We are getting there. The progression is slow, but very constant and promising. There is no new thing in training, but year after year I surprise myself. How fast track-running, road tempo running and trail running build upon each other. The better you perform on the track, the more confidence you get on trails in general and uphills and the more you improve on your technical downhills, the better you get on the road and in the short track events too. I am still and will be majorly a trail runner, but an overall high non-specific fitness is very important to me. It makes me very multifaceted in case of distance, in racing and in training.
Sometimes I lift speed up drastically and running only 40 to 50 km a week, but the impact is so high and the fatigue levels are so deep, that when recovered, I can easily switch to lower intensities and run an aerobic 180km week. I mean it is not one or the other, as I have always at least 20h of cycling each week, plus hours and hours of strength and mobility routines, swimming and water exercises too. That counts a lot when we talked about running volume as running alone cannot build ever, long term + long lasting training and running volume.
A couple of great great training sessions happened in the last 2 months. I ran many sub 3:05 1000m tests and all of them after 5-6 hours of cycling. I also ran a couple of fast workouts of 100s and 200s. I went out for a technical long run of 35km for 5h30 and also completed the same distance and same 1500m of elevation gain on less technical terrain in 3h30. I ran the Sentier Martel in the Verdon in 1:44 then followed it up with a backward hike in 6h30. Also had some great 15 to 20km tempo runs on roads and rolling terrain, a 2:17 800 after 8h of cycling, some sub 30 sec 200 repeats including a 28.6, again after 3h of cycling. We finished a great 6 x 1000 with a friend starting at 3:25 and decreasing each arriving to 3:13, while cutting off 5sec each time from the recovery from 2:55 to 2:35.
Despite that I am running completely free of obstructions, with no HR, no GPS, no Strava, just a Timex, I can clearly recall every stepping stone leading to this Ubaye trail happening in a couple of days. Actually next weekend. I am hoping to perform well to my expectations and do the best possible to arrive in a good position !
Boundless Runner 
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