For a lot of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the main trail season is wrapping up. Snow is starting to cover the high trails here in Colorado, and it’s the perfect time to pause and look back.
Every fall, I have my athletes carve out a little time to reflect on the past year. When we don’t stop, it makes it difficult to see what’s working and what we need to improve upon.
The main question I want you to ask yourself is this: What worked well for me in my training and racing this year, and what areas could I improve upon?
I ask myself the same question every fall too. I’m naturally better at endurance, so I always find I need to work on speed and power. Living at 7,000 feet adds to that, since I can’t run as fast as I could at sea level. That’s why I touch up on speed more aggressively in the winter than I do in the warmer months, when I’m training for longer races.
On the other side, downhills used to be one of my strengths. When I set the old course record at The Rut 50K, part of it came from my technical downhill running. After an odd injury/form issue (a story for another day), getting back to being as fast as I want on the downhills has been more of a challenge. So that’s on my list this winter too.
Figure out your gap
Think of what you need to improve as a gap you want to close. Think back on your races this season…
Were you always getting passed on the downhills? Did you really struggle with power hiking? Was it the flatter, runnable sections where you felt like you weren’t moving well? Was it nutrition or hydration? Did your body start breaking down late in races? Or did injuries keep getting in the way?
Write down what comes up. You might find more than one, and that’s normal, but identify your priorities.
Recover first
Before you start working on anything, make sure you’re recovered, physically and mentally.
What that looks like is very individual. Some of our athletes take a few weeks totally off running. They go mountain biking, go on short walks, do yoga, etc. Others get back into easy running a bit sooner, but they’re not really training yet. They’re running simply because they enjoy it and want to be outside.
You’ll know you’re ready to get back to training when you feel good mentally and physically, and you’re genuinely excited to get back into it because you love the training.
Make a plan to close your gap
Maybe you can’t start working on your gap right now. That’s okay. You can still decide when you’ll start and what you’ll do. Here are some ideas for each one.
Downhills. Scan ahead instead of looking down at your feet. Think about landing with your feet underneath you. Learn to open up on less steep, less technical downhills first, then bring that to the steeper stuff.
Power hiking. Strength training can help, especially step ups and Bulgarian split squats. If you don’t have access to big climbs, find a treadmill with an incline or a stair stepper. Then practice hiking on purpose. Even when you feel like you could run a climb, power hike it if that’s a climb you’d be hiking in an ultra.
Flat speed. Look for flat road races you could do this winter, and follow a training plan that gets you ready for them. I’ve had a few ultra athletes do exactly this. When they got back into ultras, they felt like they had a gear they didn’t have before.
Nutrition and hydration. Set aside time to learn more about fueling and hydration strategies, then practice them on your long runs this winter. If you still can’t figure it out, work with a sports dietitian.
Durability. If you’re breaking down late in races, figure out why first. It could be pacing, strength, volume, or your legs not being used to long descents. Where you live matters here too. If you’re somewhere snowy, dark, and cold, and building volume or doing big long runs and downhills isn’t realistic, strength training is a great place to focus. If you live somewhere warmer, like parts of California, Arizona, or other southern states, winter could be the perfect time to look at how your long runs and weekly volume are structured.
Injuries. If you keep getting injured or just have little niggles that keep popping up, make the time to work with a physical therapist who’s used to working with athletes.
There’s no one right way to close your gap
You still need to put in the work on your gap, but how you do that can look really different from one runner to the next. If you look at successful trail runners, what they do in the winter is drastically different. Some do skimo for months. Some put up fast times on the roads. Some cycle, and many put a bigger focus on strength.
I tend to go with the seasons. I love mountain running and big vert days, but a lot of our best mountain trails are covered in snow in the winter. Doing out-and-backs on hills or convoluted loops just to get the vert in gets boring for me after a while. I love mountain running for the adventure of it and doing out-and-backs on hills doesn’t feel very adventurous to me. Even though they’re on pavement, faster speed workouts feel more exciting to me in the winter, and they’re exactly how I work on my speed gap. And I get my mountain fix ski touring, which is a great way to build easy aerobic volume and can replace some easy runs.
However, I know people who love doing out-and-backs on their local hills all winter. For them, it’s almost meditative. It’s easy to look at one elite and think “this is the way to do it,” but the best approach is a little different for everybody. What matters is finding the approach that closes your gap and keeps you excited to train.
Want help with your plan?
If you’re not sure where to start, Coach Jake has a few openings for 1:1 coaching.
Jake is a certified ultrarunning, nutrition, and strength coach. He trained with Higher Running as an athlete for several years before joining our coaching team, which means he knows our coaching philosophy inside and out, and he genuinely cares about doing his best for every athlete he works with.
Our coaching spots are starting to fill up, so even if you’re not ready to start for another month or so, feel free to reach out now.
Learn more about Jake at higherrunning.com/jake-head, or fill out our contact form to see if it’s a good fit.
Coach Sandi