[cac]

Hi , I am currently on a MAF training routine ( low intensity and low HR ) .
Have been doing it just over 1 month and all seems to be going pretty good.
I am running just over 6 min/k and do about 30k Mon - Fri and currently try to do 10k on both Saturday and Sunday commitments permitting. ( so about 50K on a good week )
It is not the most exciting training ever so as a bit of an incentive have decided to do plan to do a 50K Ultra in about 7 or 8 months time.
This run will be totally distance orientated so no fast speed involved.Early stage planned time would be about 7 hours.

Question is
plan A. Keep runs as they are till ive done 3 months at MAF. Then increase one of my weekend "long runs " from 10K increasing by 10% per week culminating to a 50K early August.

Plan B. As ive already done 1 steady month at MAF, start increasing one of my weekend "long runs " from 10k increasing by 5% per week culminating to a 50K late September.

Which of these plans seem best option ? If Any!
Any comments welcome CAC.

 

[Stupid Beard]

50K is only 30 miles. It's close enough to marathon distance that you can use marathon plans if you are looking for ideas. You'd maybe want to extend the long runs a little bit and spread the plan over more training time, but the same concepts apply.

Increasing by 10% a week is generally a good number; it's not too much and not too little. However, you do need recovery weeks every now and then. Typically that's roughly every 4th week, but may need moving around to fit things like races.

Don't overlook base training. The aerobic base you build from those extra months before you start training for the 50K will help a lot.

Personally, I plan my long run mileage to increase by 10% a week and then cut back by 30% on the recovery week. The week after the recovery week is a 10% increase from the week before the recovery week. This has been working well for me so far training for 50 miles.

 

[cac]

Cheers Beard, one problem with a generic or other Marathon plan is that I will be running MAF all through the build up and probably during the 50K run also. Basically all my running is at the same intensity HR around 130-135BPM. But as long as there are no glaring holes in either plan thats fine by me. CAC

 

[stuMBmarathon]

In my experience treating it as a marathon will result in one thing, the hardest 5 miles of your running life. If I was ever to race a 50K again I would make sure I had run several 26 milers and some back to back weekends.

 

[cac]

Ta Stu, If I choose the 5% rise per week then the last jump to 50K will only be a 2.5K increase on previous week. Seems manageable at this stage. CAC.

 

[Mickeh]

I guess one approach would be to look at a traditional plan but work out either the effort or the distance of the planned sessions, and try and incorporate that into a low heart rate program. Not sure if that makes sense - but what I mean is if you're looking at a plan that suggests a 20 minute tempo run, you think "well in 20 mins at effort I'd probably run about 5k" then to get out for 5k at your desired pace away from the time?

My 50k experiences (which makes me sound a lot more experienced that the reality, I've only done 50k twice, one race and once - yesterday actually - in training) are sort of mid way between Beard's and Stu's where marathon training did work for me, but I did run 8 marathons or further in 2017, some as less pace focussed training runs so I did get a few 26 mile training runs in anyway.

 

[cac]

Cheers Mick, makes sense.

 

[Sam J]

Can I suggest looking at the plans from Relentless Forward Progress, he has 50k plans based on either a max of 50 or 70 miles per week. The plans are based solely on distance, not pace (except for one run per week, not every week, where he has a suggestion of some speed work.)

I have used his programs for 50 and 100 mile events successfully. The key for me is the back-to-back weekend runs, at a nice easy pace.

 

[cac]

Cheers Sam have printed those off. A bit further than I am currently running per week but I can tweak them a bit. Thanks.

 

[Sam J]

I would think that the 50mpw plan would be fine, I did the "100 mile race on 70 miles per week" plan and found it plenty