The Guide to Planning Trail Running Training

Posted on February 22nd, 2022

Words & Photos: Filippo Canetta

After covering more than 50,000 km on trails across half the world, and finishing over 110 ultra trail and ultrarunning races over the last 15 years, I could probably, presumptuously, put together a training plan full of charts for everyone who asks me for one.

But that would go against one of Wild Tee's founding principles: everyone can and must find their own way to reconnect with nature, with their own nature.

So, we want you to enjoy the learning process, and to get to know yourself, even in the toughest situations. Often, the process matters more than the result.

Most people care only about the outcome, losing sight of the journey needed to get there.

But it's exactly along that journey that the most interesting experiences happen.

That said, I do want to share a few basic principles you can use to build your own path toward your goal, on your own terms.

THE TERRAIN

Trail Running means running on trails, out in natural environments.

A trail can exist in an endless variety of environments, often very different from one another. Think of high-mountain races with their steep climbs and harsh weather conditions, races through arid, sandy deserts, races through humid, muddy jungles.

It's clear that the terrain we're running on shapes our finishing times.

On the road, we all know how to calculate times and distances, but what about on trails?

There's an empirical method that can help compare different routes: equivalent kilometers.

Here's an example: 60 km with 4,000 m of elevation gain is roughly equivalent to 100 km.

In other words, 4,000 m D+ is roughly equivalent to 40 km, you take the distance and add the elevation gain (in meters) divided by 100.

This lets us give the same weight to different races and workouts, and start building our own reference points.

Broadly speaking, we can classify routes based on their overall gradient:

- total gradient under 5% (30K, 1,500m D+) → runnable
- total gradient between 6% and 8% (40K, 2,800m D+) → demanding
- total gradient over 9% (70K, 6,300m D+) → very demanding

It's also essential to start thinking in terms of elevation gain and gradient, since not all climbs and descents are the same.

For instance, 1,000 meters of elevation gain over 10 km (average gradient 10%) is mostly runnable.

While 1,000 meters of elevation gain over 3 km (average gradient of 33.3%) is basically vertical, and even walking becomes a struggle.

The steeper the gradient, the more technical the terrain tends to be, due to erosion caused by rainwater runoff.

Study the elevation profile of your target race carefully. A trail race might have a low average gradient overall, but still include one very demanding climb you'd better be prepared for, and we'll see how in a moment.

For example, the Diagonale des Fous in Réunion has roughly the same elevation gain as UTMB, over about 10 km less distance, yet finishing times run about 15% longer, in fact, it includes three climbs with an average gradient between 16% and 21%.

US AND THE HUMAN BODY

The human body is better than a machine (a mechanical device). Machines are designed to withstand stress up to a certain point, then they break. The human body adapts to almost everything, it just needs time to adjust to the effort. The limits humans can reach under extreme conditions (cold, heat, distance, altitude) are extraordinarily high, and at first they seem far removed from our comfort zone. But with time and gradual progress, we can work our way closer to them.

TRAINING PLANNING

Where do you start?

From where you're standing right now, and from where you want to get to.

A fundamental prerequisite is motivation. You have to genuinely want to reach your goal. That's what will push you to move past your current limits, and you'll realize they weren't so unreachable after all. I won't dwell too much on the mental side of running here, that'll be the focus of the post on race management.

But let's lay down a few fixed reference points, between which you'll need to learn about yourself and figure out just how far you can push.

At the end, you'll find a simple spreadsheet where you can run your own simulation with your own numbers.

PROGRESSION

Plan your training starting from the kilometers and elevation gain you covered last week, and set a target of 10% progression for 3 weeks, followed by a week of cross-training, before resuming the weekly 10% increase. This way your body has time to adapt to the growing demand.

At this stage, it's very important to learn to interpret the signals from your body and your brain. Your brain tries to preserve the status quo of your energy reserves, and it'll keep sending you warning signals as your training progresses. You need to learn to talk to that part of your brain and gently explain that everything's under control, that moving under your own power is right and natural. Years of comfort have weakened our natural inclination to do so, and we need to retrain that control system.

At the same time, you also need to learn to recognize the signals your body actually sends you. As we said, it needs time to adapt, but it also needs to be pushed to do so. It's important, though, that if you experience persistent pain, especially tendon-related, you're able to recognize it and slow down or stop. Better to stop right away and let the problem resolve quickly than to push through and end up dealing with it for a long time.

THE LONG RUN

Plan a long training run (or a tune-up race) covering roughly 70% of the distance and elevation gain of your target race, 4 weeks before the race itself.

NOTE: this applies mainly to races under 160-170 kilometers, above that distance, other factors start to dominate, like your ability to handle sleep deprivation (see the post on PTL and Eiger Ultra Trail).

I really love this part, you need to imagine and visualize the race down to every detail: start time, temperature, humidity, weather, aid stations, terrain, climbs, descents, finish time, mandatory and recommended gear, nutrition. The more unusual the race, the more interesting this research becomes. This will help you anticipate most of the difficulties you'll run into. Find a location with terrain and conditions as similar as possible, ideally with at least one climb and one descent comparable to the toughest sections of the race, ones you'll have identified by studying the elevation profile and reading a few race reports.

Try to do it with the exact gear you plan to use on race day, every single item needs to be tested, including under tough conditions. Test your nutrition and hydration too, you need to know how your body will respond to heat, cold, night, day, and after many hours of effort.

THE MENTAL SIDE

The longer the distance and elevation gain, the more the mental component starts to outweigh the physical one. To boost your chances of success, we need to learn to train our minds too.

Plan to cover 100% of your target race's distance and elevation gain over the course of 7 days, roughly 4 weeks before the race.

This lets you take stock of the total effort involved, and plant a firm anchor point in your mind. You'll know your body is capable of handling the task ahead, all that's left after that is doing it all in one go, but knowing you can do it is already a hugely important fixed point to hold onto.

THE WILDCARD VARIABLE

Trail and ultra distances aren't an exact science. No matter how well you prepare, something will always go wrong. We'll never be prepared enough, we have to prepare for the worst.

Knowing that you can handle a specific difficulty cements that experience in your mind, ready to draw on the next time it shows up again.

We need to train ourselves to solve problems, by actively going looking for them.

Come up with at least one #whateverdammit workout a month, to train your mind to step outside your comfort zone too.

By this, we mean anything outside the usual routine. The kind of experiences that push you to face your fears and go a little further than planned.

GOAL

What's the real goal?

Being satisfied with yourself, which, in most cases, means giving your best in that particular situation.

The perfect scenario doesn't exist in real life. It's very hard to train, eat, and rest optimally when you're working and have to take care of relationships and family.

What'll bring you real satisfaction is being able to perform well under any conditions. That's a skill that'll serve you extremely well in long races, where, after many hours, you often need to reset and start over almost from scratch.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH EFFORT, AND CULTIVATE PATIENCE.

QUESTIONS:

I live on flat land, what can I do?

Anything goes, walk to do your grocery shopping, wearing a backpack that has to become an extension of yourself. Take every set of stairs you can, race the elevators. The treadmill counts too, we cover that in a dedicated post on our blog. Always get around by running. Take every opportunity to test your endurance level.