UKC

Looking to hear other people's experience and/or tips for combining running training and climbing. I'm a competent half marathon runner but the marathon feels way off. I tend to boulder only climbing wise and I am fairly consistent in the 7A/+ area with a few 7Bs.

I'm under no illusion that I'll be able to do as much climbing but I don't want to lose too much as I build the weekly milage for running. Looking at marathon plans they are time consuming so that will be an issue along with recovery. On the upside I can usually fit two sessions a day in if I get out of bed quick enough with the morning being a shorter session.

Really at the planning stage for how the autumn to spring training will be structured so just looking to learn from others success and failures before I start. Any info will be appreciated.

I've not done vast amounts of running so my experiences are limited but I have done a 2 month phase of running & climbing at the end of last year/beginning of this year and got some insights from that. 

Basically I found that further base endurance work i.e. 5-8 minute reps of moderate aerobic climbing on the circuit board, combined with some fingerboard work to maintain recruitment worked well. Higher intensity climbing was much harder to make gains. 

I started the year with by far the best aerobic base I've ever had after 8 weeks of this! 

Thanks that's helpful and seems to be in keeping with my experience so far with a lot less mileage than I'll need to do. High intensity sessions on a woody take ages to recovery from to be maximal and can't really be after a run day. Maybe I'll concentrate on the base work

You are working different muscle groups so training on consecutive days should not be a big issue. You could plan your programme around having recovery runs at the same point in the programme as harder climbing sessions. 

Don't feel you have to adopt a classic 7 days repetitive loop running programme and be tied to the long Sunday run etc. Design your own.

What will make a difference is making sure you get enough rest in general, eat and sleep well too. Three hard weeks followed by an easy one and so on. As you'll know from your 1/2m training, consistency is more important than big incremental leaps in training volume or difficulty. 

I've done this in the past (3 or 4 years ago).  I found I made less strength gains in my fingers when doing lots of running.  I lost flexibility, particularly after long runs and became prone to leg injury if doing weird climbing moves on tired legs.  My advice would be to keep the climbing basic.  If you want to climb the day after a long run then consider a finger board or campus session.  I found that running after bouldering worked well but trying to boulder after running didn't work at all.

This was my experience. Fingers always feel down on power after running. Good suggestion on campus or fingerboard. I was using a steep woody but on tired legs keeping the tension through the feet can be tricky. I will definitely take on the rest points. 

I will just have to experiment with scheduling. A heavy fingerboard session isn't going to affect a run but its not true the other way round. I like the idea of doing base work as the mileage goes up. Finger endurance doesn't seem to be as badly affected as power

Also avoid heel/toe cams on steep ground when legs are tired.  Really easy to injury whatever is either side of your knee that keeps it all stable.

If you have aspirations of running a certain time for the marathon and are intending on training heavily i.e. 6+ sessions a week I would advise you to forget about climbing 'goals' or performance.  You'll feel tired from the marathon training (and you really need to rest for recovery) and it will probably negatively impact your strength.  Focus on the running and do some climbing sessions for pure fun as and when you feel like it.  Nail the marathon and then switch back into climbing - as a boulderer you will regain the power relatively quickly. As others have said a bit of max hang fingerboarding etc will be fine to retain finger strength.

You might think of this as more of a triathlon problem (or aquathlon to be exact) problem, with the climbing replacing the swimming.

You don't get the aerobic crossover but the recovery and timing should be similar. 

A sample tri week might be

Monday - hard swim

Tuesday - hard bike easy run

Weds - long swim, run intervals

Thurs - tempo bike, easy run

Fri - tempo swim, tempo run

Sat - long bike

Sun - long run

Hope that gives you some food for thought.

I have run a marathon, and been climbing a long time.

My advice is to focus more and more on the marathon the closer you get to it, and don't stress about losing the climbing fitness - it comes back fairly easily. For now just go climbing as and when you can, and enjoy it.

I did the London Marathon in 2018 and found it hard to maintain climbing fitness and strength while in the midst of the training. 

Part of that was just having enough energy and time to do climbing training, on top of the 4 or more running sessions a week. 

It didnt help that I have family commitments, plus my wife was training for the same marathon, so I was struggling to train climbing on different days to doing runs. I remember a few occasions of doing LSR on a Saturday morning (say 15 plus miles) then trying to climb routes the same evening, but just being utterly knackered and not having enough energy.  

Bouldering seemed easier, as I guess the energy systems are different. Short bouldering sessions could be squeezed in much easier.

So I guess it depends upon what other commitments you have, but if I was trying to do it again, I would be doing climbing sessions on different days to running, and focusing on bouldering.

On the plus side, all the walk-ins will feel really easy!  

Good luck.

I agree with other posters that it is very difficult to focus on both (especially with work and family too)

Unless you are very diligent about stretching and mobility, running will reduce your flexibility. Every friday I do a long run (min 16 hilly trail / fell miles) and boulder a few hours afterwards. This is great training for running as it builds endurance and encourages me to stretch. But I definitely don't climb well on these sessions. I relax, have fun and don't let the grade trouble me

I am also more prone to leg / foot cramp so have to be careful about that too.

Before a race a gently taper down the mileage, which allows me to fit in a bit more bouldering (though this close to a race I am careful about falling off and twisting ankle!)

Thanks all for the advice. I think flexibility work and short high intensity sessions aiming to maintain what I can with some just climbing sessions. No expectations on improving climbing.

Kinda psyched for running - good fun way of getting into the hills

When I was training for my first marathon I gave myself a break from climbing for the last 3 months of hard training for three reasons: to let me concentrate on the marathon and because I hardly had any physical or mental energy for anything else, and also to give my twinging fingers a rest and the chance to recover. I still did a couple of light sessions a week, but never at my limit. The marathon went well, I ran only a minute over my projected time, and when I started climbing again a couple of weeks later I was not only highly motivated but amazed to find that I was still climbing at the same level as before the break. My fingers had completely recovered, and to boot I was 3kg lighter; a month later I was climbing a full grade harder.