The West Highland Way Ultra – A Training Journey (part 3)

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it🎄! The beauty of structured run training over the festive season is that it can act as one of the few constants at a time when everything else seems a bit chaotic. I don’t go crazy all in on the festive season, though I do opt in on some of the seasonal traditions. I enjoy the panto, the epic Christmas food shopping trip, the travels to spend time with family, and all of that sort of stuff. This year I can add selling a house and moving everything from there to my new place into the mix. It’s also the first year of trying to keep momentum with this new Green Strides Fitness business journey. And this week I’ve given plenty of time over to one of my old girls 🐕as she navigates life (and vet trips) as an elderly lady. So whilst staying consistent with my West Highland Way ultra training is no mean feat, it IS the potential saving of my sanity amidst the busy-ness of this time!

Time on feet (running!)

My step count for week 2 had me cover 87.6 miles/141km on foot. Of this, 47.6 miles/76.6km were spent in running mode. This means 54.3% of my time on feet was clocking run mileage. If you read part 2 of this West Highland Way ultra training journey blog, you may remember that I spent 53.5% of my time on feet running. I am pleased with this increase in percentage. As a running coach this sensible blend of running and non-running time on feet is what I would recommend in the early stages of most ultra training plans . Kudos to me 🌟!

Runs for week 2

For week 2 of training, I expected to hit somewhere between 41-50 miles/66-80km. We’ve established that I totalled 47.6 miles/76.6km so things are on track!

I started the week with a rest day after higher mileage towards the end of week 1. Well…I say a rest day…I did still kick the week off with a 6am cardio fitness class and around 6.5 miles/10.4km of walking over the day. A rest day does not need to be a day on the couch! The legs were thankful of the easier lead in to the week. There were a couple of steady/tempo runs ranging from 5-8 miles/8-13km to keep taxing the higher end of my endurance spectrum in the early part of week 2.

The speed session on Wednesday was a reverse ladder on the (weather warnings ⚠️) windiest day of the week 🙄. I completed 10-8-6-3-2-1 minute efforts with half recovery time between each one. To keep these as flat as possible (and since it was late in the day and the flat car park was bustling) I used a short stretch of quiet cycle path. The lack of length meant I had regular dead turns to make which obviously negatively impacted interval pacing a little. I’m planning on getting myself a membership to use the local running track for future flat speed work – that’s a job for 2025 Shari!

At the weekend I hit double figure run distances. A 14-miler/22.5km on the muddy puddle trails on Saturday was the highlight of my running week. My standard trail shoe of choice are Altra Timp 4’s, but Saturdays run was a reminder that I don’t find they cope well on wet muddy trail conditions. I’ll be digging out the Altra Lone Peak 6’s for similar future efforts. I returned to road shoes (my trusty Altra Rivera 2’s) and pounded the local pavements for an easy 12-miler/19.3km on Sunday seeing as I was off to panto in the afternoon. Oh no I….don’t worry, I won’t do it 😆.

Gaining elevation

Week 2 run training for the West Highland Way ultra totaled an ascent of 1,020 metres. Over a third of this (422 metres) was on my Saturday long trail run. This was intentional as my target during this training is to really challenge the elevation on one of the longer trail runs each week. I am only in week 2 so these numbers are small relative to the requirements for the West Highland Way ultra itself (approx. 4500m/14,760ft). Expect this to climb as the weeks progress…pun very much intended 😉.

Garmin Endurance Score

The Garmin gods have spoken and both my Endurance Score and my Hill Scores have increased in week 2 of training. My Endurance Score at the start of the week was 6,363 which was considered ‘expert’. In part 2 of my West Highland Way ultra training journey blog I questioned what was better than an expert. I noted I was not going to look at this online because I wanted the element of surprise at what’s next. The surprise was revealed by the end of week 2 training. I’m now no longer an expert at endurance…I am SUPERIOR (Endurance Score 6,748)! So that’s what’s better than an expert. A superior 🙂.

Endurance Score (start of week 2 v end of week 2) 👇  

I have been asked to explain the Garmin Endurance Score in more detail. I will aim to do this in part 4 pf this training journey blog as this week I want to give more detail on what the Hill Score (below) means.

Garmin Hill Score

My Hill Score at the start of week 2 training was 73. This had increased to 77 by the end of the week, though still sitting in the blue zone on the colour gauge Garmin uses.

Hill Score (start of week 2 v end of week 2) 👇

The question I received about Hill Score related to the personalisation of the scores – is what Garmin has set as 100 specific to me or is it a generic score to reach? What is it based on? Here’s a quick lowdown:

Garmins Hill Score is made up of 3 components – hill endurance, hill strength, and Vo2Max. Garmin tracks my running metrics on hills that are 2% gradient or above. If I am on an incline for a while without really piling on the power, Garmin considers this to be hill endurance work. If Garmin detects that I’m on a 2%+ gradient and laying down some power for shorter bursts, then this work output constitutes my hill strength score. My Vo2Max score is calculated using personal data (largely weight, age and sex) and data from higher intensity running activities that tax my body’s cardiorespiratory system. Combined, this data determines how well my body uptakes, transports and uses oxygen for the workouts I am doing.

Garmin calculates a score for each of these components based on what I have done in previous activities (and the few other details for Vo2Max). It then combines those scores (formula unknown) for an overall Hill Score out of 100. This 100 is a percentile based score relative to others of my age and sex. My current Hill Score of 77 places me in the 77th percentile. Put another way, Garmin considers me to be ‘better’ at hill work than 77% of those of the same age and sex that it is scoring – I’ll take that!

In part 4 of this training journey blog I will show how my Hill Score of 77 is broken down into it’s constituent parts and how I will use these separate scores to increase my overall Hill Score during my West Highland Way ultra training journey.

Week 3 West Highland Way ultra training

Because I am behind (again 🫣) in writing this training journey blog, I am well into week 3 of training. I have one running rest day scheduled for Monday. I am planning no real steady/tempo runs this week as the overall mileage creeps up with several easy runs and two long runs. The speed work is 5-minute hill endurance intervals – bringing more leg power (and moaning about it 😒) into the mix.

My longer efforts this week will be split across Thursday and Saturday, as Sunday is reserved for taking my niece to a musical matinee (Elf!) so there will only be time for a short run, at best, on Sunday morning. Saturday will see me enjoying a few hours out in the hills as I trudge out a planned 18 mile effort. All in, my overall distance this week should hit 54-60 miles/87-96.5km. And then it’s recovery week time…

Follow along with my West Highland Way ultra training!

If you want to follow along and vicariously train for and complete the ridiculously long and high West Highland Way ultra, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on the socials 👇. Maybe you actually ARE doing something similar and would value some shared comradeship as you traverse your journey! Subscribe and follow too!

I’d love to have you share my West Highland Way Ultra 2025 training journey! Curious about something I’ve said (or not said) or want me to dive into certain training areas in future West Highland Way ultra training blog posts? Let me know in the comments!

Want to kickstart or level up your own running journey in 2025 and would like some cheerleaders? Consider joining our virtual running 269 January Challenge! We kickoff on 01st January 2025!

Shari 💚