A wee disagreement with JR who thinks we are starting our WHW training a bit too early. He thinks there is a danger of getting sickened by the level of training, our arguement is that last year, Steph, Geraldine and Jimmy ran the Fling and felt that having started training in January, they were unprepared for the race. This time the goal is the WHW race just a few weeks later and that will require a longer prep. I see JR's point but would argue that he has been doing this for many, many years and has thousands of miles in his legs. That goes for many WHW veterans, but those mere mortals who are doing it for the first time have to get as many miles as possible into their legs, and the coach in me says a long base preparation is the best way to prepare. Last week I did just over 40 miles and the others slightly less. I don't think that is excessive, although today's miles count for next week and it was a hard days work.
I won't fall out with Jim over it, and any other views are welcome.

The above is from my blog which is on John's bloglist. He kindly posted a summary, and we know how it resulted, and suggested that this would be a good topic for wider discussion on this forum.

I think that different react differently to the same training. What's good for one will not necessarily be good for another.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with doing 40+ mile weeks with the odd long run (20+ miles) thrown in occasionally at this time of the year. Hence why the Glee Club is doing Milngavie - Dryman - Milngavie on Sunday. I have recently done 55, 44 & 36 mile runs and am not feeling any worse for it.

John Kynaston and Tim Downie put in more work last year as a consequence came away from the Race with fab times.

I think your idea of starting early and building through the year is sound, particularly if this is your first year. You may find that you have to allow more time for recovery so starting eariler will help with this.

As you say, the old hands can put in a shorter period of prep and still do well in the Race. If it is your first time you have to be considered and considerate to your body, and the changes it will undergo, in your training.

So, my advise would be to follow your plan. Listen to all advise but the last word is with your body, listen to it!

Hmmm. Is this a first from DQ? Looks like a sensible answer to a sensible question.Unless my humour detector needs fine tuned! Seriously (here we go again), I'm sure listening to my body is the most important part, hence I am not climbing Ben Lomond this morning as I foolishly suggested I might. Whilst I am aware of the need to train tired, this is for later and I'm trying to recover as much as I can between sessions, although some of that recovery is running slowly for a few miles as I find that sorts out the tight bits better than lying in my scratcher!

Absolutely fine to do Active Recovery (slow, short runs) over Inactive Recovery, if that is what your body prefers. I do a mixture of the two myself depending on how I feel at the time.

Keep it under your hat mate, but I can be serious on occasion...well...non-sarcastic anyway.

Several folk seem to be currently training @ 40 miles or more per week; or are already doing runs of well over 30 miles distance.

Is the idea to carry on in this manner, gradually building up more and more til early June 2009? Or to have a holiday / fallow period at some stage?

Murdo

Low mileage week after every three, building to a max of 72. Also the double header training weekend to consider for the others but I'll be in Portugal for a bit of a breather. Easy over xmas and New year. I would consider the real training will start in the New Year, but hope to be ready for it by dint of this build up.

Well, I seem to have managed to get the old bod to a point where it is comfortable doing 40+ as a normal week.

The intention is build on this later on, putting in harder/longer weeks and to have a long run every month. 40 - 50 miles per week will be my baseline though. I, personally, will allow for recovery 'breaks'. For instance, after doing Cateran and then Great Glen I have just had a two week period where I have ran three times in total.

I don't appear to be doing any damage and in fact have been moving pretty well for me. A good general level of fitness with a slow build up to the Race seems like a sensible idea to me.

DQ, if you can get to the start line without injury, I think we'll see you knocking a *big* chunk off of your PB.

As ever, looking forward to thrashing you in June but somehow I think it will probably be the other way round. I can only hope that make-up or costume problems slow you up on the day.

Dave my basic idea is to keep ticking over up until xmas/new year is out the way .Then the training starts in earnest. Over the years I have found that putting in the heavy stuff starting January and increasing the load slowly has worked for me over the years,starting too early by the time you get to april/may you tend to get bored with the heavy work load.Last comment if it works for you GREAT.but be careful it's a long way to JUNE. Jim R

I am currently injured and off training but even if I wasn't, late November - early December is my down time for leg recovery. I'll start upping the mileage from mid December onwards and keep it going mieage wise will the back end of October next year when I'll finish with the OMM and a decline in intensity and volume for a month or so.

Jim,
I know how often you train, how many miles are you doing just now? Knowing again how much training you were doing before some of your WHW races how much were you doing just to keep "ticking over"? At your age ,too!!!

For most of our group, training levels were pretty low, and to suddenly go to high mileage in January would be dangerous, both as regards injury and health in general.
Therefore I view starting a build-up now as pretty much essential. Working as a group, we can encourage each other, bully(in the nicest way possible of course) each other and also build some miles in the bank to draw on when rests are enforced by injury, work commitments and stress.

Less is more for me .. I am of the JR school - albeit I have never been a serious runner like the great man (8 marathons under 3hrs - not me !!) Currently ticking over (mostly about 10 miles a week max, but with the occasional massive 10 in one day).. Will try and get one more 20+ in this year and then after Christmas ramp up to a peak of 40 / week (In reality will struggle to get to 25 !)

A few years ago I would have cautioned all virgins about looking at the mileages and trying to emulate the distances being run. In my first year I am glad there was not this forum - I would have been petrified ! But I reckon following last years race that the actual quality of the field is inproving, with more seasoned runners coming into the race and hence able to ramp up the extra miles. How else can you explain 50 people under 24 hrs ?

So listen to your body as other people have said, and remember that getting to the start line uninjured and mentally ready is better than over trained and with that little niggle that messes with your head.. Enjoy

I love to run, and love to train hard! I have in one way or another since I was 12, first Martial Arts, then weight training, then the Parachute regiment, then back to weights (building up to 18+ stone) then back to Martial Arts (running low mileage all along, apart from the Paras)now Ultrarunning and Martial Arts, plus a bit of Boxing (non competetive)when I can get a high mileage week in then I do, but I usually get a base of 35-40 miles in, plus 80-90 miles a week of cycling in and a couple of fitness sessions (martial art/ boxing based, incorporating high step-ups, hill reps, relay races etc) next year I will do less cycling and more running (60-70miles pw)maybe pushing up to the odd 90mpw. Maybe im overtraining, maybe I should train a lot less and probably would get better results, but this is who I am, this is what I love and I live for, to me if dropping my training by half resulted in improving my whw time by 3 hours, I wouldnt drop my training, the prep is what I look forward to, the race itself lasts a short time in comparison to the journey.
So in answer to the question, I am always training! I will never run a 3hr marathon, my 10k time is bloody crap I will never place high in the whw, but I will have a bloody good go!! This isnt being negative! this is being realistic!

Jon - you are not a well man, do you ever sleep ? but your post really emphasises the point. Its whatever works for the individual. I could not spend all that time training - I would be broken. But for you it makes perfect sense, hence there is no right answer. People need to find out through trial and error what works for them, be it training, food, shoes or gusset padding ..

I don't really stop. I now train (try to) in cycles, but generally average 200 miles a month all year. There are periods when I'll do 250-300 mile months, say over christmas. At the moment I am doing 50-60 mile weeks.

I'm very much a 'club runner' though so race throughout the year at fell, road or XC (very rarely as it's the worst bit of the fells in loops!) events.

Time off doesn't really happen.

I think I've got a decent base from this year so I'll probably start official training in January, with maybe a week or two of 30 miles in December.

Just slowly ticking over at the minute though, with maybe 15-20 miles per week (if that).

I did the Fling this year as my first ultra and entered the WHW at the last minute. I started training in January and found this to be fine.

Overall, listen to your body and consider taking a week or so off over Christmas.

I think this is a really interesting question and from the responses so far there are lots of different thoughts and ideas. I love reading what others are doing and why as it really helps me to think through what is right for me.

So here are some of my thoughts having come to ultra running quite late (47!).

For my first year (2007 race) I entered the race in October 2006 (and there were still a good number of places left!)and started training seriously from then. I was starting from a lower fitness base having struggled with a calf injury for 18months. I basically ran 4 times a week averaging about 40miles a week. I didn't think I could cope with much more.

My biggest regret for that first year is that I felt I had to maintain a steady increase all the way through mileage wise. I didn't have any easy weeks. I picked up an injury after the Fling because I was running at our club Fartlek on the Monday 2 days after the 53 miles race! That almost put me out of the whw race but I just about got through it and was happy to break 23hrs but I really struggled over the last 20miles from Kingshouse.

For this year's race I started my specific training later, in January, but I had a solid year (almost 2,00 miles) behind me.

Learning from my first year I changed a few things ....

1. I increased the average mileage to 50miles a week (running 5 times a week).

2. I introduced an easy week once a month after our long training runs on the route.

3. I ran downhill training sessions regularly to strengthen my quads.

4. On my weekly long off road runs in Jan & Feb I ran with a weighted rucksack again to strenghen my quads.

5. I entered more races including cross country. My favourite and most helpful was the Lairig Mor Race in March which is run over the last 14miles of the whw route. To be able to run without stopping for the whole 14miles gave me a lot of confidence for subsequent training runs and on the race day.

Everything came together in the race for me and I was amazed to dip under the 20hrs, way beyond my wildest expectation.

This year I've had a 6-7 week break (Oct) due to a sore foot and feel as though I'm starting my preparation from November. So I'm working on an easy long run off road once a week with the aim to getting into a decent shape by the end of December and then start the process all over again!

So I reckon the key months for me are Jan-Mar - those are the months when I aim to put the big miles in to give me a good base for the Fling and whw plus other ultras I'm going for in my 50th year!!.

So that's a long winded answer to a simple question!

I'm sure there's lots more who could give some helpful insights on when they start their specific whw training?

John

JK wrote:"For this year's race I started my specific training later, in January, but I had a solid year (almost 2,00 miles) behind me.
"

I need to start cutting back now! I've obviously been doing way too much.

DO NOT CUT BACK TIM! After your comments earlier in this thread, your ass is grass boy. Get yourself ready for whippin' :>

Great answers that kind of justifies my way..... and Jim's!
What I see is that for first timers, there is a need to build up miles in the bank prior to the race, the more the better. As I'm coming from marathon to ultra quicker than is recommended then I think I need to start as early as possible. As I gain more experience, and as a consequence more mileage, I can start preparations later. Jim, and others with experience and therefore miles in the bank,can afford to wait a bit longer before specific training.Some of course just kep going.
I've tried to get Jim to remember what he did first time around, but it's so long ago that he keeps referring to the war.

Well Dave, yes...and no. Yep, more confusion.

When I entered for the 2006 Race, which was around Christmas, the furthest I had ran was a Marathon. Dario set me a challenge and had me vetted, on a training run, by some people. So, it was into the New Year before I started training.

You can start later and still be ready for the Race, I just think that it is better to start preparation early and be less aggresive with the training.

Well I came from the Marathon distance and did a test run over 42 miles the year before the race that went absolutely superb. I started to build up mileage in November peaked at 100 miles four weeks before the race... And despite of a gentle tapering I was a mess on race day.
Several month after the race I can say with certainty that i did in deed too much! -> Overtraining

So watch out when you increase the mileage and effort!

Lifes to short

I just Run, Train Hard and Pee Clear, Job Done

No build up no taper, loads of miles loads of fun.

"4. On my weekly long off road runs in Jan & Feb I ran with a weighted rucksack again to strenghen my quads."
Was that your idea John or did someone recomend that?

I've always been instinctively against running with excess weight, I'm not a light guy, 13 stonesish, so find running hard enough as it is, but have always felt running harder, more hills gives you the quads. I've just always felt extra weight is extra weight on the joints and just a recipe for injury.

Speaking of injury I currently have discomfort in my shins and have a worrying feeling its shin splints..

DQ - Thought that was what I said!
However I'm definitely not planning on being aggressive in build up at any time. It'll be gradual and as for increasing effort.... I'll be as slow as I am now.And working to get slower and get used to moving slower. Just finishing shouldn't need speedwork! To be honest the mere thought of doing the race put enthusiasm back into my running as I was finding it hard to get going after the FLM. As soon as I decided to enter, there was a spring in my step and a desire to change my training habits to suit the race requirements. The important thing for me is that I have like-minded club-mates whose schedule is probably a bit lighter than what I'll do, but whose company will be invaluable. Most of the additional stuff will be recovery runs,that seems at this stage to be easier on my legs than resting. Also planning on dusting off the MTB and swimming trunks. But then I am the idle rich just now and have a lot of time on my hands.

PS. Don't know if all my participation in forums and blogs seems to be a bit cocky. It's been a tremendous source of information and a motivational factor to me and I intend to keep it up no matter what!

Hi Iain

The idea of running with weights came from advice from William Sichel. He has actually designed his own rucksacks which takes sand but I made do with some heavy books!! If I remember rightly his reasoning was that on a say 3hr run you would get the benefit of a 5hr run. It was part of the advice he gave me when I contacted him to ask how he overcame DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) that I really struggled with on my first whw race.

I too am fairly heavy 12st 6lbs. I used the weighted rucksacks for Jan & Feb and felt it helped. It also slowed me down to nearer race pace which I also think was good.

John

PS - Davie - you contribute as much as you want. I think the blogs and the forum are great places to share ideas and tips as well as bringing a smile to our faces

I believe that for training some folk wear weights round their ankles ~ kind of chain-gang leg irons, but maybe somewhat less uncomfortable. I've never tried this myself, and feel there would be a danger of it destroying any natural rhythm. (Not that there's much natural rhythm to my particular style, I must say.)

The only attraction I can see to it would be that it must feel like you're running on air, and so much lighter, when you take the things off. But does that make them a "good thing"?

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or have any experience of using leg irons; sorry, I mean ankle weights?

Murdo

Am training with the weight of disappointment on every calf, the hinderence of every bump on every quad, and the joy of the door with every beat of my heart.

I haven't trained with the ankle weights, but most of my weekday runs are done with a rucksack.

As you say Murdo, the benefit is felt on the runs when you don't have it.

John K, IanR,

I wish I was as heavy(?)as you. I have 15 1/2 stone to lug around all the time. From the results of my efforts it would appear that I am not going to reduce that very easily either.

Jon C

John, with reference to another thread I would love to join the run in two weeks time but I am committed to work. have a good one

Weighing in at 14st.7 ilbs when I started the training and I've dropped to 14.2 in three weeks.Eating plenty, but only have chocolate before/after runs and staying off the beer!

Hi Jon

I know how you feel! I tip the scales at 15.7-16 stone, last whw I got down to 14.11 with bloody hard work!! In America they have an extra category for us er heftier ones called the Clydesdale category, it should be introduced here!
Its ok for all theses stick insects with no bodyweight to carry lol