Training Tips for Skyrun

Doing the Mournes Skyline in October. 35km and about 3,300m overall ascent. Did it last year but was pretty shattered for the final quarter, just a blur of pain really!

Would like to lower my time this year. Fitness pretty good, in recent weeks I just shaved 10 minutes off Carrauntoohil time and ran my fastest road 10km. But not sure if there is something I should be doing with October in mind and specific to that type of run. Should I be doing say 50km runs now, or doing runs with say 2000m+ ascents to get vertical metres in legs, or leave that till September, should I be doing maybe back to back long slow runs on weekends, or again is that a bit OTT?

I would have thought the vert would be the key. Long days with plenty of technical descending (try to mimic the course conditions). Strengthening exercises for quads, core and gluteus etc would be beneficial.

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Originally Posted by Conor74

Doing the Mournes Skyline in October. 35km and about 3,300m overall ascent. Did it last year but was pretty shattered for the final quarter, just a blur of pain really!

Would like to lower my time this year. Fitness pretty good, in recent weeks I just shaved 10 minutes off Carrauntoohil time and ran my fastest road 10km. But not sure if there is something I should be doing with October in mind and specific to that type of run. Should I be doing say 50km runs now, or doing runs with say 2000m+ ascents to get vertical metres in legs, or leave that till September, should I be doing maybe back to back long slow runs on weekends, or again is that a bit OTT?

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Having done a few ultras I recently changed the way I trained being more specfic. So instead of just running I did less long runs but a lot of hill reps, an hour of steep ups and downs where it isn't runnable going up and alternating this with hour reps where it is runnable (this is hard work). Also would do a 3 mile hilly course with sprints thrown in. Really worked for me combined with long runs but nothing excessive.

Good luck and enjoy

What's your training like at the minute? What was your time last year?

As you hint at yourself, and as luxinterior says, specificity is key. 10k leg speed is no bad thing but if your legs are trashed from >3,000m of descending then it'll be bugger all use to you. There isn't much on the Mournes course which is super steep or super technical but it does go up and down a lot, particularly in the second half, so that's what you want in your training. Build your training around long days in the hills, training as much to be smooth on the descents as strong on the climbs. Doing 50k+ or huge back to backs is just going to wipe you out and mean you can't train consistently so keep it manageable. You don't even need to be doing race distance, ~75% of the time you want to do for the race is plenty if you're getting it in every weekend. If it's possible to get shorter hilly runs in through the week then so much the better.

Sorry, training a bit all over the place recently, had fat pad problems and apparently not just 1 hernia but 2. But getting to grips with it again in recent weeks. Time last year was so etching like 5 hours 50 mins Ally, so room for improvement. Did the Mournes 7 7s a few weeks back which was excellent, grand up to half way but last quarter a real struggle...had forgotten what a jump it was going from your standard 2 hour up and down outings to 5 hours plus. Will definitely have to sharpen up the food and fuel intake, and pace myself better and not set off like a hare. Very timely reminder of the step up. In last couple of weeks have become a lot more focussed, travelling to meet other runners and doing hill repeats, speed sessions, half marathons around mountains etc. Gonna stick with that with the odd 30km run for another month. Planning on doing a triple ascent of Carrauntoohil in 10 days to again expose the legs to 3,000 m ascending.