There is a commonly held belief that your training vert needs to mimic your race vert. E.g. if you are training for UTMB with its 170km and 10,000m vert and running 80km a week in training, then you should aim for 4700 of vert per week. ( 588m of vert per 10km in UTMB , 80km a week x 588 = 4704m )
On the surface, that seems like a reasonable approach but when you dig a little deeper, you will realise it’s a poor approach that’s likely to lead to suboptimal performance.
To explain why let’s make two assumptions: the first is that we are talking about UTMB (but the same thought process would apply to any mountain ultra ), and the second is that one has the means of getting however much vert in they want ( ie have good access to mountainous trails).
A good training program for a race like UTMB would have a long run, a high-intensity hill, a speed session and several easy runs.
Let’s look at the optional vert for each of these.
The Long Run.
I have mentioned in other blogs that a good place to start when deciding the amount of vert for one’s long run is the race vert. In this case, we are targeting 588 vert per 10km . Therefore, if our long run is 40km then we want to hit approx 2400 vert. Seems logical doesn’t it ?
Let’s step back a bit and think bigger picture . What is a key training outcome we want for a race like UTMB ? I would argue that the ability to run all the downhills and all the flatter sections should be the goal for pretty much every athlete from those finishing in 20 hours to those finishing in 46. That means we are hoping to run around 90km of the race ( with most of that downhill ).
Back to our long run. When I analyse my athletes long run data, one thing I look at is the amount of hiking vs running that they do.
For a 40km long run with 2400m vert an elite might run 35ish km and hike 5km and for a more back of the pack athlete it would be closer to 20km running 20km hiking.
The problem with this is that for most athletes your long run will be up and down a number of hills . This means the longest non stop run segment you do is dependant on the longest downhill you have to train on. In a 40km run if you went up lets say 6 different hills it may mean your longest downhill was just a few km long. Once you have descended that hill its back to hiking up the next hill. Unless you are fit enough to run some of the uphills it means you never run more than a few kms before switching back to hiking again.
Bear with me , my point will become obvious soon.
In a race like UTMB where the longest downhill is 25km and we are hoping to run at least 80-90km of the race , do we think that a long run where you only cover 20km running and the longest non stop run in that long run is only a few km long is the best way to train? How do we expect our legs to be able to run a 20+km downhill that comes after you have already covered 100km in the race if in our long training run we never run for more than a few km non stop and only cover 20km of actual running ?
If we use a road marathon analogy it is like saying the best way to do your long run is to do 5km run then 5km walk and repeat for 30-40km. How do you think the legs would cope with non stop running of 42km ?
Now before you start thinking I am recommending you do long flat runs to maximise running kms, let me explain a better way of executing your long runs.
Here is the dilemma many of us face.
Make the long run same race vert per 10km as the race you are training for and you cover less distance running more distance hiking and longest non stop running distance is small.
Make the long run flat and cover more running distance but not training the legs for hiking or conditioning them for the downhills .
The solution is to mix up the vert per 10km in the long run , some runs matching race vert , some with less vert than the race.
For example week 1 might be 40km with 2400 vert , week 2 might be 40km with 1200m vert.
The rational here is easy to see if we look at the distance run vs hike .
Week 1 the 40km with 2400 vert might have 20km running 20km hiking and longest non stop run of 4km
Week 2 the 40km with 1200m might have 35km of running , 5km hiking and longest non stop run of over 20km.
In this way we can increase the running distance covered in the long run AND condition the legs for downhills and hiking.
For those doing back to back runs on the weekend you can make one run race vert or a touch above and the other a more runnable route.
Descents – technical or runnable ?
One additional thing to consider is the terrain you are running on. If your race has very runnable descents like UTMB and you are training on very technical descents then its likely you are either running very slowly or hiking some of the downhills . Descending technical descents might help skill development but its not going to help condition the quads for the runnable descents of a race like UTMB.
If your race has runnable descents try and avoid training on technical descents .
If your race has technical descents then you need to balance the skill development that comes with practising on technical descents vs the leg conditioning that comes with running more runnable descents and get a mix of both.
High Intensity Hill session.
The second key workout for a race like UTMB is a higher intensity hill session. I wont get into too much detail on the exact make up of these sessions ( that is the topic for another blog ), but suffice to say these will ideally be on similar gradients to the race you are training for. For UTMB that means 15-20% gradients and a mix of hiking and running.
An example session might be 3 x 12 minutes climb alternating 2 minutes run 2 minutes hiking. The amount of vert in the session will depend on what hills you have access to and its gradient rather than trying for specific vert target.
Easy runs.
There are some that will suggest that these need to match race vert as well but I would argue strongly against this.
If your easy runs match race vert then a) you likely aren’t running that much of it and b) most of the running you are doing is downhill which is not easy on the legs.
Its my recommendation that easy runs should be more undulating so that you can a) run most of it and b) ensure it is easy so legs are fresh enough to maximise the benefits of the harder sessions in the week .
Speed Sessions
I am a big advocate for speed sessions for all ultra runners, no matter age or race they are training for, with the possible exceptions of races with extreme vert and terrain where it makes sense to turn the speed session into another hill session. However there are very few races that fall into this category.
For most runners, speed sessions are done on the flat, but I like to see them progress onto undulating trails to help develop trail speed. Either way, there is not a lot of vert gained in these sessions.
Putting it all together
Rather than targeting a specific amount of vert per week relative to the race vert per 10km and you weekly mileage I strongly advise that you target vert relative to each session as described above. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to get race vert for every run or in thinking there is a certain amount of vert you need to hit each week to be able to perform optimally. Look at the training adaptions you want from each session and adjust vert accordingly.
If you want to learn more about designing training plans, The Mile 27 Academy has an online course that goes into detail on all aspects of training. More info here
