madbuck wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:24 pm
Dave B wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:49 pm
I guarantee someone will mention Scott Johnson's book
Training for the Uphill Athlete in this thread. Please ignore that suggestion (it's somewhat puritanical, aimed at elite race-level athletes trying to eek out small gains in performance, or at least folks who think they're at that level) and just go hiking more.
Ha. With the search feature, this book was mentioned in one
throwaway thread in the context of optimality (or, at best, ambiguity). IMHO, it is an interesting and useful book within the admittedly small niche of hobbyists wanting to hike fast, which is a different than the more specific question here. (And also a different question than training for 'climbing' instead of hiking). I guess you don't like that book -- that's OK too!
I actually like the book (and TftNA) a lot, I think they're great tomes on developing an advanced base of endurance and a lot of people have found a lot of success implementing their recommendations and training plans. But, I also think the audience they're geared towards is not the standard 14erering weekend warrior type, who just wants to be able to do hikes on the weekends without feeling like they're going to die. For that group, just hiking more will work, without worrying themselves too much with heart rate zones, ADS, metabolic pathways, and macrocycles. TftUA a $100 solution to a $0.05 problem for most people, and it makes training god-awfully boring to boot.
I've also found that, for me personally, I benefit much more for a balanced approach to training that includes more Z3+ work than TftUA recommends. I've got a large frame, and a BMI that says obese when I'm fit enough to push out back-to-back 15+ hour days. Endurance has never really been my issue, it's how slow I am, especially with running. For me to stay in Z2 when running, I can only maintain a 14 min/mile pace. It sucks, I spent all of last year running huge volumes at that pace in hopes I'd get faster, but never really did, but I did end up with constant hip and knee pain from an awkward slow shuffle that kept my HR low. After taking most of fall and winter off, I'm running a lot less, but at a pace that feels natural/fun and with a lot more hills. My Z2 pace has dropped down to 12 min/mile in 7 weeks. I'm sure it can be argued that the large volume of aerobic work last year contributed to that, but even with intervals and tapering towards my event last year, I was never even close to "fast" as I am now.
n=1
Make wilderness less accessible.