Endurance Training Log: Week of 03.18.2024
I’m about a month and a half from my first race of the year, the Quad Rock 50 miler. I’ve transitioned from base through build phases, and this week marks my first specificity week.
From a workout perspective, I didn’t do anything significantly different from my build weeks. My two key workouts were a Z3 Hill Interval session early in the week and a long (3-hour, in this case) trail run on the weekend. But I loaded up the running mileage significantly and reduced the easy cycling surrounding those two key workouts. The idea here is to start getting used to more time on feet and getting used to running on tired legs.
This amounted to 10.5 hours of running, with just over 51 miles and 5k of vert. I added just over two hours of cycling, a significant departure from prior weeks, where I’ve averaged something more in the 3-4-hour range.
I expected my legs (and joints) to feel pretty beat up by the end of the week, but they’ve surprised me and have responded well. I didn’t have any trouble keeping my heart rate down on my 3-hour trail run on Saturday, and my legs felt decent despite putting in 8 miles on Friday. It was more of the same on Sunday, and I ran my 8+ miles much faster than I anticipated despite keeping the effort level very low.
From a total volume perspective, I’m about the same as where I was last year. This is disappointing after my very strong end to the year. I was really anticipating being able to put in monster volume leading up to the Quad Rock, but 2024 has proved to be stressful and challenging outside of training. Despite not being able to elevate my volume compared to last year, my speed has definitely improved relative to effort.
Next week will be another specificity week, but I’ll introduce some zone four work for the first time this year. I’ve got a 30-30s workout scheduled for early in the week, and then back-to-back trail runs later in the week. I’m hoping for something around 12.5-13 hours with 45-50 miles on feet.
kyle wurtz 