How To Get To The Rut Starting Line Injury Free
The Rut is rapidly approaching! As you begin counting down the days until race day, we put together some reminders to help get you to the starting line injury free.
Train On Similar Terrain
The steep climbs, loose scree, and high altitude presents unique training challenges. John has run one or more Rut races every year since 2013, and is still surprised by the technical terrain on race day.
His advice:
Seek out similar training terrain in the weeks leading up to The Rut. Time on your feet and mileage preparation is one thing, but spending time at altitude on ridge lines, scree, and steep terrain will help you feel more like a mountain goat and less like a fish out of water on race day.
Practice both running and hiking on your long, technical climbs. Work on rapid foot turnover and practice eating and drinking while climbing as it is easier to get calories in when you are moving more slowly.
Get used to running on loose, steep terrain. Increase your stability with a wide base of support, rapid foot movement, and lean forward not backward as if you are skiing downhill rather than braking.
Spice Up Your Calf Raises
Ideally, we strengthen our ankle in four directions-inversion, eversion, dorsiflexion, and plantarflexion. Bands are a great place to start, but to prepare our muscles/tendons to tolerate the high demands of running, we need to increase the resistance and really load the movements. This can look like using cables at the gym, bodyweight and dumbbells, or machines.
Complete ankle exercises 2-3 times a week for optimal adaptations. We usually recommend around 3 sets of 10-15 repetitions, using enough resistance that when you get to the end of a set you’ve got 2-3 repetitions left in the tank. Each repetition should be slow and controlled, rather than fast or bouncy.
For dorsiflexion (the anterior tibialis muscle), you can progress to standing and leaning against a wall or hooking a kettlebell around your toes. For plantarflexion, make sure to complete calf raises in both a bent knee, and straight knee position. This will allow us to target both calf muscles, the soleus and gastric respectively.
We can then bias calf raises to emphasize inversion or eversion as well (depending on injury history or areas that are more likely to feel overworked). You can complete heel raises on a slant board to encourage you to push through your big toe or pinky toe side, or you can complete them while leaning against a wall to create a relative slant for your foot.
Finally, don’t forget to challenge your stabilizers. Our lower leg musculature works to stabilize our ankle when we are completing more dynamic tasks or balancing. In addition to the specific targeted strengthening already mentioned, we can complete single leg balance with a paloff press or weight pass to better prepare our ankle for uneven terrain.
Remember to Hydrate
Proper hydration is vital when preparing for and participating in any athletic event. Ensuring that we have enough fluids helps guarantee our body has what it needs to compete on race day. This becomes even more important when competing at altitude, as the risk of dehydration increases for several reasons:
1) increased breathing rate, 2) increased urine production, and 3) decreased thirst drive.
These factors, combined with the general effects of extended periods of physical activity, increase your risk of dehydration at altitude. Here are some tips to consider to best prepare:
Begin hydrating days prior to the event. While recommendations vary based on the individual, aiming for 15.5 cups of fluid for men and 11.5 cups for women is a good benchmark.
Check your urine; an easy way to determine if you are adequately hydrated is if your urine is colorless or light yellow.
Arrive early, if possible, to better acclimate to the elevation.
Drink water or an electrolyte-infused beverage consistently throughout the race; don’t save it all for when you’re thirsty.
Attempt to avoid consuming diuretics; this means monitoring alcohol and coffee intake prior to the race!
Sources:
“Preventing High Altitude Dehydration.” CamelBak, CamelBak Products, LLC, 2023, www.camelbak.com/blog-preventing-high-altitude-dehydration.html srsltid=AfmBOooiwu3 qnHZclS99oMpUVSIa-cZjAcLSJ5lr3JyPe8Y8q_659wSJ .
“Myths About Altitude." High Altitude Doctor, High Altitude Doctor, www.highaltitudedoctor.org/myths-about-altitude. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.
“High Altitude Hydration.” HydraPak, HydraPak, www.hydrapak.com/blogs/beyond-adventure/high-altitude-hydration. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
Get Your Sleep
Don’t underestimate the importance of sleep. It can be easy to downplay how important it is to get enough sleep, but getting enough sleep is necessary for cognitive function, and both mental and physical health. This includes athletic performance as well as decreasing injury risk. Insufficient sleep has been associated with worsened reaction times, decreased strength, and decreased endurance in athletes (1).
It is recommended that all adults get at least 7 hours of quality sleep per night.2 Getting good sleep the night before an event is important, but don’t forget that it’s also important to sleep well regularly while training. The body needs rest in order to recover, as well as build and maintain healthy tissues.
Some habits that can improve sleep include (1,2):
Going to bed and getting up at the same time every day.
Keeping your bedroom quiet, relaxing, and at a cool temperature.
Turning off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Avoiding caffeine in the afternoon or evening.
Consider avoiding high-intensity exercise right before bed
Sources:
Vitale KC, Owens R, Hopkins SR, Malhotra A. Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations. Int J Sports Med. 2019;40(8):535-543. doi:10.1055/a-0905-3103
https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
Don’t Skip The Taper
Training up to this point has been about gaining fitness, and you want to do that as much as you possibly can before the race, right? Well… not exactly. The last 2-3 weeks before your race is when you want to focus on minimizing the fatigue your body has accumulated during training, also known as the taper.
Taper has recently been defined as “a progressive nonlinear reduction of the training load during a variable period of time, in an attempt to reduce the physiological and psychological stress of daily training and optimize sports performance(1).”
Recent studies show the sweet spot of a taper is a 41-60% reduction in volume, without changing training intensity or frequency (2,3). Typically this is done over two weeks, but performing over 3 weeks has also been shown to be effective (2,3).
Usually the running taper is at the forefront of people’s minds, but tapering strength training needs to occur as well. It follows the same guidelines as running with full removal at a minimum of 7 days out, with earlier removal the longer the race. Remember to keep intensity high, but reduce volume.
Sources:
Mujika, I., and S. Padilla. Detraining loss of training-induced physiological and performance adaptations. Part I. Short-term insufficient training stimulus. Sports Med. 30: 79–87, 2000.
Wang Z, Wang YT, Gao W, Zhong Y. Effects of tapering on performance in endurance athletes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2023 May 10;18(5):e0282838. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282838. PMID: 37163550; PMCID: PMC10171681.
BOSQUET, LAURENT1,2; MONTPETIT, JONATHAN1; ARVISAIS, DENIS1; MUJIKA, IÑIGO3,4. Effects of Tapering on Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 39(8):p 1358-1365, August 2007. | DOI: 10.1249/mss.0b013e31806010e0
Take Care Of Your Feet
Your feet will carry you up and down Headwaters Ridge and Lone Peak. Our feet take a beating running on technical trails and scree. Here are a few proactive tips that will ensure you cross the finish line with happy feet.
Do not wear brand new shoes on race day.
Wear shoes and socks you have tested on long, technical runs. Shoe and sock choices are a personal thing. John prefers a shoe with an aggressive outsole and medium thickness merino wool socks for breathability and blister reduction.
Pre-race foot care. John avoids foot blisters and hot spots by smothering his feet and toes with Vaseline or a similar foot care product before putting his socks on. No blisters = happy feet!