100 Mile Training Plan for Beginners | How to Train Like Kilian Jornet

It’s a new year, which means it’s time to start training and if you’ve got a 100 mile race on the calendar, you have to start training soon. There are lots of training plans out there, but there are no better training plans than the ones from the book “The Uphill Athlete“, a training guide co-written by Kilian Jornet. I took the 100 mile training plan from this book and made it into the perfect 100 mile training plan for beginners.

This training plan is going to help you get to the finish line and accomplish your 100 mile goal for this year. I’ve done all the work for you, so all you have to do now is do the actual work and put in a great training block.

To access the training plan, CLICK HERE.

100 Mile Training Plan for Beginners

If you’re reading this post right now, you’ve probably already seen the 100 mile training plan that I did a few months ago about how to train like Killian Jornet for 100 miles. I made a few tweaks to that training plan to make it a 100 mile training plan for beginners so you can just start training for your 100 mile race.

This 100 mile training plan is perfect if this is your first 100 mile ultra, if you are coming back from injury, or have a really busy work schedule and you just don’t have a lot of time to train.

16 Week 100 Mile Training Plan for Beginners

Some things to keep in mind before I get into the training plan itself is you need to know what race you are training for. If you’re planning on following this training plan, I would recommend that you choose a race that has less than 15,000 ft of elevation gain. Anything more than that, I would definitely recommend you doing more mileage and moreelevation, but this training plan is perfect for people who are just doing a mostly flat or easier 100 mile race.

For the 100 mile training plan for beginners I cut the mileage by about 40% from the original 100 mile training plan video that I did.

We are still going to be building up to 100 Mile week, however, that 100 miles is going to be spread throughout the week instead of having it all on the last 2 days on back-to-back long runs. I think that running 100 miles in a week will really help prepare you to run 100 miles in a race. Before starting this training plan, I would definitely recommend that you are doing at least 30 miles a week and have a good aerobic base.

Weeks 1-2

Weeks one and two start with aerobic weeks. This means that your training is going to be done at Zone 2 almost every day except for one interval day in the second week. Monday, we are going to have an aerobic day, which means just running four miles at Zone 2 pace.

Tuesday is a recovery day, so you are going to be running at low Zone 2 or even down into Zone 1 for 4 miles. Wednesday we have another aerobic day of 4 miles. Thursday, another aerobic day of 4 miles. Then, on Friday, we have a long run at Zone 2 for 10 miles.

Keep in mind for your long runs you’re going to want to do about 40% of your total weekly elevation gain just on this one day. To calculate how much elevation you’re going to be needing to get each week, I would recommend doing about 40% of your race’s total elevation.

That’s 40% of your race’s elevation for the entire week and then 40% of that elevation is done just on your long runs. You’re going to be doing 40% of your race’s elevation gain per week on every week except for specificity weeks where you’re going to be doing 60% of your race’s total elevation gain. Then, after the long run, we have a recovery day of 3 miles low Zone 2 to Zone 1 and then a rest day on Sunday.

Week two is about the same as week one, but we’re just adding one intensity day for this week. As you can see, on Tuesdays we have intervals. For intervals, you’re going to be doing 2-4×10 minute intervals at Zone 3 and then you’ll have a 2-minute recovery jog between reps.

Then the rest of the miles for that day, if you have more left over, you could do as warm-up and cool down. For week two, I’d recommend just doing 2×10 minute intervals and then the rest of the miles and warm up and cool down.

Week 3

Next up is week three, which is a specificity week. This means that you’re going to be training specifically for your race. You’re going to want to get on similar terrain as your race as well as add about 20% of vert to your runs. Specificity weeks also mean that you’re going to be doing back-to-back long runs. Yes, back-to-back long runs are difficult but they are 100% worth it.

As you can see on Monday, we have a recovery day. On Tuesdays, we have 5 miles of interval training. Wednesdays 5 miles of recovery. Thursday 5 miles at aerobic pace. Friday and Saturday are your back-to-back long runs.

We’re starting pretty easy with just a 16-mile back-to-back long runs and on these runs, like I said, you’re going to want to be getting at least 40% of your weekly vert.

Week 4

After week three, we got week four, which is a recovery week. Recovery weeks we’re going to be taking out all the speed for this week and you can also take days off as needed. There’s only one long run this week, followed by some easy miles on Saturday.

Remember that for this schedule, you can switch around days as needed. For example, you can do a long run on a Tuesday or just do whatever you want as long as you leave 72 hours between speed days and your long runs.

Weeks 5-11

Then we got weeks 5 through 11 where we’re just going to be alternating between a specificity week and a recovery week until we hit the big one. 100 miles in one week! I think that running 100 miles in a week is crucial for preparing to run 100 miles in 24 hours or 48 hours.

The original 100 mile race plan that I did also tops out at a 100 mile week, however, most of these miles were done in the 38 mile back-to-back long runs. Instead, what we’re doing on week nine is we’re doing back-to-back 25 mile long runs and then spreading out the rest of the miles throughout the week. After we hit that 100 mile week, we are going to start winding back down and tapering for our 100 mile race.

Weeks 12-15

Weeks 12-15 are going to be taper weeks with one aerobic week thrown in there to keep your legs fresh and quick. For these taper weeks, we’re just going to be like I said, winding down in mileage, still doing a speed day.

We’re winding down preparing for our 100 mile race, taking days off as needed and just focusing on recovering for the 100 mile race.

Full 16 Week Training Plan

Last but certainly not least, race week baby! We’re going to start our race week with 30-second intervals, which means that you’re going to be doing 4×30-second intervals at Zone 3 with a 3-minute rest between reps. These intervals are just to keep the legs fresh and quick. Then on the weekend is race day and you are going to crush it guaranteed (if you followed this training plan).