Preparing for a trail race is much more than a sporting challenge! Are you wondering how to balance a busy daily life and training? How to adapt your program to your level, your goals, your environment, or even your menstrual cycle? In this guide, I offer you my best tips to fully experience your trail adventure!
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Setting realistic and motivating goals
It is essential to set clear goals, whether they are short-term, medium-term, or long-term, to motivate yourself and structure your training. For example, you could decide to participate in a 20 km race, improve your endurance on your usual routes, or beat your personal best on a certain distance. Each goal, even modest, allows you to see your progress.
By setting achievable milestones, you can measure your improvements over time and celebrate each success. This reminds you that your efforts are paying off and encourages you to continue.
Finding time to train for the trail
In a busy life, it is not always easy to find time to train, especially when your schedule is already packed between work, an active social life, and, for some, family life. However, there are several solutions to adapt your sessions to your reality. For example, it is not necessary to train five times a week from the start. A few well-planned sessions (3 or 4) can be enough to maintain a regular routine and allow you to progress at your own pace.
Another option is to take advantage of the lunch break. Running between noon and two can be a practical solution, as is the case for me: this organization allows me to come back in the evening and enjoy a moment of relaxation, have time to cook or take care of myself. Getting up earlier for a morning session is also an alternative to consider. It’s not always easy at first, but by adopting this habit, you can go to bed earlier in the evening and organize your day more effectively.
If you are a mom, try to organize yourself to free up some time for yourself. This may involve planning your sessions according to family availability. Also, weekends are an excellent opportunity to extend your sessions. While weekday workouts usually last about an hour, you can enjoy a Sunday morning for a longer outing, such as a hike and run training, which can even turn into a family activity where everyone progresses at their own pace.
Even a 40 to 50-minute session is beneficial and represents time saved. These short slots can easily fit into your day, whether you are going to get your bread, coming back from school after dropping off the kids, or even going to work running.
Moreover, it is entirely possible to add endurance sessions or strength training at home. These sessions, easy and quick to set up, allow you to vary your training without having to travel. Our PPG module available on the app, for example, allows you to strengthen your body to prevent injuries, directly from your home, for shorter or longer durations depending on your availability.
Personalized training plan adapted to your schedule
Training for the trail is about building a tailor-made plan adapted to your level and goals, while taking into account your schedule and personal constraints.
With RunMotion Coach, you choose when to do your sessions: during the week, focus on short and effective sessions, and on weekends, go for a longer outing. You can even adapt your workouts to the accessible terrains around your location. This evolving plan allows you to progress at your own pace, stay motivated, and avoid burnout.
Varying your training according to your environment
The choice of terrain is a key element to diversify and optimize your trail training. Depending on the environment in which you evolve, you can leverage different surfaces and gradients to specifically work on your endurance, speed, balance, and resistance. For example, urban routes allow you to enjoy green spaces, cycle paths, and surface variations, while natural mountain terrains offer rugged trails and elevation changes, ideal for strengthening your stability and getting used to the unexpected on the trails.
On RunMotion, you can specify the terrains you have access to. Whether you have long hills, short slopes, access to the mountains, or only an urban environment, the training plan adapts to your situation. The app offers you designed sessions to make the most of your training conditions!
Adapting your training to your menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle influences your energy level and recovery capacity. By considering your different phases, you can adjust the intensity of your training to preserve your progress and motivation. Some moments are conducive to more intense efforts, while others require gentler sessions, or even refraining from running if you are in too much pain, not feeling like it, or feeling weak. By making these adjustments, you stay attuned to your body and avoid overtraining. If you’re interested, check out our comprehensive article right here!
Muscle strengthening to prevent injuries
Trail running involves many muscles and increases the risk of injury, hence the importance of integrating strength training sessions. By working on your core, stability, and leg strength with exercises like squats and lunges, you effectively prepare yourself to face technical sections and surprises on the trails. The advantage is that you can do these sessions at home, making them less cumbersome to integrate into your daily life.
Women more enduring than men in ultra-trail running
While men seem to outperform on some distances, ultra-endurance offers women a unique opportunity to demonstrate their perseverance and effort management. In ultra-trail running, nothing is impossible: this is where our full potential is revealed.
On classic distances (marathon or below), men run on average 10 to 12% faster than women. In ultra-trail running (100 km and more), this gap narrows, and in some races, the top women finish ahead of men.
This can be explained by several reasons:
– Women tend to better manage their pace over time, avoiding too fast starts and optimizing their energy consumption. At the UTMB® Mont-Blanc, this is very noticeable when analyzing the top 200 in the overall standings. It regularly happens that women finish in the same time as men who had a 1-hour lead at the halfway point.
From a physiological point of view, women have a higher proportion of slow-twitch muscle fibers (type I) than men. They have less explosiveness in general, but more endurance. Moreover, they have a better capacity to use fats as an energy source, delaying the depletion of glycogen reserves.
Finally, find your balance and progress at your own pace
Training for the trail as a woman is not so different from when you are a man, but taking into account certain specificities can be very useful. It’s about finding the right balance between a tailor-made training plan, realistic goals, and sessions that take into account your environment and constraints. By regularly combining complete sessions – including endurance, strength, and recovery – you prepare yourself to meet the challenges of the trail while preserving your health and motivation. You never regret a trail run. So put on your sneakers, organize your training sessions, and hit the trails: every stride brings you closer to your goals.