-hiking with a weight vest. Long Slow Days are still a part of Build but there is an added twist. In this phase we add in the Back-to-Back (BTB) Long Runs. BTB Long Runs are done on the weekend and basically repeat the typical Long Slow Day from Saturday to Sunday (also a key factor in building durability). The purpose of the BTB Long Runs are to be able to keep building mileage week over week while adding in shorter Tempo runs. I also believe that it is nearly as beneficial to run 40 miles in a 24 hour period (like in back to back days) as it is run them continuously. 40 miles in one day can be difficult logistically to plan for and doesn’t fit into many people’s schedules as easily as BTB 20 milers.

The Peak phase of training follows Build and is typically 3-5 weeks in length leading up to the planned race. If Base is the equivalent of forging the steel and Build is folding, shaping, and hammering the blade then Peak would be honing the razor’s edge on a samurai sword. At this point in the training plan the total weekly volume starts to decline as still more intensity is built into training. There will still be the omnipresent Long Slow Day but early each week will be 2-3 higher intensity workouts that would mimic race day conditions. If you are racing in the mountains, then you would include hill repeats. If you are racing on flat trails, then you would include some shorter threshold training. There are some benefits to higher intensity runs for ultrarunners including improved efficiency, increases in lactate threshold, and improvement in biomechanics. It is VERY important that these runs are just a minor part of the plan and do not become a major focus. Elite or Professional athletes may have more focus on these higher intensity runs but they’ve also had many years of Base training to allow their body to absorb the higher stresses of speed work.

Microcycles

A Microcycle is simply the training week. Some advanced periodized plans have 10 day microcycles but I have always been a fan of keeping things nice and easy with 1 week chunks. If you notice in the app, there is an Annual Plan (Macrocycle) and a Weekly Plan (Microcycle) which allows you to easily see what training is coming up. Many people don’t realize this, but the structure of the week is very important. It drives coaches crazy when athletes don’t stick to the plan and jumble everything up. There is a very specific reason that certain runs are placed where they are in the week. For example, I always start to build a week with 2 key principles in mind. 1) The Long Easy Day is always on Saturday, and 2) Thursday is always an Off Day. There are a few other key principles that are taken into account when creating a training plan. A high intensity run should never come the day before or the day after the Long Slow Day. A Recovery Day should come after the Long Slow Day (or BTB Long Runs). Long runs should never have high intensity levels and high intensity runs should never be long. Runs that elicit the highest stress on the body should be separated by at least 2 days and one of those days should either be an Off Day or Recovery Day. These are most of the basic principles that make up the periodization of a week. So you can see why it’s very difficult when an athlete wants to switch up the days of training. There are a lot of factors that come into play when you have to adjust on the fly. This is the reason why I did not allow for adjustments in the weekly plan (maybe in the future). As it stands, everything lines up very nicely throughout the week and also from week to week taking all of these principles into account. The ultimate goal is to get you to the start line of your race in peak condition and without injury. The balancing act of pushing the distance and intensity just enough to get you as fit as possible but allowing the body enough time to recover is always the hardest thing.

The periodized approach that I’ve just described is the basis for the standard training plans that are part of the Ultra App. I’ve taken the standard linear periodization model and modified it to fit ultramarathon training. There are modifications to the plan that are available if you select “Elite” for Fitness Level and other parameters such as Intensity Preference. As I mentioned at the beginning, this might not be the perfect approach for every athlete but it’s a highly regarded method that has been used successfully for many years. If you have not followed any specific training plans such as this and just go out and run a moderate pace every day, I guarantee that you will see improvement. If you tend to get injured or find that your durability is lacking, this is a great way to structure your training. If you are very data driven and like to see exactly where your training is leading, this is a great training method for you. Periodizing your Endurance Training along with Strength Training and Nutrition (blog posts coming soon) is a very solid approach to making it to the finish line of your next ultra faster, healthier, and overall better.