2024 Training Part 2 (April-July)

Read part 1 (training from November-April) here.

Adapting my training to the stress fracture

When I got the news of the injury, I was obviously really bummed out. The most frustrating part was that it was very difficult to identify exactly what caused the injury in the first place, and thus figure out what I could do in the future to avoid something similar. I had a couple hypotheses, such as insufficient vitamin D (which helps to absorb calcium), too much running on pavement, too small racing shoes, etc. but I concluded that it wasn't due to a clear obvious problem with how I trained through the winter. Looking back on my training, the progression made sense and my body hadn't been showing any signs of overtraining, so apart from making minor adjustments in the future (supplement with vitamin D, vary run surfaces...), I decided to not perceive the injury as a sign that I had been training wrong.

Half-marathon race in 1:06:49 in April

I think it's important to be self-critical with training and be open for changes; but at the same time I also believe it is normal to have ups-and-downs, and downs shouldn't automatically be seen as indicators that the training method is wrong.

The next step was to simply move on and adjust my training accordingly. In my case, the only way to heal was to completely rest my foot until my bone would get strong again. This obviously meant no running, and I even had to walk around in a medical boot. Thankfully, I found one endurance activity I could do: biking indoors. I tried outdoors, but every slight uphill would put pressure on my foot. On one hand, I was very grateful that I could at least continue exercising through the injury, but on the other hand, I apprehended the mental tole of training solely indoors for multiple weeks. 

That apprehension was quite justifiable because the next five weeks of training were most likely the toughest I've ever done. Physically, the training itself was hard-ish, but mentally, Zwift got old real quick so it was a big struggle to get through this period. I'm still very glad I got through it though as it allowed me to bounce back quickly post-injury and run some races that meant a lot to me.

Indoor bike training

During the five-week period of only biking, I followed the same UTW structure as detailed in my previous blog post, with threshold sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a shorter more intense session on Saturdays, and easy spinning in between. However, one advantage of biking vs running is that biking is a none impact activity which creates very little muscle soreness, and it thus makes it much easier to recover from sessions. Due to this, I decided to add a few extra shorter threshold sessions during the week. 

Example of training week:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
AM	1h10m spin	5 x 2m + 3 x 8m threshold     Total 1h5m	50m spin	4 x 12m zone 3      Total 1h15m	1h30 spin	Ingebrigsten special 20 x 40s zone 5    Total 1h5m	2h15m zone 2 spin
PM	50m spin	20 x 1m15s threshold    Total 1h	1h20m spin	6 x 4m threshold    Total 55m	45m spin	6 x 4m threshold      Total 55m	Off

I should note here that bike sessions aren't necessarily easier than run sessions, but they are simply easier to recover from. Another note is that our lactate thresholds on the bike are not the same as on the run. Since less muscles are involved on the bike, our lactate thresholds are typically at lower heart rates compared to on the run. Like most things, the exact difference varies from one person to another due to multiple factors, but the basic rule of thumb is that the LTs are 5-10bpm lower on the bike. In my case for example, I tried to stay under 165bpm on my threshold sessions on the bike (my LT2 running is 172bpm).

Post-injury

Fast forward five weeks after only biking, and I finally got the confirmation via a X-Ray that my stress fracture was healed. Of course, this didn't mean that I could go straight back to running 100 mile weeks, but at least I could start rebuilding my running. I opted for a relatively aggressive approach though since I still had hopes to run my upcoming races (Mt Washington Road Race was in four weeks at that point, and Broken Arrow VK & 23k the week after. A few weeks after these US races, the plan was to head to Europe for 6 races in 6 weeks).

Essentially, every week I increased the amount of running volume and intensity, while always supplementing more volume on the bike. Here is a breakdown of the progression starting from the first week of running:

	Time running	Time biking	Running sessions	Bike sessions
May 13-19	25m	15h 33m	0	6
May 20-26	5h 15m	6h 57m	1	3
May 27 – June 2	8h 46m	6h	3	2
June 3-9	11h 28m	2h 38m	3	0
June 10-16  *Mt Washington Road Race*	9h 11m	2h 7m	3	0
June 17-23 *Broken Arrow VK and 23k*	9h 24m	0m	3	0

My running sessions during this period were almost all only uphill on soft surfaces to reduce the impact on my foot.

The return back to running was as expected very challenging since my sensations while running were absolutely terrible for the first 2-3 weeks back. Aerobically I was doing fine on my runs, but my legs suffered a lot from five weeks without any weight bearing activity. I was constantly sore during this period and I was re-habing a dozen new niggles that were appearing every day. Nevertheless, I was confident that if I could get through this period without injuring myself again, I would get back to good running fitness quickly, and run the races I had planned.

VO2max sessions?

When I was planning my season at the beginning of the year, I envisioned modifying my training a bit in June to include more VO2max sharpening sessions. The idea was to add sessions that were more specific to my races in June/July. Many of my races during this period were vertical races that last between 30-50 minutes, so practicing higher efforts than threshold would be important (threshold effort is theoretically equivalent to an all-out 1-hour continuous effort). Plus, my classic Ingebrigsten Special 20 x 40sec workout is great to get physiological benefits, but it isn't really specific to racing as it doesn't allow me to practice running at a hard effort for a relatively long period like in races. Here are a few examples of VO2max sessions:

• 4 x 4min uphill (r: 2min jog/walk down)
• 2 x 8 x (40sec hard - 20sec immobile) uphill
• 5 x 1km flat @5km pace (r: 2min jog/walk)
• 10-20min uphill time-trial (all-out)

With all that said about VO2max training, I actually didn't do many in June as I had planned. Since I was coming back from injury, I decided it would be better to postpone VO2max workouts to after my US races to instead focus on 'base' training with the focus on threshold training once again. The plan was to include more VO2max work once I had a solid new base of run threshold. 

One of the disadvantages however of doing mainly threshold training is that it makes it hard to gage fitness levels before races. Since most of the intensity sessions are done at a controlled threshold effort, I usually never get to truly test myself in training to see how fit I am. 

“We think of training as if we are farmers, and what we are harvesting are carrots. Many athletes want to pull the carrot out of the ground early to see what they have made, but in reality, once you test it, you can never put it back in," 

-Jakob Ingebrigsten

Usually, I try to do like Jingy and just trust the process by doing a lot of controlled (still hard though) sessions consistently over weeks/months. But in this specific case post-injury, I decided to do one big hard session 9 days before my first race at Mt Washington, to help set my expectations before the races and hopefully build my confidence as well. 

The session consisted of 4 x my favourite road climb in Quebec, which is 2.5 km averaging 12%, the same grade as Mt Washington Road Race. I started at a hard effort with my heart rate in zone 4, and gradually increased the pace to enter zone 5 heart rate. The reps went 12:03, 11:56, 11:54, 11:54. To avoid taking a long recovery down between every rep, my dad would wait for me at the top and drive me down to the start every time, so I had approximately 3-4min rest between reps which was ideal!

The workout was, like planned, very difficult but I was pleased with how it went and more importantly it allowed me to show up to my upcoming races with confidence that I could still run well. 

Over the next two weeks, I traveled to New Hampshire and then California for my races; I tried my best to keep a decent training load to continue building fitness for the long season ahead, but simultaneously taper down a bit to perform well at these US races.

I was sort of happy with how the races went. To be honest, I am never fully satisfied of any race result as I have big expectations on myself and I think it is useful to have this mentality to improve in high-level sport, but considering how injured I was only a few weeks prior, I realize now in hindsight that I had good races all things considered.

I ended up 2nd at Mt Washington, 6th at Broken Arrow VK, and 8th at Broken Arrow 23k

Altitude training

The Broken Arrow VK and 23k races took place near Lake Tahoe and the courses took us from altitudes that varied between 1900 and 2700 meters. With such competitive fields, I knew that if I wanted to rank well, I would have to at least be minimally acclimated to the altitude (Quebec is at sea level). Training camps at altitude are very expensive, so I excluded that option quickly. However, I am extremely fortunate to have a friend who has an altitude tent who agreed to lend it to me for the weeks before heading to California. 

I slept in the tent by progressively decreasing the effective oxygen % (increasing the simulated altitude) to eventually sleep at around 2200m. I tried higher, but I wouldn't sleep well. It's a delicate balance to find an altitude that allows you to get altitude benefits but also doesn't hinder recovery too much, and for me around 2200m was my sweet spot. I also tried my best to spend a bit of time during the daytime in the tent, but mostly managed max 1-2 hours per day.

I used a similar model to this

It's hard to figure exactly how much this helped on race day. Of course I felt the altitude at Broken Arrow and I was running slower than at sea level, but everyone is slower -even people who live at altitude, so it's hard to quantify the tent's effect exactly. I concluded that it must have helped at least a bit, and I followed a similar protocol for another altitude race in September.

Euro Tour

Following my short American racing stint, I had one more week of training in Quebec before flying East to Europe for a big competition block: 6 WMRA world cup races in 6 weeks. The plan was to gradually decrease my training load in Europe to feel fresh for the races. I also planned to add a bit more non-threshold workouts (vo2max or anaerobic) to sharpen up before racing. I was looking forward to this because I had been doing high volume/high threshold training since December and was eager to change things up a bit.

Start line of Grossglockner Mountainrun

My first stop in Europe was in Austria for the Grossglocker Mountain Run, a world cup race. I didn't have a great race there, feeling flat on the steep sections which are usually my strengths, and finished in 14th. I blamed my poor performance on the travel and simply a bad day. I had two racing trips in Europe in 2023, and my first races at both of these trips were those that went the worst, and I had some of my best races in the weeks after. Therefore, I wasn't too worried about my result at Grossglocker. 

However, a few days later as I was travelling to Portugal for the next race, I started feeling pretty bad. Long story short, my situation deteriorated and I tested positive with Covid. I then had a pretty tough decision to make: stay in Europe or go back to Quebec. 

I eventually decided to head back home, for multiple reasons. First of all, with the high level of competition at world cup races, I knew I had to be in full form to have a chance to perform well, and that would be impossible while sick from Covid. And even if I recovered quickly, that recovery period would've forced me to take a few days/weeks with minimal training, which would've caused me to lose too much fitness to be in great shape. Mix this with the costs of living and travelling in Europe (and the low chances of winning any significant prize money in that condition), and it made it an obvious choice. 

It turns out that was 100% the right call because I later found out that I also caught a bacteria while in Europe (most likely from drinking bad water) that caused me to have terrible stomach cramps for two weeks, which would've made it impossible to race or train at a high level. So, I had no other choice than to hit the reset button and completely change my racing plans for the remainder of the year. 

Once again this post is much much longer than expected, so I'll stop here and write a part 3 soon!