HAT 50K

Robert Grumbine said:

Personal variation is an amazing thing. A guy I know runs
marathons
and ultras (to 100k). For his 50 (and 50-ish -- London-
Brighton) milers
and the recent 100k (through the Egyptian desert), I don't
think he went
over 4 hours in training. Yet he brought home hardware from
the 100k.

Based on some of Steve C.'s comments, I think the French are
believers in low-mileage training also. I'm not sure how
they train their endocrine system though, if they don't
stress it long enough. The 4 hrs in training might be
enough, though - well, obviously, it was enough for the
person you know 😉

Quoted message said:

He's also a reminder that personal variation applies to
form. I don't think he runs on a 180 cadence, and he
doesn't look like a gazelle in motion. But he has no
problem knocking off marathons and up, very fast
recovery, and runs a pretty quick race when he chooses
to. We talked about form, and his approach is simple --
one foot in front of the other, repeat quickly.

One of the US men at World Mtn Running championsips looked
positively horrible on the downhill - arms flailing all over
the place. Not sure how he did.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

Robert Grumbine said:

A hilly (to road runners) course.

see what trails have done to you 😉

Quoted message said:

Good to see that you're still getting out for your hours
of fun romping through the hinterlands.

not as long as I'd like because of some foot problems, but I
think I have a combination of things (running and
strengthening weak muscles) that seems to be working for me
- both physically and mentally (knock on wood). At least
I've got some things bracketed and seem to be fine tuning at
this stage.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Doug Freese said:

Dot wrote:

Quoted message said:

Personally I find 3 hours a little lean for a 50k but
I've always been an advocate of 24-28 miles for a
marathon. Three hours runs will get you to the finish
line but likely a long day and a long recovery. As I've
often said, time is important but quality is equally
important. As a silly example three hours on a flat
course for a hilly race is not ideal.

Right. Last year when I first started to build, I was
following conventional wisdom by building duration first,
then adding hills. Then came to the realization, that
these things use different muscles, so why worry about
building totally flat time first (other than AT
considerations). Steep hills weren't appropriate for my AT
at the time, but gently rolling ones were far better
training and also better for AT. And plain flat hurts
also. The twists and turns of single track actually seem
to be the most therapeutic this year.

This year I'm just including hills as I go and including
walk breaks for bad-footing snow, hills, or whatever. As I
get stronger weekly, I either increase number or size of
hills (not that big anyway, but they are the xc ski trail
ones) and/or decrease the walk breaks and/or a slight
increase in distance/time. What my body thinks it's ready
for I give it (actually, what really happens is I forget
to walk some of the hills). If it balks, I walk that
portion. My body is much happier with this approach - both
mentally and physically. When I get home, I feel like I've
had a workout, *slight* DOMS (the good kind that says I
did something) the next morning, rarely any after that. At
least so far it's working (knock on wood), and I am
backing down this weekend just for safety's sake.

Quoted message said:

for my first 50k last year, i did the run the flats and
downs/walk the ups method. my goal was just to finish,
not race competitively. i built up slowly to a long run
of five hours on trails with a couple thousand elevation
gain. did two four hour runs and one four and 1/2.
walking the ups allows you to build quad strength while
saving yourself for the later stages of the long run (at
least it did for
me). try this and you will build strength very, very quickly
without the beating of those three or four hour straight
runs on pavement.

crafty counterpuncher said:

Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote in message news:<Z%hac.1142$vo5.43422@bgtnsc05-
news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...

for my first 50k last year, i did the run the flats and
downs/walk the ups method. my goal was just to finish,
not race competitively. i built up slowly to a long run
of five hours on trails with a couple thousand elevation
gain. did two four hour runs and one four and 1/2.
walking the ups allows you to build quad strength while
saving yourself for the later stages of the long run (at
least it did for
me). try this and you will build strength very, very
quickly without the beating of those three or four hour
straight runs on pavement.

Yep, I've definitely been noticing this 🙂 This is pretty
much the approach I'm taking and strategy I'm planning for
my next race (still short though). I've been running the
smaller hills and walking the bigger ones (or maybe run
halfway up, walk upper half). We've still got a fair amount
of snow, so the footing isn't the best, but these last
couple weeks have been without snowshoes (may put them back
on tomorrow). I've also got a single track with about 3000
ft up in about 2-2.5 miles, depending on who you believe. In
summer, when I'm home, I'll hike that a couple times and try
to keep the hr down below LT so I can move continuously.

I've found the walking recoveries during a run (whether it's
through deeply drifted snow, up a big hill, or checking map
to explore a new trail) enable me to get a much longer
workout in and substantially reduces recovery time. And as
an added benefit, I really enjoy that type of training.

I was just reading a book chapter by Karl King (in A Step
Beyond: a Definitive Guide to Ultrarunning) on the
physiological / economy rationale of a 25 min run / 5 min
walk in a 24-hr race. The run/walker beat the run-only by
2 miles for the National Championship. Both did PRs. So
I'm very convinced of the value of an appropriate
run/walk strategy.

I run almost exclusively on trails now, unless the roads
have enough snow cover to be trail-like, then I may use them
for convenience.

Thanks for your comments.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope