Many people have told me this and Mike Sadula says, "Some say that you need to climb 10,000 ft a week." Prior to a BG attempt
But, for how many weeks before, and what if its not possible every single week?
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Many people have told me this and Mike Sadula says, "Some say that you need to climb 10,000 ft a week." Prior to a BG attempt
But, for how many weeks before, and what if its not possible every single week?
I live in a flat ;)
Top floor mind you :D
I did this for my Paddy, still average about that. I just made sure I had a good 12 months of at least averaging 3000m a week, but also tried never to do less than 2000m, living in Snowdonia this wasn't hard to achieve at all.
And how do you get an accurate measurement given that garmin's are'nt that accurate?
i used maps, which are :)
I used my Garmin downloaded through Sports tracks, sometimes Anquet, sometimes maps, sometimes a standard suunto altimeter watch.
Steps up Scammonden dam wall or grass bank Merry.
Drop me a PM and I will show you sometime.
How about up to Stoodley Pike and back from the valley floor? Or anything similar in the area really.
The lane past our house drops 50m to the beck (and another 40m to the top of the lane, all in about half a Km) so a few reps gets the ascent in quite quickly.
The only problem with the climbs in the Pennines is that they are quite short compared to many in the Lakes. Leg 1 of the BG has just three climbs and descents totalling 1600m both up and down.
Merry, how far are you from Stoodley Pike? There's some good climbing there and it'd be better than and more 'organic' than hill climbing reps on steps or a reser dam wall
I keep thinking about the lad Swiss Toni helped round last summer who did his training in a tower block in London. If he could do it it ought to be relatively easy for us with Pennine hills on the doorstep. I was driving over to Harrogate for a party on Saturday night and said to a friend that if I'm to do the BGR then the hills around Addingham and Bolton Abbey area where I live will have to become my friends :cool::eek:
Did a few runs over to Stoodley Pike from home and plenty of climb when i got there, as training for the Duddon, worked well, but as Bob says, the climbs are'nt as long as the Lakes, be nice to have Little Stand on the doorstep.
I've a friend who used to do the following as a training run: Run from Torver up Coniston Old Man, down the quarry track to Low Water, round the back of this then up the headwall to the ridge; along the ridge for a hundred metres or so then down to the level of Low Water; move along another hundred metres and back up to the ridge. He'd continue until he came to Prison Band! Then run back via Dow Crag. Some interval training!!
i'd advise climb as much as you can whether it be 100 foot reps or a gruelling 2700 up Pen yr olewen! I did no where near 10000 a week every week before I did BGR. I gradually built it up during the winter before but only got to the proper mountains once a month between Dec and April when I got there more frequently. For me the secret of success though compared with my failure the year before was to do hill rather than distance. So, even when I couldnt get to Wales or lakes I,d rep hils locally to Nottingham even if I was only do 2 or 3 thousand feet in a session once or twice a week. I'd always run them (which you dont tend to do on a BGR) as I treated reps as power sessions. by the time it got to April I found going to the Lakes once a fortnight added that bit extra and I'd probably get 12 or 13000 feet done in a day.For me you do what you can given where you live, and I think its better to do 2 hours of repping up and down a local steep hill than 18 miles out along the canal. For those living in the Pennines there is no excuse!
Most of my training was done on Kinder-Derwent edge, just lots of ascents. it doesn't matter if you can't get a 3000ft climb in if you can do 6 x 500ft or 3 x 1000ft hill reps it's the time climbing. Mixed with the odd long days in lakes or Scottish hills is fine.
You don't practice racing a marathon to race a marathon
Well my mileage pre BG was in the 20-25 miles per week range. Not sure what the weekly ascent figures were - probably around 6000ft. I certainly suffered on the downhills later in the round.
Now, our lane - first half below the hose is, erm, boggy and fairly steep, second half is tarmac but about 1 in 4 or steeper. Hmm half a dozen reps of that are going to hurt!
This is all well and good but there are a couple of things I think are worth remembering:
1) Some BG/PB/CR round contenders are more talented than others. I know of someone who got up to 30,000ft per week before his BG yet I know other successful completers who never approached that and never needed to - they were simply more talented.
2) Ten reps on a 200ft climb/descent DO NOT equal a 2000ft climb/descent. It may be the best you can find but there is still no substitute for BIG climbs and descents or for hours on your feet (regardless of distance).
Most people seem to agree that it's the descents that will get to you on the BG if you've neglected big hill work.
In a nutshell: train where you can during the week but make sure you get out for long days on big hills at the weekends.
here is an alternative to pure hill work if you can't always get to a hill.
a story
After a period of not training atall hard or well I spent a week orientering in Sweden in heather, bilberries, boulders bogs and brashings, no particluar focus on hills. I was slow, it was hard and it was knackering.
After I got back I ran a hill race and I floated up the hills.
My first sport has always been orienteering. I always did a good percentage of my training in rough terrain, totally off paths, in forest, heather, bog or boulders.
When training properly I could run a decent hill race, without particular specific hill work because of the rough terrain work I did.
Why should this work? I believe its because muscle contraction when running in rough terrain is slower and more sustained than when running on the flat, the same is true of climbing, both require excellent leg strength.
So if you can't get to a hill, get to the roughest peice of ground you can find. yes you'll run slow - but thats what gives the training effect.
This won't toughen your legs up for the descent though.
you could try squats with a weights bar for that.
Exnay on the eightsway!!:eek::eek:
According to my Garmin I do more than 10,000 feet every week. I'm not doing a BG though.
Did they have a bouncy stride ? ;)
*goes into geek mode*...
Not that bouncy if you think about it. Say stride length gives distance between same foot hitting ground ~ 3m, that would make ~ 14,000 over 42km. 800' is (ROUGHLY) a little under 10,000''. 10,000''/14,000 ==> just under an inch per stride.:o
Anyway, the error in readings is more to do with the difference in angles... The satellite's quite high above you; you move along the ground ==> get a relatively large angle (starting point-satallite-finishing point), but, gain a bit of height and the change in angle is relatively small.
Just had a closer look at some memory map logs and my garmin etrex altitude is consitently hundreds of metres out (either way). Pretty sure it's actually using a random number generator
edit, I have absolutely no idea where I pulled this thread from, I seem to have accidentally bumped it from ages and ages ago. Definitely the problem of having hundreds of tabs open for days on end...
here is what i done since Christmas
starting at Christmas
400
2310
2350
2500
1300
400
2730
2500
1000
3100
1800
3360
300
4210
1900
3980
1000
3500
1900
3590
3300
metric
Was having a look through local hills near me for when i start my bg training (if my knees ever let me).........i could do the fiendsdale race route 4 times a week and that'd give me 10'000 a week with 30 miles.
Not bad eh, slight issue with part of the route not being allowed access i do believe but i guess i could run up and down parlick again.:rolleyes:
In my view, you should be aiming for over 10,000' in a day rather than spread over a number of shorter runs in the week.
Big days with loads of ascent / descent at a steady 3 miles per hour.
Merry
Not being a compulsive record keeper (and there were no gadgets in 1985 so it was maps only), I can't be sure exactly what height gain/week I managed in training.
I doubt it was 10,000 feet/week though. I was living in Calderdale at the time and was at Uni in Cardiff.
I have never put myself through the ringer training wise. Perhaps that explains why I'm an average fell runner. :D
I recall a 70 plus mile week when training for my BG and I had most of the next week off to recover. And the furthest I had run before setting off on my BG was the Wasdale Race 1985 with some extra miles for navigational cock-ups (it was a foul day) so around 23 miles perhaps.
By Dunmail at breakfast time, I had gone well beyond my previous "best".
But I was young and foolish and believed anything was possible.
I am a believer in the idea that much of the challenge for the "average" fell runner is mental, assuming a decent amount of preparation.
We are all different of course and what works for one, may not for another.
Having done the Fellsman, you must have as good idea of what works for you. I would base any plan around more of the same with a BG twist. :D
Merry, lets face it your going to walk it.:D
So therefor, im setting you the challenge of a sub 20 hours.:p