2024 Training Part 1 (November-April)

Sebastien Lachance

In this blog post, I will detail as much as possible my training for my 2024 sub-ultra trail running season. I raced a total of 18 times between March and November, ranging from 5km road-races to 30km trail races. I really wanted to compete well during the entierety of the season, so I put a lot of thought and time into the planning of my training this year. There are definitely a lot of things that I could've done better, but I figured it could be interesting to share what seems to have worked for me. With that said, the year was far from perfect, with notably two major setbacks (a stress fracture + sickness) which forced me to adapt my training even more. I'll explain below how I periodized my training to the different races, as well as how I was able to keep my racing season on the rails despite the setbacks. 

Disclaimers

Before getting into the numbers, two big disclaimers. Firstly, by no means should this be perceived as an example to follow with your own training. Every training plan should be individualized to the athlete concerned depending on a multitude of factors like their training experience, their injury tolerance, their goals, their life responsibilities, and much more. For instance, my training works for me (I think) notably because I have been running consistently since 2017 averaging 6000-8000km/year and have made a lot of adjustments in my day-to-day life to optimize recovery between training, and it would certainly not work for someone who is just getting into running or who is more prone to injury. 

Second disclaimer is to not neglect enjoyment in training. I’ll be talking from a scientific training standpoint below, but enjoying the training is something I think is as much if not more important. Simple, if we’re not enjoying the training, there's no point. And also, everyone says it, consistency is the most important thing to improve, and the only way to be consistent and stick to a training plan/philosophy is to actually enjoy it. If not, we’re most likely going to diverge from it after a while, and no plan is a good plan if we don’t actually follow it. Of course some days suck and we aren’t motivated to get out the door, but I think you get the point; most days shouldn’t be like that. 

The Plan

At the end of the 2023 season, one of the main things I wanted to work on during the winter and spring was my flat running. Unlike many sub-ultra trail runners, I didn't run track when I grew up so I lack a lot of speed compared to my competitors.

Also, I didn’t want to spend another winter frustratingly slipping around icy and snow-packed trails in Quebec, and felt like focusing on the roads would be a refreshing new way to train through our tough winters.

Therefore, the macro plan was to train on the roads from December to April culminating to three road races: a 15k in March, a 10k in mid-April, and a half-marathon at the end of April. After that, the plan was to build on that fitness and get in the mountains for a good training block in May-June in preparation for a big competition period in the US and Europe later in the summer, consisting of trail events ranging from VKs to 35k races. My intention was then to take short break, do a 6–8-week training block, and race four more trail races in October to end the season.

However, as I’ll write below, two setbacks occurred which forced me to completely change my racing schedule for the second half of the year. 

Training zones

Okay I’m starting to realize there are actually a lot of things I need to mention before actually getting into the data of each phase!

Every year, I do a test on the treadmill with David Jeker that allows me to compare pace, heart rate, and lactate values. This ultimately allows me to find my heart rate and pace values that correspond to my two lactate thresholds (aerobic threshold aka LT1 and anaerobic threshold aka LT2). For simplification purposes, in the five-zone system, LT1 is the limit between zones 2 and 3, and zone 4 covers just a bit before and after LT2 (+- 3bpm). 

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These results are extremely useful for me because my training is mainly based on the Norwegian method which utilizes lactate a lot. But, since most of my sessions are done in the mountains, taking lactate values with a lactatometer during sessions would be logistically very complicated, so knowing my heart rate values associated with my lactate thresholds is the best alternative I’ve found.  

If you are in the Montreal area and are interested in doing a lactate test, I highly recommend doing it here : https://www.quantumendurance.com/blog/test-de-lactate-pour-courir-au-bon-rythme

November - Off-season and new build

Here we go, let's start from the beginning. The month of November was dedicated to recovery from the previous season and a gradual start at creating an aerobic base for the upcoming road running block. This is by far the period where I am the least strict with my training plan as I have very few structured workouts and mostly just do whatever I feel like doing.  

After taking two weeks with very minimal training, I got back to training every day, mostly twice a day, but almost all easy zone 1-2 training. Since the next race was more than four months away, specificity was not important so I included a lot of time biking indoors on Zwift during this period, and ran on all sorts of terrain depending on what I felt like. In terms of intensity, I didn't do any actual sessions, but I did hill sprints and uphill drills once a week. These are great to build power, remind the body to have good running biomechanics, as well as to prepare it for future full intensity sessions.

Hill sprints: 5-8 x 10-20s sprints uphill with a complete 2-3min jog recovery between each rep. I run a few minutes at threshold during the warm-up to make sure my legs are ready for the first rep. 

Uphill drills: 10 x 30sec-30s alternating between fast feet and slow bounding (exactly what Jonathan Albon does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmg5eke08ug). I'm honestly not sure how much this helps, but in any case it's nice to add a bit of variety in the training, and it can't hurt.

Example of training week: 

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
AM	1h jog	1h50min jog	8 x 10s hill sprints (40min)	1h25m jog	1h jog	1h spin	2h long run
PM	40m spin	40m spin	55m jog	30m spin	40m spin	10 x 30s-30s uphill drills (1h)

 

November’s totals: 

 

 December–March - Road Prep

Alright alright, now the real training begins. This period was dedicated to continue building a big aerobic base in preparation for the remaining of the season, and simultaneously add some specific training for some road races. During the entirety of this period, I trained between 12-16 hours per week, divided between running and biking indoors. As I’ll detail below, I started adding actual intensity sessions during these months, but I always made sure that the large majority of my training was done at an easy effort in zones 1-2. 

Almost all of my run training during these months was on the roads, primarily on hilly country roads. For intensity sessions, I either ran them on flat asphalt in residential areas, on long road climbs, or on the treadmill if there was too much snow/ice. 

The first week of December was when I introduced my first actual intensity session: 6 x 6min threshold. I’ve done a ton of threshold workouts throughout the whole season (86 in fact, yes I counted), so below is a summary of what these workouts consist of.  

Threshold workouts

I typically start these workouts with a 15-20 min jog warm-up finishing with 3 x 15sec strides. The bulk of the session usually consists of 3 to 12 minute reps at or below threshold with 1 to 2 minutes jog recovery between, to totalize anywhere between 25-50 minutes of intensity time, depending on the timing in the season. Here are a few examples from December:  

• - 10 x 3min uphill dirt roads (r:1min15s). 

• - 6 x 2km (~ 6:20) flat asphalt (r:1min20s) 

• - 3 x 11min uphill dirt roads (r:2min) 

• - 7min-3min-7min-3min-7min-3min-7min uphill 8% on treadmill (r:1min20s)

example of a 6x6min uphill threshold workout on country roads

Here ‘threshold’ refers to the anaerobic threshold LT2. For me, my LT2 is at 172bpm, so I try my best to stay just under that, usually between 165-172bpm. By running the same pace for all reps, my heart rate is usually near the lower limit for the first reps, and gets closer to the upper limit near the end due to the accumulation of fatigue. This is important to know because I used to try to get my heart rate close to LT2 as soon as the workout began, but I then had to slow down for the rest of the workout to keep it under, which is not the goal of threshold workouts.

The idea of threshold workouts is to accumulate a lot of intensity time without creating too much fatigue. Without getting too crazy with the science, lactate can be pictured as fatigue. If we exercise at an intensity above LT2, the lactate (or fatigue) goes up exponentially. Hence, by staying just below LT2, we get the best bang for our buck: we get physiological benefits from doing high intensity work (just below LT2 is still quite hard), and we simultaneously don’t burn ourselves out in training, allowing us to recover quickly from the session and have the ability to do another one soon after.  

This is why athletes like Jakob Ingebrigsten are capable of doing up to six intensity sessions per week. During his base phase, Ingebrigsten is famously known for doing two double threshold days per week (two threshold sessions per day) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a single session above LT2 on Saturday, which is then followed by another threshold session that afternoon. I don’t think it would be physically possible for any non-doped human to do that amount of intensity if it would be mainly above LT2, at least not in a sustainable way. 

Alister Gardner

I do all of my threshold sessions on non-technical terrain, either flat or uphill (mostly flat during the road running block, and uphill during the trail running block). The reason behind no downhill is that if I were to do downhill reps around threshold, I would basically have to go all-out to reach the appropriate HR/lactate values, and doing hard downhills are very risky for injuries, so it is just not worth it in my opinion. With the number of races I do every year, I find that I have enough downhill stimuli from the races themselves to prepare for the downhills of future races.  

Final note on threshold sessions: these could technically be done in one go, meaning instead of 6 x 6min, it could simply be a continuous 36min effort keeping the heart rate below LT2. However, I personally prefer to break down the intensity in intervals as it allows to get the biomechanic benefits of running faster. For example, if I were to do a 36min effort, I’d probably have to be around 3:15-3:20/km to always stay below LT2. On the other hand, if I’d break it down in intervals, I could now afford to run faster around 3:05-3:10/km since my HR/lactate would go down between each effort. 

Okay, let's get back on track now. As I was saying, I did my first threshold workout at the beginning of the month. Following this, I progressively added more intensity every week before eventually reaching what I've just decided to name the 'Ultimate Training Week' the week of January 22-28. The Ultimate Training Week, which I’ll refer to as UTW from now on, is basically a week in full training mode with two threshold sessions, one anaerobic session, and a long run. Below is the progression of intensity sessions from the first week of December to finally doing UTWs. 

	Threshold sessions	Hill sprints	Uphill drills	Anaerobic sessions (above LT2)
Dec 4-10	1 running	1	1	0
Dec 11-17	2 (1 running, 1 on the indoor bike)	1	1	0
Dec 18-24	2 (1 running, 1 on the indoor bike)	1	1	0
Dec 25-31	2 (1 running, 1 on the indoor bike)	1	1	0
Jan 1-7	2 running	1	1	0
Jan 8-14	3 (2 running, 1 on the indoor bike)	1	1	0
Jan 15-21	2 running	1	1	0
Jan 22-28   *First UTW*	2 running	0	1	1

I use indoor biking as a way to smoothly increase intensity in my weeks. I’ve noticed over the years how my body takes time to adapt to small additions in training schedules (like an extra threshold session), so I am extra careful whenever I do add something new in my training.  

Here is an example of a UTW in mid-February: 

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
AM	1h10m jog	8 x 1 mile flat threshold (r:1m15)    Total 1h15m	1h5m jog	6 x 6m uphill threshold (r:1m20)    Total 1h15m	1h30 jog	Ingebrigsten special 20 x 40s hill repeats    Total 1h10	2h long run   in zones 2-3
PM	1h spin	10 x 30s-30s uphill drills (45m)	1h spin	45m jog	1h spin	50m jog	Strength + plyometrics (40m)

When I did these UTW weeks, I tried to follow a pattern of three “big’’ weeks followed by one ‘‘down’’ week. The “down’’ weeks followed the same weekly schedule as the bigger weeks, but there was simply less volume every day (jogs and long runs were shorter, and less total intensity times during the sessions). 

Once I got going with my UTWs, I started including a more intense session above LT2 (zones 4-5) on Saturdays. These sessions are shorter in terms of total intensity volume, but since the intensity is higher, they are in my opinion much more difficult than threshold sessions. For the first five weeks of doing UTWs, my Saturday workout was the Ingebrigsten special, a workout that, as the name suggests, is one of the Ingebrigsten brothers’ staple workouts in their base phase. 

Ingebrigsten Special

Similarly to threshold sessions, I warm-up with a typical 15-20  minute jog finishing with 2 minutes at threshold pace and a few strides. The workout consists of 20 x 40 second hill repeats at an almost all-out effort. It is done ideally on a hill with asphalt or a dirt road with good traction which has a slope between 3 to 10% (not too steep because one of the objectives is to work on leg turnover). There should be no variation in the slope on the hill; if it is 5%, it must remain similar for the entire distance of the intervals. Recovery is done by jogging back down the hill very slowly, which should take between 1min and 1min30. The 20 reps are divided into 2 sets with a 3-5 minute jog after the first 10 reps.  

The objective of the session is to obtain the best average possible speed for the 20 intervals together, but also to keep a similar speed throughout the training without slowing down from rep to rep... you can imagine that the final reps are flipping hard. My heart rate during these workouts usually is around LT2 at the end of the first few reps, but then gets into zone 5 as I progress through the last ones. 

Long runs

I ran all of my long runs during this period on hilly country roads. As I mentioned earlier, taking pleasure in my training is important for me, and one of my ways of enjoying my training is exploring new areas near where I live in Estrie. Long runs are thus a great way to do that, since I have access to an infinity of great routes on country roads, and usually have a group of friends I can do these runs with.

From December to April, my long runs were between 25 and 33km, almost always with a decent amount of elevation gain/loss (200-600m). Long run days are the only days where I run purely by feel; if I’m not feeling good, I stay in zones 1-2, but if I feel good, I allow myself to run steady in zones 2-3. In reality, I felt good most long run days and I find it kind of boring to run easy for ~two hours, so I almost always ended with a lot of zone 3 (between LT1 and LT2) in the second halves of the runs. 

March-April – Road races 

I won’t get into the details of every race because this already too long post would last forever, so I’ll talk more about how I adapted my training to the various races. In the weeks leading up to the 10k race and half-marathon at the end of April, I didn’t diverge much for my UTW schedule. In the 3-4 weeks before a race, I usually like to add more specificity in my training to simulate the race effort/terrain, but in this case, my typical UTW weeks were already well specific for a half-marathon race (my main goal was the half-marathon; if I was more focused on the 10k, I would’ve most likely added a few V02max workouts leading into the race). Threshold workouts are usually ran around half-marathon pace, and most of my sessions were on flat or slightly hilly terrain, so my training was already specific enough for the race demands. 

Taper 

I typically only start tapering down my training at the beginning of race weeks, and even then, I don’t reduce my training that much. There are many different reasons why I do this: 

Allison Kirkwood

1.  I raced 18 times in 2024 and if I were to take a typical 2-3 week taper before every race, it would take forever to try to regain fitness after each race and I wouldn’t be able to build on my fitness from race to race. 
2. Since I had a big three-month block of UTWs, my body was well adapted to doing relatively high volume and intensity, and I thus wasn’t in a significant state of fatigue approaching races. Hence, a big reduction of training load was not necessary. 
3. Essentially, I think tapers are over-rated. Contrary to what most runfluencers say online, you can lose fitness surprisingly quickly if you reduce dramatically your training load, especially if you are used to consistent training. Of course, by reducing your training load, you increase your ‘‘freshness’’ for the race (which is why tapers exist), but from my experience, it’s not worth it to be extra fresh for a race if I’ve lost a lot of fitness in the process. 

With all that being said, there is a balance to be had, and I did taper down my training a bit to have good legs on race day. My philosophy for tapering is usually to keep the same training schedule and frequency of trainings (double runs, intensity sessions, long runs, etc.), but reduce the volume of every training. For example, if I typically jog 50min on an easy day afternoon, then it might be 35min the week of the race. Or if my threshold workout is typically 35 minutes of intensity time, it might be reduced to 25 minutes on race week, but the intensity remains the same. 

Here is how I tapered down specifically for my 10k and half-marathon: 

	Week 1
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
AM	1h jog	1h10 jog	3km-2km-2km-2 x 400m threshold (r:1m15)    Total 50m	50m jog	45min jog with 4x30sec @10k pace (r:1m30)	10km race	20km long run  in zone 2
PM	40m spin	10 x 30s-30s uphill drills (40m)	40m jog	30m jog		30m jog	Strength + plyometrics (40m)
	Week 2
AM	1h jog	4 x 1 mile, 2 x 400m threshold (r:1m20)    Total 50m	1h jog	5 x 2m @10k pace (r:1m20)    Total 50m	40m jog	Half-marathon race	50m jog
PM	40m spin	35m jog	40m spin	30m jog			Strength + plyometrics (40m)

 

May-June – Disaster strikes 

At this point, my training had gone pefectly since November. In hindsight- too perfect. I've been running for seven years and I'd never had such a long stretch without any niggle or sickness that would force me to reduce training. To show the extent of this, the only two planned trainings I 'missed' from November to April were a 31km long run where I stopped after 28km due to stomach problems, and an Ingebrigtsen Special where I stopped after 10 reps because I over-heated on a treadmill!

Due to this and the outcome of my road races which went well, I was very optimistic for the upcoming summer as I was looking forward to use that fitness for a solid 6-week trail running block in preparation for some very exciting races.

Unfortunately, two days after my half-marathon, disaster struck. Without any warning, my foot suddenly started aching at the end of an uneventful 14km jog, and the pain grew quickly afterwards to the point where I couldn’t put weight on the foot for the remainder of the day. I was optimistic that it was just some random nerve issue that would completely disappear the next day, but running was unthinkable the next morning. I eventually learned that I had a metatarsal stress fracture, and was told that the path to recovery was 4-8 weeks in a medical boot before walking freely again...

Read part 2 here.