Ep 25 One-year special: European Masters champion Mark Ryan, plus zone 4 and zone 5 training with René Borg
· Trail Running Ireland Podcast
For the show's first anniversary, Eoin Flynn talks to his friend and long-time teammate Mark Ryan, who won the M35 European Masters Mountain Running title in Poland in 2014 and took bronze at the World Masters in Telfes later that year. Mark talks about coming back from five surgeries, the sessions that work for him and training around three kids. First, René Borg explains the hard end of training, zones 4 and 5.
René describes zone 4 as stressing both the aerobic and anaerobic systems close to their limits, and zone 5 as adding maximum strain on muscles and nerves, ending in all-out sprints. Zone 5 work is mainly for building basic speed and strength early in the season, never close to an endurance race. Zone 4 is specific to short trail and mountain races, and a support tool for longer ones. Intervals of two minutes or more, such as 5 x 3 minutes, maximise time in zone 4, while 30/30s are a good introduction. Eoin shares Jerry Kiernan's advice to stop a session while you still have one more rep in you, and René suggests one or two zone 4 sessions a week for most trail runners.
Mark describes winning in Poland in 2014, when he pulled away from a lead group early, and his hard-fought M35 bronze in Telfes, where Ireland also won team bronze. He recalls a heavy fall at the 2011 World Championships in Albania, where he still finished 26th but then missed about two and a half years through injury and surgery. He talks about moving from football to running, the value of joining a club, and why he trains early in the morning, often on a treadmill, to fit around family life.