It’s been a while since I’ve written anything new. My depleted body caught a bug after the Old Gabe 30K. On top of that my wife Terry and I were working furiously to get our home prepared for visitors to our daughter’s wedding on June 24th. I didn’t run for 10 straight days, then once I restarted, my training wasn’t systematic as I was out hiking with and entertaining our visitors through July 5th. It was a fun time, but it made me realize just how much downtime I usually have in my training. With all the meal planning and time spent showing folks the sights around Bozeman I wasn’t getting my usual breaks and the stats on my watch told the story. My Heart Rate Variability, for example, ventured into “unbalanced,” then “low” status from when I got ill until July 5th. I simply couldn’t find the downtime to replenish my energies. I kept up training the best I could, but mostly I just had fun with our visitors.
This brings me to today’s topic. How does one build up miles during a final push, while staying mostly in Zones 1 and 2 and limiting runs to roughly 2-hours per day? My experience is that it cannot be done. Something has to give. But which element should I alter: miles, pace or running time?
I’m going to begin by taking any decrease in miles off the table. I have been running 30 – 45 most weeks, with 53 being my biggest mileage week thus far. I am determined to run 50-60 miles per week from now through early August when I begin tapering for the Ridge Run.
This leaves pace and duration as the two variables left on the table. If I increase pace to keep my time out running to 2 hours or less, I increase the risk of injury and over time I will degrade my aerobic conditioning. Increasing running time will alternatively exhaust me, lengthen recovery and carries its own increased injury risk. So which do I choose?
To some degree I am flexing both variables: increasing both pace and time, at least on some days. For example, on Sunday I ran to the top of Mts Blackmore and Elephant, two 10,000-foot peaks in the Hyalite Range just south of Bozeman. In this outing, covered 12.9 miles and climbed 4200 feet. It took me 4 hours and 6 minutes. I managed to stay in Zones 1 and 2 for 2.5 hours, but this still meant 1.5 hours in Zones 3 and 4. Tuesday, I pushed the pace. I ran 11.6 miles on neighborhood roads, kept it to just over 2 hours, but increased the amount of time in Zones 3 and 4 to do so. Wednesday, I cut both the pace and distance, running 10.1 miles in Sourdough Canyon in 2 hours 10 minutes exclusively in Zones 1 and 2. I’m trying to find the optimal mix of deviations that allow me to keep building miles and not get injured.
To be clear, me easing up on these restrictions is not new. What is new is the number of times each week that I go beyond the restrictions. I’m pushing a bit on my training bounds most days at this point, and I have to keep doing it in order to push 50–60-miles each week. In previous months, I’ve limited training in the higher zones or runs of more than 2 hours to once or at most twice per week.
During this final buildup, I am still working to maintain both the spirit of my training and to keep injury risk as low as I can manage. To do this, I begin all runs in Zones 1 and 2. I start off in Zone 1 and only allow myself to increase into Zone 2 when I climb hills. Hill climbing is unavoidable on my runs. I live in the foothills to the Bridger Range and I climb nearly 100 feet per mile on average during my road runs. Mountain runs can average 350 feet per mile or more. My choice on climbs is to either slow my pace, possibly to a walk, or maintain pace and allow my heartrate to quicken; I usually choose to maintain my pace. Once I’m over a hill, I set a pace that allows my heartrate to settle back into Zone 1. After the first 3-5 miles, I’ll increase the pace, allowing myself to venture into Zone 3 on climbs and after a few more miles I push climbs into Zone 4.
This way, runs start off as fat burning base runs then shift into progression runs. This allows me to put in the miles I seek to complete, keep time spent running close to 2 hours most days and I expect, limit the increase in injury risk.
Time to go and do a short physical therapy session to keep my back strong, then out for this morning’s run.
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