Scott Johnston on training for mountain running

These two podcasts were interesting. Scott is the author of Training for the Uphill Athlete which is a great, nerdy book on endurance sports. He trained both winners of the main UTMB race this year and here are his main training takeaways:

• For long mountain races, the legs are the limiter, not the heart
• VO₂max isn't really the “gold standard” for these races and a bunch of 3-5 minute intervals that push this create more stress than they're worth
• To build muscular endurance, he recommends weighted workouts like uphill hiking (with extra ~8–10% body weight), tire drags, or stair machine
• He also recommends building anti‑glycolytic capacity (going faster while staying aerobic) via short sprints plus long sub‑threshold work

Hope you find this helpful if you're ever training for a mountain ultra!