You Can Run To The Top Of Vermont

By Kasie Enman

With the FJG Race to the Top of Vermont coming up on August 29th, there is no better time then the present to accept the challenge and register.  Then, I would recommend taking some steps to prepare yourself for the rigors of racing up the tallest of the Green Mountains. 

If you're not already a devoted mountain goat, you may be wondering why on earth someone would want to run 4.3 miles up 2,550 vertical feet.  Besides wanting to support the Catamount Trail Association, mountain running does have a few unique benefits.  Speaking from personal experience, you'd be hard pressed to find a more fun loving, crazy group of people to spend a morning with.  The atmosphere at a mountain race has a free-wheeling-bring-it-on feel to it along with a recognition of the absurdity of the endeavor at hand that just breeds camaraderie. 

There are also some distinct physical benefits to mountain running that can help make you a better all-around runner.  Uphill running provides a tremendous aerobic workout without the impact that leads to soreness or injury.  You can hammer to your heart's content during the race and wake up feeling great the next day (unless you decide to be über-hardcore and race back down the mountain afterward for fun, in which case you can expect to feel a little more banged up).  Uphill running also has a reputation for being one of the best ways to develop explosive strength of the variety that would come in handy during a short distance race or a sprint to the finish.  Although, this benefit is mostly reaped through shorter hill intervals, repetitions of 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length, when you can train your body to run with more proper technique such as exaggerated knee drive, powerful arm carriage, and getting up on your toes. 

Completing a long climb, however, takes a different approach.  Last year's fastest runner up the Mount Mansfield Toll Road completed the distance in about 35 minutes while others battled the hill for well over an hour.  Picture yourself for a moment, running explosively up a hill.  As mentioned before, you're probably on your toes, driving your knees high, pumping your arms, bounding up the hill.  Now imagine trying to continuously maintain this for 35-90 minutes.  It's just not a reasonable task to ask of your body.  Successfully running for 4.3 miles uphill requires efficiency.  Your technique should be focused on minimizing the bounce factor.  This may feel somewhat like shuffle running, with just enough knee lift to continue up the course's 10-degree slope.  Shorter steps tend to be more efficient than a longer stride.  Pumping your arms and maintaining some semblance of an upright posture are helpful, but trying to stay on your toes is just asking for calf cramps. 

If you've never raced up a mountain before, it would be a smart idea to practice a couple of longer hill climbs in training before the race.  Try adjusting your stride as you go to test what feels most efficient for you.  For most Vermont runners, hills are an unavoidable fact of life so our bodies are well adapted to things like extra range of motion in the achilles tendon and ankles, super strong calf muscles and hip flexors.  If you are someone who normally avoids hills like the plague, then you should gradually build some hills into your daily training runs over the next few weeks, taking care to also build in adequate recovery.  With that established, my experience has been that aerobic capacity becomes the limiting factor, so I just try to get as fit as I can before race day through the same kind of routine that I would follow to prepare for any distance race: a consistent mix of lactate threshold runs, speed and hill intervals, long runs, and recovery days. 

While technique and fitness are essential, mental preparation is perhaps the most important factor for the new mountain racer.  At some point, you've probably heard a beginner runner talk about not being able to complete even a short distance without getting out of breath and having to walk.  If they stick with it, they come to learn about novel ideas like gauging effort and pacing themselves.  The same lesson needs to be learned by the aspiring mountain goat.  If you are used to being able to race 4 or 5 miles with fast leg turnover and speedy mile splits, when the starting gun goes off, your body will attempt to default to what it knows as "race pace".  This is suicidal in a mountain race.  You need to train your brain to think of this race in a different way.  I find it useful to trick myself into believing the race is twice the advertised distance.  When I hit the one-mile marker, I pretend that it's the two-mile mark and so on.  That way, I'm better able to accept my split time with a smile (Woo hoo! 10 minutes for 2 miles isn't so bad!) and remain in touch with reality about how much effort I've put in and how much longer I need to maintain that effort (2 miles down, 6 to go!).  I would recommend visualizing the race in this way ahead of time.  The more often you play these tricks on your mind, the more gullible your mind becomes and the better your race experience will be.  And once you get there, the view from the top is hard to beat.

Kasie Enman from Huntington, VT is the FJG Race To The Top Of Vermont women’s record holder set in 2009 with a time of 40:12.5.  She is currently on the Teva US Mountain Running Team and is employed as a crew leader at Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.

Click here for the FJG Race To The Top Of Vermont race page.