Elbrus Race Treadmill Training Guidelines

Calculate your training paces for an incline treadmill based on VAM

VAM is the Vertical Ascent in Meters per hour. For the Qualifier, Classic and Extreme Races, a 1000 VAM will get you a winning finish, based on current course records. A VAM of 600 will get you a Top Ten finish in these events. 

25 minutes at 36% training for Elbrus Race. Later that day I did run/walk intervals at 12%

I put together a spreadsheet showing the VAM for a variety of speeds and inclines on a treadmill. The left-most column is the % of Elevation Incline, which for most treadmills adjusts up to 15%. Remember that this is the percentage of a mile that you would be going upward at that angle. Example: 10% incline would get you 528' higher at the end of a mile. 40% incline would get you 2112' higher at the end of a mile. That's almost a half mile per mile. Treadmills by Freemotion/Nordictrack and a few others will go that steep.

The row at the top is the VAM, from 200 to 1000. For Elbrus Race training that's generally close enough. Notice that at 3% you have to be going really fast to get a VAM over 400. When you get to 6% it's a bit more real, though most people who run on treadmills would be pretty hard pressed to be doing 6:00 miles (10 MPH) to get in their 1000 VAM.

There's also great value in running outside in the snow in spikes at 9% average grade at altitude

For those without access to a steep incline treadmill, going 4 MPH at 15% is the best way to get in your 1000 VAM. It's not sports-specific to the Elbrus Race, but it's a great workout. If you want to be training in a more specific manner, you'll have to get onto an incline treadmill at 30% or greater and do your steady state cardio at 2 MPH and keep that up with a low heart rate for a couple hours at a time.

% Incline/VAM	200	400	600	800	1000
3	4.14	8.28	12.43	16.57	20.71
6	2.07	4.14	6.21	8.28	10.36
9	1.38	2.76	4.14	5.52	6.90
12	1.04	2.07	3.11	4.14	5.18
15	0.83	1.66	2.49	3.31	4.14
18	0.69	1.38	2.07	2.76	3.45
21	0.59	1.18	1.78	2.37	2.96
24	0.52	1.04	1.55	2.07	2.59
27	0.46	0.92	1.38	1.84	2.30
30	0.41	0.83	1.24	1.66	2.07
33	0.38	0.75	1.13	1.51	1.88
36	0.35	0.69	1.04	1.38	1.73
39	0.32	0.64	0.96	1.27	1.59
40	0.31	0.62	0.93	1.24	1.55
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