My Books from Elbrus Race

My list of books that evolved from my own experiences training and eating for Elbrus Race 2010, 2013, and is it true I might do 2015? Stay tuned for more exciting details...

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Author Page on Amazon for Charles Miske

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Riding the Treadmill with a 12 lb. vest

October Indoor Training - Charles

I was in Utah doing some work at the office and house there this past week. While there I decided to take the opportunity to train inside, since I had easy access to equipment that I don't have access to in Colorado at the moment.

Here's my training log whiteboard from Monday through Wednesday, October 14-16.

Monday: 
Inversion: 2:00
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 6:50 - 1000'
SuperSet: 3 x {
SkiErg: L5 - 1:30 - 209m, 201m, 203m
IceTool Chinup: 2 x 3 (full hang)
Machine Lat Pulldown: 25 @ L6
Incline Chest Press: 25 @ 45 lb (only 2 sets)
Back Hyperextension->Superman Plank: 15, 10 seconds
}
Incline Treadmill: [1096']
4.157 mi - 50:00 - 5% - (4.988 ave.) - [12:02 pace] - 1097.448' - (1317/21.95 vert per hour/minute)

Tuesday:
Inversion: 2:15
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 6:26 - 1000'
SuperSet: 3 x {
Glute Ham Raise: 2 x 5
Roman Chair Ab Situp: 15
}
IceTool Bodyweight Squat: 10/15/20 [left/right]
High Box Squat: 25 @ 155/175 lb
Parallel Box Squat: 5 @ 65/65/115 lb
Stairmaster:
Time: 24:00
Steps/Minute: 80
Feet: 1280.00
Miles: 0.27
VAM: 975.4

Wednesday AM:
Inversion: 2:00
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 9:57 - 1500'
SuperSet: 3 x {
Glute Ham Raise: 6
Roman Chair Twist: 10
Roman Chair Situp: 15
}
Ski Erg: L5 - 3:21 - 500m
Experimenting with various upper body exercises
Jacob's Ladder: 11:00 - 696'

PM:
ITM: [1055']
5.00 mi - 49:57 - 4% - (6.006 ave.) - [9:59 pace] - 1056' - (1268/21.14 vert per hour/minute)

Training Log Whiteboard for Thursday and Friday, October 17-18

Thursday:
Inversion: 2:00
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 10:14 - 1500'
SuperSet: 2 x {
Glute Ham Raise: 7
Roman Chair Twist: 10
Roman Chair Situp: 10
}
Band Goodmorning: 25 ea side with purple band
IceTool Bodyweight Squat:
1-leg from parallel box - 2 x 3 ea leg
with 1 leg on 6" box - 15 ea leg
Parallel Box Squat: 5 @ 115 lb, 5 x 5 @ 65 lb
Stairmaster: Time: 4:00
Steps/Minute: 125
Feet: 333.33
Miles: 0.07
VAM: 1524.0
Incline Treadmill: [204']
.261 mi - 4:01 - 15% - (3.899 ave.) - [15:23 pace] - 206.712' - (3088/51.46 vert per hour/minute)

Friday: 
Inversion: 2:00
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 13:10 - 2000'
Hyper/Superman Plank/GHR/Twist/Situp: 10 ea.
Parallel Box Squat: 6 @ 65 lb
IceTool Chinups: 5
Mahine Lat Pulldowns: 25 @ L6
Leg Extension: 10 ea @ 52.5 lb
Dumbbell Lateral Shoulder: 25 @ 10 lb ea
Romanian Deadift [Narrow]: 10 @ 135 lb

Thursday and Friday I was pretty wasted and unrecovered from all the squats and chinups I worked on. I decided to mix it up a bit and rather than do a little warmup, then weights and finish with an hour of cardio, which wasn't working very well at the time I would do my cardio first, then see if I had the energy for the weights.

Training Log Whiteboard for Saturday October 19

Saturday:
Incline Treadmill: [836']
5.285 mi - 60:00 - 3% - (5.285 ave.) - [11:21 pace] - 837.144' - (837/13.95 vert per hour/minute)
FreeStrider Elliptical: L8 - 32:22 - 5500'
SuperSet: 2 x {
Glute Ham Raise: 10
Twist: 10
Situp: 10
}
SuperSet: 5 x {
Parallel Box Squat: 5 @ 65 lb
IceTool Negative Chins: 3 [pull from standing, then 5 seconds descend to full hang]
}
Sumo Romanian Deadlifts: 5 x 5 @ 135 lb

That seemed to work out okay for me. I then drove back to Colorado where I'll be doing a lot of outdoor training at temps below 20 degrees F in the morning, on snow and ice covered dirt roads and trails. Note the frost on my chin, collar, and earbuds.

Elbrus Race Records

Elbrus Race posted a new article [HERE] about the conclusion of the 2013 event, with the records as they stand. Remember that these aren't sanctioned by a Skyrunning Federation or whatever, though they might be a bit faster than the ones they've established as records.

Todd Gilles and 3rd Place Trophy

RE: Classic Race: Among the athletes, who run Classic route (the route from Barrels refuge till 5000 m) the winner was Valentin Vergiljush (who was the Winner in International Elbrus Race in 2009). The second was Russian Alexander Popov, the third was American Todd Gilles. 

And if you recall, the Polish team talked to me about how my blogs helped them with training and logistics..

RE: Extreme Race: The great result showed also Polish athletes Daniel Choinacki (he became the third in the race) and Blazej Lyjak. 

Polish Racer with 3rd Place Trophy

An interesting statistic from the Extreme Race results of Kilian Jornet and Russian Vitaly Shkel:

showed the great surprise: in the extremely hard fight the both athletes reached the finish line at 5000 m simultaneously, with the result 2 hrs 37 min 06 sec.  The average speed of their climb was 16 vertical meters gain per 1 minute! (16 meter is more or less altitude of standard 5-stores house – so try to walk by ladder to 5 store within 1 minute  and repeat it 173 times!!!)

For our purposes we'll convert that to 960 VAM.

That's a great training goal. Sustain 1000 VAM for 3-4 hours.

Now for the Records, another worthy goal:

There’re actual Elbrus records, set in International Elbrus Rаces:

[Extreme] Andrzej Bargiel (Poland)  from Azau to West Elbrus top showed the result 3 hrs 23 min 37 sec (2010)

[Female Classic] Svetlana Sharipova (Kazakhstan) has established the women's record at the route from the Barrels, which lasts till now: 3 hrs 21 min 29 sec. This is so far the absolute female record in speed climb of the highest point of Europe from the Barrels. (2006)

[Male Classic] Anton Proshenko (Russia)  on Barrels-West top route showing time 2 hrs 28 Min 02 sec! (this is so far the absolute speed record ascent on Mount Elbrus from Barrels). (2012)

Trail Running in the Snow

This week on Wednesday I did 2 miles, on Thursday I did 4 miles, and the plan was to do at least 6 today, Friday, 11 October. Tonight is our G+ Hangouts-on-Air for #ELBRUSRACECHAT, that we posted pretty heavily on our FACEBOOK PAGE. We have a slew of good questions to answer, and hope to have the YouTube recording and transcripts up pretty quickly after it's done.

Yesterday for Summit County Colorado there was a "Winter Storm Warning" with as much as 20" of snow predicted. At least at the lower elevations, below 11,000' there wasn't all that much snow. Maybe 4". I decided to go out for my run this morning after Angie left for her skating lesson with Todd. I felt like Mr. Pearl Izumi, with a PI windpro hoodie, windpro tights, and Trail N2 shoes.

The lower section of Keystone Gulch Road was pretty bare, with snow only in the shadows. Some of this was quite sloppy muddy wet, and I did some sliding around. About 2 miles up it was covered entirely with snow. There were puddles of muddy slush hidden under the snow surface. The maintenance trucks for Keystone Resort left icy tracks of packed snow. Overall it was a ton of fun. At 3 miles I decided I was good for one more uphill mile, so I went up to 4 miles.

Here's a little Instagram Video I made in Vine showing the surface I was running in, and the surrounding snow-covered trees.

One of my goals today was to work hard on keeping a consistent smooth even pace, up and down. These Strava Stats show that especially on the way uphill I was pretty smooth at 15:00 pacing.

On the way down the snow felt great underfoot and I just cut loose, relatively. I did a couple of pretty fast mile splits, then for the 7th mile I took a little walking break to hydrate and catch my breath. Then I picked the pace back up for the final mile.

Running in the snow is great training for Elbrus Race. It's what you'll be running on in Russia. Eight miles is a good training distance, since the Classic Race is a little over 9 miles round trip. Four miles up and down with about 1000' of elevation gain and loss is good. Training at 9,300' and up is great.

I'm pretty stoked about how fast I did this in slippery wet and cold conditions. Of course, now I have to dry out my shoes ...

Trail Running Training at 3,000 Meters in Colorado

One of my favorite things to do is trail running. I especially love to run at high altitude. Summit County Colorado is perfect with several long trails and gravel or jeep roads over 3,000 meters in elevation.

Snow and Ice on the Gravel Road

Hard work at high elevation can help to make the acclimatization process go much faster, without the days of hanging out at 10,000' camp required by those who live and train at sea level. I attribute our success on Orizaba last March to our training on the Colorado Fourteeners the whole winter previous.

I'm enjoying this transitional season as Fall progresses into Winter with falling leaves, colder temps, and the slow buildup of ice and snow on the roads and trails. I'll have to start wearing spikes before too long. I'm looking forward to it.

-- Charles