Ultra Running Training Principles - Zone 3 4 5a + 5b

Specificity 

That is one key to ultra endurance success. You cannot have two full cups. This is true in many cases of the human physiology. You cannot be a good fat burner and a good sugar burner in the meantime. You cannot be fast and powerful in the meantime. You cannot be extremely endurant and speedy in the meantime. There is a metabolic equilibrium, power to weight ratio equilibrium and time investment. If you want to be fast, we talk about speed. Speed is neuro-muscular. Nerves, neurons, nervous system, nerve tunnels, nerve endings, need time to recover. Unless you give them the necessary intervals, they won't fire as needed. Muscle firing, muscle recruitment will be out of control. Watch how sprinters train before an event. A big and efficacious warming up of 45 to 75 minutes, 6 x 75meters with 8 minutes of recovery, 20min cool off, merry Christmas. Then eat a lot, Sleep 2.5 hours in the afternoon and train again.

That is easy to see and understand. Often when athletes come at a young age to an athletic club, not knowing anything about running, history, sports in general, they choose short course run training. The warm up run is short, like 1 to 2km. They learn new skills of run educative and hurdle drills. They hammer it for 30 to 125meters at a time, but not more. Loads of chatting and talking around go on. It is social, it builds the whole body. The youngsters gain weight and let their newly increasing testosterone boosted even more.  

Can you see ? Endurance is the polar opposite. Recovery is short and not all that necessary. No chatting and messing around, but time efficiency. A sprinter might run 3km in total during a 2h session, where warming up and cool-down takes 2.3km while an endurance athlete cover over 20km.

We talk about the opposites here as like in martial arts, understanding the yang is necessary to follow the yin. You cannot engage in high heart rate huffing and puffing training regimen if you want to go out next day. Your health and longevity is crucial. Your mental stamina is already impacted by time on the path, but draining it with uncontrolled efforts further can put you in a hole. 

Percentages

How much intensity can we get in ? It depends how it is structured and which way it is implemented, but of course most likely on time efficiency turned towards recovery. Killian can train regularly over 1000 hours a year, simply because after each day he can sit down. He can sleep. He can eat in a peace. He doesn't have to rush anywhere. He has no musts. He can includ a lot of high heart rate sets into high volume weeks. 

On the other hand, we, dads, full time workers with hours of commute, household chores, social obligations, financial demands, can still pursue high end pure endurance, but are limited in time put into high intensity. If you went out for a pure Zone 1 run of 5hours, next day you are fine. No mental fog impacting your work and life. A 5 by 1000m on the track ran at critical velocity will on the other hand pull a blurry curtain on your brain for 3 days. It is a price to pay and something to accept. Accept or avoid. That is a decision. This is why, my high intensity sessions are done on Saturday as I don't work Sunday and Monday, but also can recover well by sleeping in and napping. 

Zone 1 is the most important. A couple of percentages of Zone 2 weekly is necessary. To complete our physiology the rest of the Zones must be practiced and not neglected. 2 times a month is enough for most talking about Zone 3 4 and 5. We don't need to push our body more. 
Some races require more running than walking. They are flatter and less technical, maybe even shorter. Then Zone 4 and 5 becomes forgotten and we focus our high intensity on Zone 3. Limit Zone 2, focus on Zone 3, use Zone 1 for endurance and recovery. This way the volume of intensity available will be much higher. You might not touch on Zone 4 and 5 for months. 

When you do short course racing in the beginning of the season, your lifelong endurance and lactate resistance ability won't just vanish. It is with you in your body. For short periods like 3 x 3 weeks with a week of rest inbetween, you will practice VO2max style trainings in order to prepare your muscles and mind to race efforts. This includes Zone 4 and 5 a and b.
Then when reverting back to endurance Zone 1 and Zone 2 mix, you'll also feel like easy. The rest of the year will be less demanding but more enduring.

For me the most important high intensity zone for the ultra endurance athlete is Zone 5 C. This is the zone where you put in very high efforts with a lot of muscle recruitment , but for short periods of time, so your heart-rate actually won't even rise. Because it is muscular during these 10 to 20sec up and downhill intervals with big recoveries, your recovery won't be hindered. A set of 10 x 30 sec hard uphill, the next day can be followed up by a 5h run and hike if wanted. 

No explanation needed

I don't go into more depth on training structure here. Zone 1 training, low intensity living is the base. All ultra runners understand this. In most part of the year our high intensity regime is basically injected Zone2 and Zone5c training. The draining Zone 3-4-5a/b are to specific parts of our training cycle as we cannot forget and cannot leave our complete physiology behind. Some touch on those is necessary time to time. 

If you had questions or don't understand something on determination, implementation, planning, building up a season, just write me a comment. I will find an answer for you.  

Dorogi Levente

***

Specificity, Ultra Endurance, Metabolic Equilibrium, Power to Weight Ratio, Time Investment, Speed, Neuro-Muscular, Nervous System, Recovery, Sprinters, Warming Up, Cool Down, Endurance Athlete, Yang and Yin, Heart Rate, Huffing and Puffing, Health, Longevity, Mental Stamina, Percentages, Intensity, Time Efficiency, Killian, Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, Zone 4, Zone 5, Critical Velocity, Brain Fog, VO2max, Lactate Resistance, Muscular Recruitment, Recovery Periods, Training Structure, Low Intensity Living, Ultra Runners, Training Cycle, Complete Physiology, Season Planning.

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