Planning out your training

This can be the most exciting time of the training process. You have signed up to a race, you stare at it in the  distance with a mixture of fear and excitement but your mind hits a blank. How do I get there as prepared as possible? How is my time best spent? Hopefully over the course of this series of blog posts I can help you better understand the process of training and how you can use your time and energy most effectively.

There’s a lot of jargon thrown around when it comes to talking about training blocks, macrocycles, mesocycles, those incey wincey microcycles, periodisation, base building, speed blocks, specification, tapering.

Furthermore, there are different views and approaches to training. Some like to incorporate all types of training year round while others periodise (that means moving from one focus to another) their training. Realistically, training and developing fitness is like a good chocolate cake – there are many ways to get to the end product but there are clear ingredients that hold true for multiple recipes. In the case of chocolate cake this being copious amounts of dark chocolate!

I generally keep the training cycle fluid, transitioning from one focus to another without a clear jump. I also don’t like to entirely neglect an area of training for too long. That means you’ll see hills, speed work, threshold sessions, strides etc on my training plans year-round just with an added focus at certain times.

Here’s a general overview of the phases of training that may compose a training cycle leading into one of the UK Ultra events:

Transition —> Speed—> Fundamental —> Specific —> Taper

Now lets walk through each phase, define what it’s for, why it is where it is in the cycle and what it may look like

Transition Phase

Where you start from depends largely on where you are coming from. This time of year, its com-mon for people to be returning from an off-season where mince pies and Christmas pudding have been more the focus over miles and elevation! The same goes for returning from injury. When you are ready, it’s important not to jump back into the same volume of training you were completing before. Doing this will lead to burnout. Instead, ease back into training listening to your body and erring on the side of ‘less-is-more’. There will be a time to push your body to the limit and the start of a training cycle IS NOT IT. I see this phase of training as an opportunity to build habits like running consistently and building in any strength and mobility work

Speed Focus

A lot of people think that speed work is reserved for the elite or solely for short distance races. WRONG. Speed is important for everyone. There is good evidence to say that the faster you run 5k, the faster you will run 50miles. This is in part because of running economy - when we run fast our form tidies up and we become more efficient. By practising running fast, that same improvement in running economy carries through to our easy running. This means less calories burned for distance covered, the holy grail of ultrarunning!

It’s also a HUGE confidence boost. I find that runners often have mental barriers to overcome in terms of understanding what their bodies are capable of. By running fast and seeing quick splits reel off it reframes what ‘fast’ is. All of a sudden, that 7-minute mile during an easy run doesn’t scare you so what’s stopping you from stringing a bunch of them together?

By focusing on speed early in the training cycle it allows us to be more efficient in the bulk of our training leading up to the event. It’s also the least specific element of the block so it’s focus moves further away from the event itself.

If you have come off the back of faster running, say trying to hit a new ParkRun PB, and feel you have already optimised your speed then you can skip this phase. Just remember not to neglect it entirely going forwards because, like everything, if you don’t continue to stoke the fire the flame will go out.

Fundamental Phase

This is the period that will form the largest part of the training block. We move away from speed work (a little!) and focus on building your ‘engine’. The underlying principles include focusing on how your body uses fats and carbs, growing more blood vessels so more oxygen can be deliv-ered to the muscles, developing the communication between brain and muscle, building muscle strength and overall increasing your capacity to complete ‘work’.

If this all sounds a bit overwhelming or unattainable, let me reassure you that introducing some simple practises will allow you to tick all these boxes and help develop you as a more all-round athlete. Remember, fitness isn’t built overnight. We should be talking in terms of years rather than short training blocks. We should be aiming to build on each training block with the next rather than considering them separate entities. I don’t know about you but I want to be hiking in the Pyrenees during my retirement. That means looking after ourselves now

Specification period

This is where you take all that incredible fitness you’ve built and speed you’ve developed and shape it to the event you are targeting. There’s more of a focus on maintaining fitness and developing race-specific skills determining race effort, practising trail and night running, refining nutrition and kit, conditioning our legs for the long miles. This will vary immensely between events and is a chance to really get creative with your training. The aim is to expose yourself to as race-specific situations so you are prepared mentally and physically on the day.

Taper

Much like Christmas, it’s the time we have all been waiting for! We let our minds and bodies reboot ready for the challenge ahead. It will again vary based on the event we are targeting and can vary from person to person. There are a lot of misnomers around this period of time and what we should and shouldn’t be doing. We’ll try and digest these nearer the time

I’m going to aim to target each of these phases in more detail in its own, dedicated post but for now, sit down with a calendar and work out how much time you have before your ‘A’ race. With the UK Ultra events in May, now is a GREAT time to be planning out the run up, the phases that are relevant to you, other races you have in the build up, and how its all going to add up to a great day on the trails come race day.

HAPPY TRAINING