Fit For The 3000s?

Fine-tuning For The 3,000s

• Okay, there's one month to go before the Welsh 3000s, or maybe that trip to the Alps, or perhaps the long-awaited trekking holiday - the good news is that these tips apply to all those and more. Anyway, back to specifics: the 3000s walk is around 24 miles. On the flat you could simply bimble round at a low intensity, stay hydrated and rely on your slow, efficient, fat-burning mode to get your round. You'd be working aerobically burning fat, oxygen and a small percentage of liver and muscle glycogen for fuel.

• Unfortunately there are three major mountain ascents plus a good few undulations on the route. You could try ambling up these at your low intensity pace, keeping your pulse low and never approaching your lactate threshold, breathing heavily or going anaerobic. You could, but you'd be incredibly slow. The reality is that in order to finish, you're going to have to accept that you'll be pushing yourself a little harder, that means occasionally going anaerobic on ascents - that means you'll burn less fat and oxygen and more liver and muscle glycogen.

• This creates two problems: one is that you'll deplete your glycogen reserves more rapidly - a bad thing as they can take several days to replenish, the other is that in anaerobic mode, you generate lactic acid in the muscles. This is a bad thing, because unless you train to withstand it, a by-product of lactic acid is a hydrogen ion, which will sit on the muscle and inhibit your ability to use oxygen. In simple terms, unless you're trained to withstand it, a few anaerobic bursts will mean your legs will hurt towards the end, regardles of how slow you're going.

The Aims

Assuming you have reasonable base fitness, the two aims of the fine-tuning training are to:

1. Increase your aerobic threshold, so you can work harder before you start producing lactate acid.

2. Increase your body's ability to cope with entering the anaerobic zone and its tolerance to the horrid hydrogen ion which stops your muscles absorbing oxygen as efficiently.

If you manage to do this your crucial muscle and liver glycogen reserves - the stuff you need for sudden bursts of energy - will last longer, so that final sprint to the summit cairn will be feasible. The other benefit will be that your body learns to tolerate lactate more effectively, so even if you do go anaerobic during the walk, your legs should be less trashed and feel fresher towards the end of the walk.

Base Fitness

Okay, listen in, this assumes that you have a reasonable level of base fitness already. If you've been doing long hillwalks and/or long, steady runs or mountain bike rides you should be okay. If you know you haven't got reasonable fitness now, it's better to concentrate on long, steady hill walks, fell runs or cycle rides. Aim for a pace where you can chat easily. If you're not sure, then try our programme, but remember you shouldn't feel trashed the day after a session. If you do, it's probably because you don't have quite enough base fitness yet or are training too hard and you should back off till you feel okay again. Oh, one more thing, you shouldn't feel sick, dizzy, lightheaded or exhausted during these workouts.

The Programme - One Week

1) Your weekend walk should be long and steady. This will maintain your base fitness.

2) Either in the Gym or out on the trail, 2-3 sessions of 15-20 minutes with eight minutes rest (but keep walking!) between each session at an intensity that gets you out of breath. On the rating of perceived excertion (RPE*) - see below - original scale 15-17. Do not do this on the same day of your long walk. This workout will help increase your aerobic training zone and mean you can move faster without going anaerobic.

3) Either in the Gym or out on the trail up a very steep hill, 2-4 sessions of five lots of 30-40 second 'bursts', 30-40 seconds rest between each burst and five minutes rest (again keep walking!) between each session. These 30-40 second 'bursts' should be done at RPE original scale 17-19. For example 30 seconds hard followed by 30 seconds rest, repeat five times, take five minutes rest, followed by 30 seconds hard followed by 30 seconds rest, repeat another five times. This workout will increase your body's ability to cope with entering the anaerobic zone and its tolerance to the hydrogen ion. This workout will help your body get used to lactic acid and to expel it more efficiently

Important You must leave a day between the longer, aerobic sessions and the sprint sessions so your body can recover effectively. Always warm up for around 20 minutes before hammering yourself and warm down and stretch afterwards.

4) Gentle recovery for 30-40 minutes (120bpm) just to help flush remaining toxins from your muscles. RPE 7-9.

To maintain progress, you need to increase the exercise by 10 per-cent every week. So if you start with 15 minute aerobic sessions this week, next week they should be 16.30 and the week after that around 18 minutes and so on, don't be tempted to cut the rest period between sets.

Rating of Perceived Excertion (RPE)

This rating is subjective, but will help you judge how hard you should be working :

Alternatives

Add these two sessions a week to longer, steady weekend outings to maintain your base fitness and you should be revving like a Ferrari come D-Day. If you're terrified of all that structure, then a good, less formal substitute would be a short, hardish mountain biking session on hilly terrain with a mix of long, hardish climbs, short brutal ones and easier downhills and flat sections, or you could do the same with a run, just varying the pace. The programme above though is calculated carefully to help you improve in a systematic way and is worth doing. Of course, mountain walking will also build the right sort of fitness.

Yes, we know it seems odd Yep, you'd think that the best training for a long slog would be a long slog, but once you have the base fitness, sorting out the harder bits will actually be more effective than just being able to roll along at a very gentle steady pace. Give it a go, you might be surprised.

Enjoy

The Butcher's Dog, woof!!!

Big thanks to Simon for the more technical aspects of the programme, all of it in fact...