Coaching Question: “What session am I protecting today?”
Coaching Question
“Is it okay to do strength before my fartlek session?”
A question that shows up whenever life, community and a structured plan all try to sit in the same 24 hours.
Trail Note
On paper, training plans are neat: key sessions, strength days, recovery days all in the “right” order.
In real life, there’s a 5:15am gym crew you love, a fartlek session that matters for UTA 50, and a body that wants to carry both.
The question isn’t just, “Is this allowed?”
It’s: “How do I stack strength and speed so I protect my progress without sacrificing the parts of training that keep me grounded?”
What’s Actually Going On When You Lift First
When you do hard strength work right before a key run, you’re asking your muscles and nervous system to show up twice in quick succession.
Strength session: creates local fatigue (especially in quads, glutes, calves) and uses up a chunk of your “sharpness” for the day.
Fartlek session: asks for strong, repeatable efforts, good form and mental focus over multiple reps.
Doing heavy strength right beforehand can blunt the quality of the run: pace may be a little lower, and later reps can feel more grind than power, even if your heart and lungs are capable.
That doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”. It means you need to be clear on the priority of the day and shape the strength session around it.
What This Does Not Mean
It does not mean you must abandon your gym community or only ever run first to be a “good” athlete.
It also doesn’t mean you can load your legs to exhaustion and expect your fartlek to feel the same as it would on fresh legs.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s alignment: matching the type of strength you do with the kind of run that follows, especially in big UTA 50 build weeks.
How to Stack Strength and Speed With Less Friction
Instead of asking, “Is this bad?”, consider the main question: what quality do I need to protect today?
When we were asked this question, our athlete Jen had a UTA 50 Tuesday that looked like this: 5 × 5‑minute efforts at strong but controlled effort - threshold strength, climbing durability, form under load.
- Can I change the strength focus, not the whole day?
Keep your gym time, but make it more core, upper body and light stability when it sits before a big run. - How did my body respond last time?
If you held form in reps 4–5 and weren’t wrecked for hills and your long run, the current stack is probably working.
On days where strength must come first, think of it as “support strength”, not “max strength”: glute activation, balance, postural work and core. Save heavy squats, lunges and RDLs for days that don’t sit in front of your biggest run stimulus.
If You’re in Perimenopause or Menopause
Perimenopause and menopause can change how your body responds to load, recovery and stress. Sleep may be lighter, hot flushes and night sweats can show up, and your nervous system can feel a little closer to the edge.
That doesn’t mean you can’t stack strength and speed. It does mean:
- Strength is still vital - especially for bone density, muscle mass and power - but you may recover better if the heaviest lower‑body work sits away from your biggest run days.
- Sleep and stress matter more than ever. If you’ve had a run of poor sleep, it can be wise to keep Tuesday’s gym lighter or trim one fartlek rep and arrive fresher to the rest of the week.
- Fuelling is non‑negotiable. Skipping carbs or under‑eating protein makes back‑to‑back strength + speed sessions feel disproportionately hard and can amplify hormone symptoms over time.
A helpful frame here is: “What lets me lift heavy enough to protect my bones and muscle, and still run with enough quality to feel proud of my week?” The answer might look different month to month - and that’s okay.
Where Your Cycle Fits In (If You Still Have One)
The order question also lands differently depending on where you are in your cycle. In higher‑energy phases, stacking a moderate strength session then running can feel doable. In lower‑energy or premenstrual phases, the same stack can tip you into feeling cooked.
On those lower‑energy weeks, your best move might be:
- Shorter, lighter strength on Tuesday (or moving it to another day).
- One fewer fartlek rep if form falls apart, while keeping effort honest.
- Extra attention on pre‑ and post‑session fuelling and sleep.
Listening and adjusting is not a lack of discipline; it’s what keeps you in the game for the whole build rather than just a few “hero weeks”.
Coach Notes
You don’t have to choose between “perfect” training and the social anchors that make training sustainable.
You do need to be honest about what you’re asking of your body on any given day: especially in perimenopause and menopause, when recovery and stress load matter even more.
On key UTA 50 days (or any audacious trail goal you are building to), protect the quality of the main session. Shape your strength around it. Keep the gym crew. Let the plan work with your life, not against it.
The more you pay attention to how different combinations feel: strength then run, run then strength, heavy versus light - the more you’ll trust your own judgement.
That trust is what carries you through a long build: not doing everything “by the book”, but learning how to make choices that serve both your race and your whole self, in the season you’re actually in.
