So you’re trying to decide to take the leap from road running to trail running — that’s amazing! Moving up in distance can be an exciting and challenging experience, but transitioning from a half or full marathon on the road to a 50km or longer trail ultra-marathon requires additional preparation and considerations. Trail running offers unique challenges and rewards, from navigating uneven terrain to taking in breathtaking scenery.
In today’s article, Coach Sage Canaday will share his top 5 tips to help you prepare for your first ultra-marathon and make the transition as smooth as possible. Whether you’re a seasoned runner or new to the sport, these tips will help you stay focused, motivated, and confident as you tackle this new challenge:
“For a little background on myself, I raced 5k, 10K in track in college, and then eventually moved my way up. Maybe you’re in the same boat though. Maybe you’ve started running recently or you’ve gotten back into running and you’ve been doing 5K or 10K road races.
Maybe you’ve been doing dabbling in some half marathons, and now you’re looking to do a marathon and eventually an ultramarathon. The general trend is that you move up in distance as you gain more experience. This newsletter will specifically focus on transitioning from those road half marathons or road marathons.
I have five key tips, for making a successful transition to ultra-marathons, such as the 50K distance, 100k distance, even a hundred miles in the mountains and trails.
Tip Number One:
You have to have a consistent mileage base, which is essentially the aerobic base I frequently refer to. 🫁
For example, instead of running three days a week, you start running five days a week. Instead of running 30 miles a week or 50K a week, maybe you’ve started to average 50 miles a week or 80K a week. That kind of base generally really helps you in long distance racing! If you’ve got that consistency of just getting out the door, hitting those weekly mileage totals, spending time on your feet, training the aerobic system, even at relatively low intensity, it’s gonna set you up really well for doing an ultramarathon.
Now let’s briefly look at the physiology in terms of stressing your heart and lungs. A 50K is really just a minor extension off of a marathon, right? As long as it’s not a super high-altitude race or something really technical, it hopefully won’t feel too different than a regular marathon. A 50K should be very doable if you’ve gotten in consistent mileage base and experience in marathon training, so it probably best to start off with a 50K and see how your body responds.
Tip Number Two:
Add in hills or vertical. 📈
Not all ultra-marathons are going to be flat. In fact, most won’t be! Because there’s going to be a lot of vertical gain (at least more than what you’re used to in a regular road marathon), it’s critical to prepare your legs for that pounding of downhills and climbing strength for uphills.
To run strong uphill, it’s important to build overall strength and get that type of cardiovascular benefits for your heart and lungs. In a lot of our Higher Running Training Plans for Mountain Ultra training plans, we do have workouts like high intensity, short hill repeats, or have you do all uphill tempo runs or treadmill works where you’re adding in vertical gain and up relatively steep grades.
We’re talking 5% grade, 10% grade, even 20% grade. If you’re going to be training for a mountain race, you need to get used to that change in vertical. To take this one step further, add in hills and add in some long runs that are rolling that mimic the profile of the course. Your legs will get really strong doing this. Your heart and lungs get better with these specific types of aerobic adaptations.
Tip Number Three:
Throw your time and splits out the window. ⏱🚫
Unless you’re running a 50K on a track or you’re doing a really flat, non-technical ultramarathon race, you’re probably going to have no idea in your first ultra what kind of relative pace you might hold. For example, we have a lot of people that run sub-3-hour marathon in the roads. They run the Boston Marathon, and they’re fast on the roads. Then, all of a sudden, you throw them out on the trails and they’re splitting four or five hours for a 50K. Letting go of your expectations will help you enjoy the race more and get a better understanding of how you respond to longer races.
For me personally, I’m frequently slogging 10–15-minute miles. I’ve even done races where I’m power hiking up a mountain at 25-minute mile pace (18-minute km pace). It’s not like road running or flat, fast track running. Throw times out the window, you have to go by effort.
Tip Number Four:
Ultra-marathons require their own, specific long runs. 💪
Long runs are the bread and butter of a lot of our marathon and ultramarathon training plans at Higher Running. Try to build your long runs off what the actual course is going to be. Take the time to do your due diligence and research the types of trails it’s on, how much total vertical the race has, etc.
One you’ve done this, try to mimic that in some of your long runs. Now, obviously, you’re not going to go out and run a 50K ultra when training for a 50K. But you might be doing a 20-mile long run (32km) as part of your regular training, and it’s important you’re mimicking the terrain you’ll be racing on.
And like I said in the previous tip of throwing your time goes out the window, you might just be looking to spend time on your feet. Go out on the weekend (or whenever you have more time to actually train on trails) and you say, “okay, I’m going to do a four hour long run.” Or, “I’m going to spend half the afternoon out on the trails.”
Tip Number Five:
Ultra-marathons require specific nutrition and gear. 🍌
This is something you’re going have to figure that out, because everyone is different!
However, I can briefly address the basics:
Nutrition: You need to have probably more calories on you. Some people use hydration packs, whereas others rely on aid stations. Research what’s at the aid stations, practice your fueling strategy, and dial in what works best for you.
Gear: You’re spending more time out in the elements. You’ll have to have all types of jackets, extra shoes, extra socks, etc. You could get more extreme temperature changes as well. But it depends on where your ultramarathon race is and how long it will take you.
Moving up in distance from a road marathon to a trail ultra-marathon can be a daunting task, but with the right preparation and mindset, it can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Remember to focus on your training, stay motivated, and be patient with yourself as you adjust to the unique challenges of trail running. With these tips and your own determination, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your trail ultra-marathon goals.
Before we dive deeper into the series, Ray wants to share an important note: She spent a lot of time already working through the grief of not being able to move how she wanted to (both because of injury and fatigue from overtraining) as well as the loss of a former identity. Ray has both worked with a mental health therapist and spent significant time journaling to work through the emotions and mental components of being injured. Because of this, it was an easy transition for Ray to move into an elongated rest and recovery period. However, if you find yourself increasingly depressed or anxious, she recommends finding a therapist to help support you on your own journey.
2. Surround yourself with positivity.
Most mornings, you can find Coach Ray on her bike trainer, not to gain fitness, but to maintain a healthy amount of activity for well-being. And you better bet that you won’t find her listening to anything but a podcast or YouTube video that has positive vibes and is about learning and growth.* Monday mornings, it’s usually the newly released episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, then on to Jay Shetty, Woman of Impact, and whatever videos the YouTube algorithm has found for her.
In addition to her weekly cycling practice, Coach Ray will often do a short guided morning meditation or journaling practice, and listen to a short Oprah Winfrey, Gabrielle Bernstein, or other morning motivation video and she’s getting ready.
*This is definitely not a practice of toxic positivity. As a mental health therapist, Coach Ray highly believes in the value of uncomfortable emotions. She also believes that surrounding yourself with positivity in the morning can help to shift the outlook on the rest of your day and help with the more challenging emotions that may come later on.
3. Play with New Activities
Despite being a water (cancer) sign, Coach Ray would not describe herself as a swimmer. Yet she knew some swimming would benefit her and break up the daily indoor cycling routine. Bonus that the Salida Hot Springs pool is warmer than most pools. Even though it doesn’t compare to running, Coach Ray knew she could make it fun and enjoy it.
The first day she went to the pool, it was literally just to get her feet wet. Or rather, to make sure she could get from one end of the pool to the other in a mostly straight line and without drowning. Although not pretty, she achieved that challenge.
Her mental talk?
“Okay Ray, harness your inner dolphin.”
“Just keep swimming.”- Dory
Coach Ray has worked with athletes who won’t swim or cycle because they find it boring compared to running. But that is a limiting thought. Not just because other activities can be fun, but it negates people’s own ability to be creative and make things fun.
4. Celebrate the little successes
At the beginning of Coach Ray’s rehab, even the beginner Achilles strengthening exercises felt like too much and pushing through pain to do them didn’t make sense. Instead, she decided to play with some “Toe Yoga”. When she first saw other people moving their big toes without lifting their little toes, and vice versa, she thought “that’s crazy”, it seemed impossible. So she started out by holding down her big toe to move her other toes up, then her little toes to move her big toes independently. 3 weeks later and without any assistance from her hands, she finally did it! She was so proud of herself and as excited as if she just nailed a workout.
Whether it’s finally being able to do some toe Yoga, holding a plank for a minute, or doing your first single leg squat, celebrate it as much as you would if you just ran your fastest mile.
Bonus: After gaining proprioception from her toes, Coach Ray actually began to get arches in what doctors had proclaimed as (permanently) flat feet!
5. Get more sleep
When things get busy, the first thing to go is usually to sleep. Or, if we want to prove what a hardcore runner we are, we wake up and run when it’s still dark.
For Coach Ray, she sacrificed sleep since junior high, waking up early to run or go to the 6:30am skills basketball sessions with the boys team. In her 30s, it started to become a struggle to wake up when the alarm went off, not because she was depressed, she was just tired.
Now Coach Ray often gets 8.5-9 hours of sleep. While that may seem superfluous to some, if you’re still waking up extra early to get on the bike, you may not be honoring your recovery. The body needs rest to heal.
We know that 9 hours of sleep just isn’t possible for some, most of us can work on getting to bed earlier, taking a nap, or even doing a 5-minute meditation on your lunch break (not the same as sleep, but relaxes your body enough to gain some of the benefits of sleep).
When you can, harness your Inner Sloth!
6. Lower your Stress
Research shows that stress can slow down the body’s natural healing process (and in more extreme cases, can also cause disease*). Therefore, finding ways to lower your stress can speed up the healing process.
While we can’t all be like Coach Ray and move into a Yurt in the middle of open space for 6 months, we can take away a few key parts of how Ray created a more serene life for herself:
-Every morning or every evening, take 5-10 minutes to meditate, journal, or write down what you’re grateful for.
-Learn to say “No” to things you don’t want to do and don’t absolutely have to do. Say “yes” to things that make you happy. (Some weeks, Coach Ray only left her Yurt to swim and do town errands twice. She said “yes” to opportunities to spend time with family and friends, but only if she wanted to and not out of obligation.)
-Practice deep breathing several times a day. This helps to regulate your nervous system. If anxious, this can move you from the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) and back into the sympathetic(rest/digest.)
*Read When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate for an in-depth overview of thestress-disease connection.
7. Nature
Getting outside everyday is imperative. Coach Ray was lucky enough that she could still walk Coach Pacer (Higher Running’s Pawsitivity Coach) every day to soak in all the healing aspects of nature, from getting a little bit of Vitamin D from the sun, connecting with the Earth, and allowing her brain to pause by looking at the mountains. If you do have an injury that doesn’t allow you to walk outside, just take 5 minutes to stand or sit on your doorstep and take some deep breaths. Our bodies and minds need the light, especially in winter. (If it’s freezing, just get outside for 1 minute, or gaze out your window.)
8. “Your injury didn’t happen to you, but for you.”
Coach Ray can already see the brown bananas and expired energy gels being thrown her way, but let’s hear her out.
This is actually a paraphrase from Oprah in one of her motivational YouTube videos. It’s not about being oblivious and making merry of the bad. Really, it’s a consideration of Victor Frankle’s message in Man’sSearch for Meaning, that we have a choice on what we make of the bad things that happen to us. By considering that our injury happened for us, we open the door to the body’s messages and our own inner wisdom. This thought helps give us some control over the situation and can also be a motivator to do the monotonous physical therapy exercises.
9. Reconnect with Your “Why”
If you’re in the recovery game for a while, and even if you’ve done your best to make cross training fun, there will probably be a point when you don’t want to do it.
For Coach Ray, she didn’t really miss running all that much until almost 4 weeks in*. She needed the rest and was enjoying cycling and swimming. Then, she had to jump in a cold pool on a cold day. This is the point she really started to miss running. Of course, as she started to swim she warmed up and began thinking. “I know I have more days like this ahead, especially as we go into December and January. What’s going to keep me motivated?” The short answer: Moving freely and joyfully through the mountains with her dog, Coach Pacer in the summer. Just touching into that vision and the feeling it conjured was enough for Coach Ray to bring the fun back into swimming.
*Starting to feel excited to run again is a sign of healing, although not necessarily that it’s time to run again if you’re recovering from an injury. Don’t feel guilty either if it takes a longtime to get the excitement back. There may be several reasons for that, such as your body and mind really needed the time off.
Engaging your muscles fully and preventing constant tightness is essential to maximize your performance and reduce the risk of injury. Coach Sandi Nypaver will be sharing her expertise on the three key ingredients to an effective warm-up routine that will not only prepare your body for exercise but also improve your overall mobility and flexibility. So, whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just starting out, keep reading to learn how you can take your warm-up routine to the next level!
Step #1: Active Release and Foam Rolling
The first step to a proper warmup routine is foam rolling or doing some type of active release. This is often something athletes think they should do post-run, or just remember they can fit it in, but the benefits may be short-lived when done alone.
Current research has shown people can get lasting benefits if they foam roll right before mobility exercise. Think of it this way: if there’s a knot in a rope, you can pull the rope all you want, but it’s not going to reach its full length until the knot is removed. Foam rolling and active release aids in getting rid of the tight muscles and promotes good fascial movement so that you can get a better range of motion during your mobility exercises.
To be realistic, if you’re short on time and nothing feels tight, then I do believe it’s sometimes okay to jump right into mobility. However, I strongly believe in the benefits of consistent foam rolling and active release sessions to keep runners mobile and healthy. Many runners have no idea how tight certain muscles are until issues arise.
Step #2: Mobility
Let’s move on to the second key ingredient, mobility. Mobility is the joint’s ability to move through a range of motion. In other words, doing mobility before a strength session or a run reminds your body to move through its full range of motion instead of staying in a shortened state. Think of it this way, if you just sat at a desk all day, your hip flexors are used to being in a shortened state and your glutes are used to being turned off.
Doing hip mobility would remind your hip flexors on how to lengthen while waking up your glutes. The same goes for sitting in a hunched position for long hours. Doing a little thoracic mobility can open up your chest and allow for a proper counter rotation to your lower body as you run. When runners lose thoracic mobility, they may try to get the counter rotation from their low backs instead. Proper mobility as you run can help you better absorb impact forces while simultaneously allowing you to create more force or allowing you to get more power from your muscles.
Step #3: Activation
Now let’s tie an active release and mobility with a third key ingredient: activation. Since you took a couple of minutes of foam roll and did some mobility exercises, you can now get the full benefits of your activation exercises because you can fully access the muscles you’re targeting. In turn, this can help prevent chronic tightness. For example, if your hip flexors are chronically tight, when your glutes are engaged, your hip flexors will lengthen as you move. So, your hip flexors are no longer in a chronically shortened state which caused the chronic tight.
The crucial factor with any activation exercise is to make sure you are using the muscles you’re supposed to be using. That mind body connection is essential, especially as you start your run or strength workout. It is entirely possible to look like you’re doing a glute bridge, but not feel your glutes working at all.
That’s not what you want. If you can’t feel the right muscles working, you may need to do a little more active release and then start off with simpler exercises in smaller movements. Different people need to work on different things. But with my experiences as a running coach, my practical advice would be to spend the first couple minutes of your warmup routine, aiming to create good fascial movement and relax the tight muscles.
Next, do a hip thoracic spine and ankle mobility exercise. Lastly, pick a couple of activation exercises to target your different gluteal and hip muscles. Yes, there are exercises that double as both mobility and activation exercises, like a lunge with a side rotation.In conclusion, a proper warmup routine that includes foam rolling or active release, mobility exercises, and targeted muscle activation is critical for preventing injury and optimizing performance. By investing just a few minutes in a comprehensive warmup, you can effectively prepare your body for the physical demands of your workout or competition. So, take the time to engage your muscles fully, relax any tight areas, and prime your body for success. Incorporating these three key warmup ingredients into your routine can help you become a stronger and faster athlete.
Today, Coach Sage Canaday brings you his top FIVE ways of reducing your chance of a running injury. With the weather getting warmer, and races starting to pile on people’s calendars, there’s never a better time to stay injury free!
Although there are ways to get injured from certain “blunt force” type events (i.e., tripping and smashing your knee), we’ll mainly be focusing on the more preventable ways to stay injury-free. A lot of this type of injury risk can mainly stem from the miles that you put on your body. Here’s what Coach Sage has to say about all of this:
“Reducing your chance of getting injured is multi-faceted. There are things besides just your running that can help you stay injury free! For example, a lot of it has to do with being smart with your training. One has to recognize their own strengths and weakness while running with good form. Even though some of your injury risks could be partly due to genetics, there are still a lot of things within your control that I want you to focus on.
Tip #1: Optimize Your Lifestyle!
Optimizing your lifestyle in ways like a balanced diet, enough sleep, and overall taking care of yourself plays a huge role in preventing injury. Things like sleep are such a powerful tool we have at our disposal, and so often we tend to neglect it because “life” gets in the way. Don’t get me wrong – I totally get that it is not feasible for a lot of people to be sleeping 9+ hours a day. However, even choosing to go to bed 30 minutes earlier each night could have a dramatic impact on your overall recovery and injury risk. There are other small ways to take care of yourself, too:
Recovery tools like foam rollers or massage guns.
Focus on lowering your life stressors. Cortisol levels that you would get from lifestyle factors can affect the way your body responds to training.
Drinking enough water. This will not only help you during your runs but also has the ability to give you more energy throughout the day!
Tip #2: Very Gradually Introduce New Training Stress
You want to increase your weekly total volume slowly over time. You need to give your tendons and muscles time to adapt! The one thing I see far too often as a coach is people start to feel good, start running more than they should, run their easy days too hard, and hard days too easy, and it frequently ends in injury. Complete nearly 80% of your runs slow and relaxed – I promise it will reap huge benefits down the road! If you give your body time to get used to the pounding and give your lungs a chance to develop a strong aerobic engine, you’re doing yourself a favor in the long run. Things like speed work, quality long runs, and overall weekly volume should be built up slowly. For example, one week you run 20 miles(32k) and then the following week you run 25 miles (40km). This is the type of gradual progression I encourage.
Tip #3: Don’t go too fast on your easy days!
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably heard me say this before. But it’s true! Way too many runners, especially those new to the sport, take their easy days too hard. On my easy days, I should be running at a pace that I feel like I can run and have a conversation at all day long. I’m not having to pause to catch my breath, instead I’m talking to you like I would normally in a conversation, but only while running. When I go for my easy runs, I’m still thinking about good running form, but my mentality is to not force anything. Save your energy for when you need to do quality speed and track sessions!
Another thing I try to keep in mind for easy days is to still keep my cadence somewhere between 165 to no more than 190 steps per minute on flat ground on a road. If you have a stride rate that sits somewhere between that, it helps reduce impact stress (i.e., the force your body has to absorb when you strike the ground with each step). If you have a slower stride rate, you end up increasing the amount of impact stress per step. Poor form and injury risk could be a result of this.
Tip #4: Optimize Your Running Form
This plays well into what I was just talking about, because stride rate impacts your running form. However, there are other things to think about with running form as well. Although running form can vary from person-to-person, there are some key factors all runners should consider in order to stay injury free. Instead of diving into the specifics of what goes into a proper running form, you can find a bunch of FREE resources over on Higher Running’s website HERE.
Tip #5: Run on Softer Surfaces and Wear Proper Shoes!
We’re huge advocates for #AnySurfaceAnyDistance, and part of that reason is because running on different types of (soft) surfaces, will also help reduce your risk of getting injured. Generally speaking, trails are usually better than pavement. You can also switch things up by using a treadmill or running on the track. By no means do you always have to be on the lookout for only using softer surfaces, but switching things up with softer surfaces every once and awhile will help.
If you do run a lot on pavement, it’s worth the investment to get properly fitted shoes meant for running. If you have shoes with the correct type of foam, responsiveness, and durability, you’ll notice a huge difference in the “wear and tear” your body experiences. I realize that getting high quality running shoes is expensive, but I like to view it as an investment in myself. Better to spend the cash upfront on quality running shoes than to risk injury because I’m not in the proper footwear.
Hopefully these five tips serve as a starting point to having a long happy, healthy, and injury-free running career! Even if you do get injured, know that you are not alone. A lot of the time injuries is a part of this sport, and knowing how to handle them properly can be a whole other newsletter itself! We’ll see you again next week.
Here are five strategies to use when faced with a problem like the following:
“HELP! What’s the best way to adapt my workouts when [theoretically] I should be getting faster over time?”
We hear this every so often with some of our Higher Running athletes using one of our training plans. For today’s newsletter, Coach Sandi Nypaver thought it would be helpful to explain what to do in instances where you’re not sure about a workout pace. Or even knowing when to run faster paces for workouts because you’re improving over the course of your training cycle:
“It’s important to understand that fitness is a moving target. If you haven’t had a recent race performance to gauge what you should be running your workouts at, then yes, it will be a bit difficult for you to fully know what paces are achievable for you. But all hope is not lost! There are a couple of strategies for working around that.
Strategy #1: Keep a meticulous training log. Keeping a meticulous training log will enable you to look back at your training and understand what kind of paces you were once at, how you felt at the time, and what kind of event you were training for at the time. If you’ve never kept a training log to track all of these types of things, there’s never a bad time to start! Some people like to use online fitness apps like Strava, Garmin Connect, and Training Peaks. Any of these work great, but it’s most important for you to be able to use something that can be referred to years down the road.
If you are someone that’s kept a training log for a long time, look to see how you’ve improved over time. Is there heart rate data for you to compare with a 7:15 mile pace at week 2 versus a 7:15 mile pace at week 10? (Note: we definitely understand there’s a lot of variability and factors that go into heart rate, but this can still be used as a “general” guide). Did you training log note how you felt at certain paces? Again, these are all good things to start doing if you aren’t, and great things to refer back to if you’re someone who does have these data available.
Higher Running Training Plans also come with an Intensity Spectrum Pace Chart that you can use to see approximately how you should be feeling for different types of efforts. By the way – you can also get this for FREE by clicking THIS.We give this to athletes to help them understand how paces should feel, especially if they don’t have an extensive training log or racing history.
Strategy #2: Use a heart rate monitor I already kind of touched on this above, but I wanted to dive deeper into how you can use heart rate when training to your benefit. Again, we don’t want heart rate monitors to be the thing you swear by, because there is a lot of “fickleness” (is that even a word???) when using one during training (read more about that HERE). You can compare your “feel” or “perceived exertion” with your respective heart rate values. Over time, your fitness will improve and you’ll notice that your paces will get faster even at the same heart rate value. Strategy #3: Start off easy and increase the pace if you’re feeling good.If you’re just totally unsure where to start with regards to a “marathon type effort” or “10km type effort” for an interval, I would always caution my athletes to start off easy and then try to pick up the pace if it still feels too easy after the first couple of intervals. On the flip side, if you start to fall off the pace for the given rep, then you know you started off too hard. This may take a bit of trial and error, but over time, I’m confident that you’ll be able to find your flow at the correct paces.
Strategy #4: Be real with yourself when it comes to your goal finishing time. I’m all about setting huge goals and doing everything in your power to make them happen. However, it’s also important to be realistic with our desired finishing times in races to ensure your workouts help set you up for success. In all of our Higher Running Training Plans, we prescribe some workouts that are based off of your goal race pace. This “goal race pace” of yours may have been based off of a previous race finish time, or it may be what you feel like you can do in several months’ time. If it’s the latter, there are warning signs to know if you’ve chosen a goal race time that is too fast (or too slow).
Let’s say you’re at week 12 in your marathon training plan (and approaching taper time), and your workout of the day was 2 mile repeats, if you’re not hitting under race pace for these two mile repeats, your race pace is probably too fast. This same mentality can be applied towards any race distance. To reiterate, it’s best to be on the more conservative side because you can always get in the duration of the workout and increase the intensity later.
Strategy #5: Know when it’s time to increase your paces, and more importantly, when NOT to increase your paces. If you’re 2-3 weeks out from the race and you think you can run faster than what you’ve been doing, it’s best just to keep that in the bank. You don’t want to overdo it before a race, and the best course of action is for you to hit the paces you know you can. This still allows for a good training stimulus while saving yourself for race day.
Knowing race paces and when to increase paces can be confusing. We hope this provides a few suggestions that will help you better understand the best way to approach these unknowns. It may take some time for you to really feel in tune with your body and be able to feel these things out, but we’re confident that you can succeed in doing so over time.”
One of these days we’ll get around to devoting an entire newsletter to periodized training and why that’s important, but we wanted to dive into something a little more specific that we think you’ll find useful: How many hard or “quality” sessions should you do per week? Here’s what Coach Sage has to say:
“I wish there was an easy answer to this question. It sure would be nice if I could tell you to, “do three hard sessions per week in order to get fast!” But unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Of course things like this somewhat depend on ability level, how long you’ve been running, and what you’re training for, but there are certain rules that I follow that can be applied to all runners. If I had to summarize it though, the complexity around this issue can be broken up into a few different components which I’ll touch on individually in a bit, and those are: Mental, Periodization, Crash Training, and Speed Training.
Component #1: Mental 🧠Mentally, you simply cannot push and give 100% of effort all of the time. Even longer breaks from hard training throughout the year are necessary in order to be in a healthy headspace. If you push, push, push all the time, there’s really two things that could happen. The first is that you simply get burnt out and you can’t peak for your “A” event you’re training for. Alternatively, you could peak too early because of all the intensity, underperform at your “A” event, and still end up burning out. All this to say, you don’t want to be doing something like 5 hard sessions per week, not even close. It’s also important to clarify that there’s a difference between completing a quality workout versus doing something like 4x100m strides with a full recovery in between. Doing a few strides like that could easily be done every day, but again, you want to be giving yourself a mental break from the hard efforts.If you’re looking for me to quantify the number of hard sessions I think you should be doing in a 7-day period, I would never go over three (3). Even with three quality sessions per week, this would be me at peak fitness when I know my body can handle the stress. In our Higher Running Training Plans, I rarely (if ever) prescribe more than two (2) hard workout days in a 7 day period. One of those sessions may even be a long run, because research shows that longer hard run efforts also have a great training stimulus. All in all, I generally like to aid on the side of caution and have my athletes be slightly undertrained rather than 1% overtrained.
Component #2: Periodization 📊Periodization does not necessitate that athletes follow a strict 7-day calendar cycle. When I’m giving my athletes a training plan that incorporates periodization, what I’m essentially doing is giving them workouts and runs that slowly change over time. I’m not thinking in terms of days and weeks, but rather, in terms of months! These months are viewed as “blocks,” where each block will have a different overall focus. If you’re using a well-designed training plan (such as any Higher Running Training Plan 😉) we will be giving you hard workouts based on where you are in the training block. This will also dictate how many you do and what type of hard workout it is. For example, if you’re in a base building phase (usually the first ~4 weeks of any of our 16 week training plans), we’ll give you a hard workout or two (max) per week that focuses on tempo runs or longer base-building type aerobic efforts.
Component #3: Crash Training 💥What is crash training, you ask? Well, it’s basically where someone would go hard five days in a row and then you take a few days off until you think you’re recovered. This is a perfect example of what NOT to do. I repeat, I do not recommend this method whatsoever. What should one do instead? While, as I already mentioned, focus on 2-3 “hard” days a week with at least 1-2 days of recovery in between each hard workout. This moderate approach will yield more success than something extreme, such as crash training.
Component #4: Speed Training 💨The last thing I wanted to touch on is that there are different types of speed training or “hard sessions.” I know I’ve already alluded to this in previous components, but there are variations of going “hard.” Simply running for as long and fast as you can each day won’t optimize your time spent training. I will just quickly go over the various types of workouts that we like to include in our training plans as the “hard” or “key” workouts. If you’re interested in learning more about these, we explain them in depth in our Training Guide, which is included when you purchase any of our Higher Running Training Plans. -Long Runs: This may sound straightforward, but we actually like to make the most out of our long runs. As opposed to just “slogging it out” to get the miles in, we will sometimes ask runners to speed up the second half of their long run, or to throw in a few sets of race-pace efforts. -Vo2Max: This is where your lungs are burning, and you’d wish the pain would stop. These are used to help refine the top end speed of yours. -Tempo: The “infamous” 20-minute tempo run is a favorite workout of ours. This effort would start off feeling comfortable but towards the end you’d wish you could be done.Fartlek: The “speed play” type workouts typically use variations of things like “2 minutes hard, 1 minute easy” that allow you to not focus so much on the mileage or pace.
We hope this gives you a little bit better of an idea of how often you should do hard sessions, when to incorporate them, and what the different types of hard workouts there are. If you’re interested in a training plan for #AnySurfaceAnyDistance, be sure to check out HigherRunning.com to browse from 20+ plans for any distance and any level of experience.
to use when faced with a problem like the following:
