If you had to prescribe 2 workouts/week for a front-of-the-pack 100-mile mountain runner, what would they be? Why?
If you had to prescribe 2 workouts/week for a front-of-the-pack 100-mile mountain runner, what would they be? Why?
You're not gonna be good running twice a week. You should do 7 if not 14 workouts per week if you want to be good.
5 x 18
walking up and down hills for 20 hours Saturday, 4 hours sleep, repeat sunday. Stuff face with food during the week, and gain 30 pounds. Repeat next weekend.
Just do some easy runs during the week, 6M-10M then on Sat and Sun do 18M-20M runs.
I dont really know but my guess would be the best workouts are staying on your feet for 4-6 hours+ with lots of elevation gain and loss
Back-to-back longs of 20+ on the weekend - one of them super gainy and technical, the other flat with a few faster 1-3mi sections thrown in. 10mi tempo midweek. 3-6mi easy runs the rest of the time. Maybe a double or two if you can handle it.
How I would do it:
9 day cycle:
Long run w/ a good portion @ marathon pace i.e. 10 mile easy + 10 miles @ marathon pace
Day two: long run/hike 90+ minutes
Day three: long run/hike 90+ minutes
Day four: morning: longer intervals: 10 x 1k pm hour easy
Day five: long run/hike 90+ minutes
Day six: long run/hike 90+ minutes
Day seven: morning: short reps, probably choose to do these on a hill as opposed to a track: 10 x 400 pm hour easy
Day eight: long run/hike 90+ minutes
Day nine: long run/hike 90+ minutes
50 miles between Saturday and Sunday, done in different ways.
10/40
20/30
25/25
Practice running long on tired legs. Practice on terrain as hilly at the target race.
If you google around you'll see recommendations to keep the longest duration workout of the last 6 weeks under 50km distance. So for a front of the pack runner you're looking at workouts in the 3-4 hr range. That would be at least once weekly with up to one hour of tempo work in there on terrain similar to the race course. The second workout could be more speed oriented like 1k repeats, perhaps 6 of these.
My reasoning for this is the long run is by far the most important run for 100 training. Purtting a workout in the middle is necessary for competive runners. A second workout of km repeats is complimentary. If the runner is really far out from the race date then have them do marathon training, then 50 mile training, race the 50 to their best ability then recover for two weeks then go into the above recommendations for 6-12 weeks.
Other things that aren't considered workouts to prescribe are strength training, easy runs in the mountains, power hiking.
Check out Sage Canaday's 100k plan. It's modifiable for 100m. Lots of focus on tempo runs and taking some long runs uptempo, which you need if you want to run a 6 hour 50 miler, 8-10 hours for 100k and 16-17 hours for 100 miles. It will take you a long time and practice to run a 15 to 16 hour 100 (course being on the flatter side) but that would get you some wins as long as no elites are in the race. You are going to need in the range of 120mpw to truly compete with vertical based on the race you intend to run.
This is different for local and regional 100s where roughly 19 hour range will win (like SD 100 for example). If you are racing elites you will need to be a lot faster.
Tempo runs are key. Don’t do back-to-back as often as people here suggest. Just do them before easy week.
Upphil tempo, flat tempo at different paces, downhill runs on same type of surface as race every other to third week. Lots of core exercise. Long runs, upphil hikes, and fartlek
I would run the shamusmusterd. Hills, hills and hills. Not just for fitness but honing your hill running.