This year the focus of the training was to get fit for short distance trail races.

Context:

The past year I was injured for a big part of the summer. I couldn’t race but I did a great training load (1157h, 560.000 elevation meters) and I did 3 big mountain projects that really pushed my physical and mental limits. A link up of Romsdal 7 summits in winter, an attempt in Everest West ridge that ended at 8200m when I get caught in an avalanche broking a rib, and a link up of 3000m summits in the Pyrenees. The previous year I wrote an extended post describing my 2022 training for short and long distance trail running races.

Before beginning to explain my training I think it is important to highlight what matters the most of what I do in the context of this trail running training season post. When we read training posts by athletes we often focus on the details (altitude, heat training, the specificity of the high intensity sessions, the tapering, etc) but we don’t really look to the BIG part of the work, that gives the 90% of the performance (the volume, the lifestyle, the consistency during years, etc) Here is an adaptation of Stephen Seiler Pyramid of endurance training needs that I find relevant for explaining this:

Circadian rhythms: For the past years we haven’t done much traveling, limiting those for important competitions or projects, so 2 or 3 every year, meaning that first we build our “training camp” at home so we don’t feel the need to go somewhere else to find perfect training conditions. That also means that we avoid the problems with traveling (changing circadian rhythms, rest days and changing routines, changing food…) and we keep a very structured day/weekly routine with times of meals, time of sleep, training schedules.

Stress management: As an elite athlete basically here is to be saying no to most of the opportunities that I will receive so they don’t disturb my routines. My team at Lymbus thew basically I had a small amount of spots for interviews or other requests during hours that didn’t disturb my training and time with family, and that none of the requests would involve any travel. Otherwise it was also to adapt our training schedule to family life. So almost all training sessions were done during the week days when our daughters were at kindergarten, and during the week-ends we would do some short sessions early morning and have the days free to do excursions or do activities with them.

Nutrition: This year I did a double labeled water test to access the calories I was burning during training and my base metabolism. With that I could calculate and do a follow up of what I was eating in macros and total calories per day. In winter during the General preparation period I was eating as much as could and train as much as I could, so the amount was mostly seen per week. In the specific periods, with a much more fine tuned training I was controlling more the calories per day. Also during the specific period, the quality of the nutrients and the specificity of the nutrients was much more tailored, basically I was doing a very different diet in amounts and foods depending the sessions of the day. We looked at foods that were helping to reduce inflammation when the training stress was big, to activate or get some bacteria in the microbiota, to prepare the system for the different intensities of training with its acid levels, etc.

My weight during the Aerobic period was around 58kg, going down to 2 and 4kg in the racing periods.

Plan, sessions key sessions:

The general plan of the trail running season was divided in 4 blocs. First a General preparation to elevate my aerobic fitness. A second period to prepare specifically for Zegama, a recovery period, and a second specific bloc to prepare for Sierre Zinal.

After last year Pyrenees 3000m traverse I took an easy month. Basically long days climbing and ice climbing taking advantage of the good alpine conditions we had home. That was basically Z1 intensity with some strength from the climbing. Most of the days 6-7h of activity. Then in December I started the General Prep bloc. a 4 month bloc with long days in skimo at Z2 with big elevation gain during the week, some in easy terrain doing loops or fast meters and some in more technical terrain climbing and scrambling. A easy 1h run on Saturday and a progressive run or some variation of intensities on Sunday to “touch” Z4 and Z5. The weekly average was around 30h of training, 20.000 m of elevation and I was keeping a minimum of running per week (40-70km, mostly in the weekends and some evenings in the week). All the running was done in the treadmill.

We had plan to visit my family in Cerdanya and train in Font Romeu for 2 weeks in March to start running, but the week before traveling there I broke 2 ribs so running was pretty painful. So in Font Romeu I didn’t run as much as I wanted (I did 165km, 97km per week) but instead I did some sessions at the CNEA in altitude – 6000m, doing some 1h progressives til Vo2max levels at some incline to reduce the bouncing where I felt the ribs but still training well and bringing other stimuli.

After Font Romeu, back home I started the specific training for Zegama for 6 weeks. Then took a very easy week after the race, did 1 week of General preparation (where I got Covid and couldn’t train as I wanted for a week but still kept the stimuli) and did another 6 weeks specific preparation for Sierre Zinal.

The Specific preparation weeks are to get the specific adaptions for the race, with more glycogen metabolism, more acidity adaption, neuromuscular adaptions etc.

In this periods I did most of my training running, (140-200km in the Zegama period, and 180-220km in the SZ period). With some indoor bike for the heat training. The amount of hours of training during the week days didn’t change much (3-5h) but the metabolic and mechanical charge yes. So the easy days were still long days with 30- 40km or 4-5h in the mountains scrambling, and the key session days were mostly in the same routes so I could compare the progression week after week. The total week volume was a bit lower than during winter (20-25h, 8-12.000 elevation meters) but charge (kj or cal) was similar due to more intensity.

Since in the past I always struggled with small injuries when running a lot of “high” speed in the flat, and since I get the adaptions pretty quick after few speed sessions I did only one short session per week of flat threshold of 10 repetitions of 400m with 30′ recovery. That seemed to give me enough stimuli for me with keeping the mechanical work low. That session was done on Sunday, often fasting to get more glycogen metabolism stimuli.

The 2 Uphill threshold sessions were done often in Nesaksla, a 2km-700m uphill that I’ve run hundreds of times, and the other at Skaven, Nysetra or other trails around 10 to 15% incline. Doing these uphills every week for years are a good reference to see how my performance is evolving, taking away the multiple things that can affect performance during races. I’m happy that with the improvements of the past years (I believe mostly in training, stress management and nutrition) I’ve been able to decrease this times by 7,3% in the past 3 years, and being more consistent with this performances week after week.

typical week in specific period:

• Monday: Long easy (40k)
• Tuesday: (a 20′ uphill at 30% grade at threshold pace, followed by a 20km easy flat running, sometimes with some km at fast pace)
• Wednesday: Long easy (30k or mountain)
• Thursday: Long easy (30k or mountain)
• Friday: Threshold long (2×15-16′ uphill at 10-15% at threshold pace)
• Saturday: 1h easy
• Sunday: 10x400m flat at threshold.

Also every 4 weeks or so I would do a race simulation or a preparatory race to test also nutrition strategies, pacing strategies, etc.

I was happy about the consistency, since from the start of the training season, in November, with the exception of a week for broken ribs in March and a week for Covid in June, I did all the training sessions I had planed and with the feelings.

If you want to see all my training sessions, they’re uploaded in my STRAVA profile.

Heat training:

During all the time I would do heat training. Either passive (sauna) or/and active (bike with warm clothes). Living and training in Norway we have pretty low temperatures all year round, so to get adapted to the temperatures we will face in races it’s good to get some heat acclimation, and also heat training stimuli is good for some oxygen transport adaptions.