I’m racing Powerman Zofingen on 26 August. The past few weeks have been a bit hectic with med school exams but I’ve been managing to average 12h of training (5h running, 7h cycling).
Exams end this week and then I can focus a bit more on training. I’ll have 5 weeks before the race and I’m planning to build up to 16h (6h running, 10h cycling) with 4-5h long rides and 2h long runs before taking a 10h taper week.
The race is no joke - 10k/150k/30k and hilly, so I want to make sure I train enough to do it justice. Does the plan sound solid?
The hours sound good. Just be ready for steep climbs on the bike. And Steep climbs & descents on the run. Its not the distance that gets you, nor the total climbing, but the intensity of the climbs & downhills that really beat up your legs.
John P. is right; you’re volume is fine, but you need to train specifically for steep climbing for both bike and run and especially steep run descending.
Thanks, it seems when I ask anyone who has done the race what to watch out for, they all say the run descending…there’s a good hilly trail near where I’m going to be living for the next month, so I think it’s time to hit it.
if tetsuoni’s tribute race is any indicator of the original, you should also be ready for what running up steep trails can be like. unless you are an incredibly strong competitor, you will walk up some of the hills. this is OK - its common in hard trail run-only races among all but the super-elite. the key thing is to experiment now and get used to using uphills in the right way: avoid spiking your heart rate through the roof, attempt to get a little recovery to some of the muscle groups, but don’t slow down more than necessary.
my favorite way to do this is also the most obvious: find a pretty intense, long trail uphill near you. do a decent length run to get to it. run hard up it, recover down, repeat until you cannot run up it anymore. now get the speed-walking, heart-loving practice in. the better you can do this, the better you will feel about your 30k 2nd run.