10,000ft a week

[Mark Smith]

As with most things, the best method is to keep things simple and adaptable for you. Do whatever suits you during the week but base the training on getting out and doing some long days on the route. Start by having your long day as a leg of the BGR (actual or equivalent depending on where you live) and work towards 2 legs and then 3. Also get some consecutive big days in. The rest of the sessions are filler and probably tread that fine line between optimal and overtraining.

[spen]

Glad I bumped this up. Lots to think about. I'm looking at a June attempt, so at . moment. Working on getting the endurance work in with more running and about 6000ft ascent building up to 8000 by Christmas.

[sw04]

The biggest thing I learnt from my BG-training experience was that it was possible to do too much training. I started at Christmas averaging ~7000ft a week initially, but by April I was up above 15000ft a week, averaging ~13000ft over a 20-week period. I got round, but not in the style I felt reflected the training I'd done. Despite a full 3-week taper I think I was actually over-trained from doing so much for so long, as well as losing a lot of running speed (which in itself is not a problem for the BG).

I've since done a mountain ultra race (which took 20 hours so comparable to the BG) on less training with what I think was a much stronger performance than my BG. The difference in preparation was that I did my 'normal' training for months beforehand with the occasional big day out but the key element was 120+miles/50,000ft+ of training in a 10 day period just before my 3-week taper, which included big days back to back. I had originally planned to do more training so was surprised at how it went and sort of stumbled upon a new recipe for success (at least by my standards).

If I get a spot for the UTMB next year I plan to take the key principles of that training regime and apply it again, perhaps culminating in two consecutive 3-day weekends of big training. There is a 4-part series on the UTMB training that Jez Bragg did on run247.com that I think is useful. Although it doesn't give a detailed breakdown of his training, it seems to take a similar approach with a few big 2/3 day efforts rather than big volume for months in advance. Jez is in a different league to me though so I will be cautious about taking too much from it!

The big caveat is that I am obviously a sample of one and everyone is different. Also, having only done a very small number of these types of events I no doubt still have lots to learn. Because of the sacrifices your BG supporters (willingly) make for your attempt I didn't want a lack of training to be a reason for not succeeding - that could have suggested I took their support for granted. This was a key reason I did so much training, but ultimately I did too much.

If I was doing my training again I'd probably look at averaging 10,000ft a week only over maybe the last 8-10 weeks of training, with the latter weeks well above that value before a good taper. I'd also want to be doing single and double legs on the route to give confidence both in the route & terrain and against the required schedule.

I don't want to encourage contenders to under train, but hopefully it adds some value to those planning their attempts for next year!

Colin

[Derby Tup]

"If I was doing my training again I'd probably look at averaging 10,000ft a week only over maybe the last 8-10 weeks of training, with the latter weeks well above that value before a good taper. I'd also want to be doing single and double legs on the route to give confidence both in the route & terrain and against the required schedule" plus what I call boot-camp weeks (four big days at Easter and a week in Lakeland three weeks or so before her attempt for the wife last year) would be my suggestion too

[sw04]

plus what I call boot-camp weeks (four big days at Easter and a week in Lakeland three weeks or so before her attempt for the wife last year) would be my suggestion too

Agreed, a few highly concentrated periods of big training like that are what I think is key, bootcamp being a perfect way to describe it.

Colin

[spen]

Do people do a mixture of hills.
-Continous hills ie 3 x 10 mins of running hard up and down a 60 second incline
- long hills ie kinder or shutt
- long hilly days
- scrambles
(Need to find one in white peak but maybe hen cloud)

[Derby Tup]

Hills, big hills, long mountainous days and plenty of them. If you go Doddick (or Parachute) and Foxes Tarn you'll barely have to touch the ground apart from Kirk Fell / Gable so scrambling is a waste of time. Climbing and time on feet, knowing where you're going and getting food and drink down you are what are important

[spen]

Cheers DT. Spent 5 hours out on the white peak and did 6k ascent/descent.

[Derby Tup]

1,200ft per hour in the Peak is decent going and 6,000ft in 5 hours is a very decent session for BG prep

[spen]

Just checked the suunto. Was 5hrs and 25 mins so I lied haha.