Adapting Daniels training plan for mountain racing

Training Advice/Discussion General

5 years ago 05/16/2018 2:08am EDT

wondering if anyone has experience adapting training plans - specifically Daniels - for mountain running. the obvious answer is to run workouts on hills when possible. i'm wondering how you modify your goal pace on hills, if you incorporate any differences in rest taken, length of reps, etc for key workouts.

for example, if for a basic 10-12 by 400 workout at Daniels' "R" pace, your VDOT says you should 62 on a flat surface (track), do you go purely by effort/intuition when translating that to a hill? would you do less reps because doing R pace on a hill probably takes more out of you?

my question also applies to "I" pace and "T" pace efforts, and how you would determine the proper pacing for those types of efforts on a hill.

5 years ago 05/16/2018 2:54am EDT

re: thomas wastolife

It's pretty hard to do anything based off pace when you're talking about mountain running, as the gradient (for which you could possibly make adjustments) is only part of what will slow you down: technicality of trails will be another factor. Daniels makes some suggestions about XC training, which is going to be a step in the right direction, but the only way I can think of to apply a Daniels framework to mountain running is use an HRM: check your HR for R, I, T etc on a perfectly flat uniform surface like a track, and then do your sessions according to your R HR rather than your R pace. It's a workaround though.

5 years ago 05/17/2018 5:41pm EDT

re: Trails&Tribulations

Found this at RunnersConnect.

"Work by Jack Daniels, of Daniels Running Formula fame, produced a “rule of thumb” described by Daniels several years ago online. His rule states that every percent gradient of incline (going uphill) will slow you by 12-15 seconds per mile, and every percent gradient of decline (going downhill) will aid you by 8 seconds per mile.

It’s surprisingly easy to figure out the incline of a particular hill, either by using a GPS device or an online tool like gmaps pedometer. So, for instance, the famous “Heartbreak Hill” at the Boston Marathon is about 0.4mi (600m) long and rises 27m. That’s a gradient of 4.5%, and over 0.4mi, we’d expect that segment to be 21-27 seconds slower.

Daniels’ rule is a bit complicated, though, so I like a simpler rule of thumb described by John Kellogg, of LetsRun fame. His rule states that every 10 feet of elevation change alters your time by 1.74 seconds, regardless of the horizontal distance covered. So, six-minute mile effort over a mile which gains 70 feet should be about 12 seconds slow; likewise, a 10k which drops 300 feet should be about 52 seconds fast.

As you can see, Kellogg’s rule doesn’t differentiate between up and down, and it’s fairly obvious to anybody who’s ran a hilly course that you don’t get “back” as much as you put “in” to a hill! Depending on how nitpicky you are with details, pick whichever rule you prefer."

5 years ago 05/18/2018 6:07am EDT

re: Trails&Tribulations

Sorry, training to HR for R is going to be useless because of lag. You could only get away with it for longer stuff; even I is going to be pushing it.

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