Christian Amon - training overview

The Red Bull X-Alps requires extremely high levels of endurance as this overview printout of Christian Amon's logfiles shows.

These 42 logfiles, recorded between December 29, 2008 and May 11, 2009 indicate most of the Austrian's time has been spent at reasonably low heart-rate (HR) levels.

Coach Eddie Fletcher established six personalised training zones based on a test Christian did last year. Christian's training plan was then based around these zones.

"Ninety percent of the training has been in zones one to four which means his heart-rate is below 80% of his maximum," says Eddie. "About 62% has been in the critical 70-80% area.

"Only 10% of his training at 80% and above, with a tiny 1.5% above 90%.

"His average HR across the 42 logs is 71% with a Training Effect of 3.1, which illustrates the need to do hours of endurance training."

55km Alpine training and man eating trees…

Aidan Toase (GBR) fills us in on his recent training reconnaissance mission to the Alps:

"Well I have had a few weeks in the Alps which was a great chance to fly my new Ozone wing and to practice carrying it around. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that flying over the Alps is definitely easy than walking over them. The terrain is so severe, making headway on foot is rarely easy.

"Anyhow I have taken this opportunity to simulate the Red Bull X-Alps by walking to a take off point and then flying every day – a great work out. One day was completely unflyable, so I put in a 55km training session with nearly 2000m of ascent covering the distance in 8hr 20min.


"The aim was to simulate the race so I kept my heart rate averaging 100bpm, which meant a good walk uphill followed by a gentle jog at 10km/h down. This was looking great and I figured if I could keep this pace up during the race, it would be fantastic.

"However it is far from clear than I can. At the end of the run not only did I have two beautiful blisters, but the terrain was not that easy either. Even the trees are dangerous (see photo) and look like they will eat unwary competitors for breakfast.


"I ended up tripping over a tree root and after performing a superman act flying through the air, I landed flat on my face and breaking my t6c heart rate monitor (HRM) in the process.

"So although I covered 55km I finished the day bruised with two blisters and a broken HRM... Hmmm this is not going to be easy!"


Says coach Eddie Fletcher: "This logfile of Aidan’s is a good one as it shows what the Red Bull X-Alps athletes may need to do all day in the Alps if flying conditions are not good.

"Steady pace and keeping heart-rate in check will be paramount to conserve energy. Although in this session, Aidan still consumed over 3000 calories!"

Honza's huge heart-rate variations

American competitor Honza Rejmanek has been busy trying to replicate the actual conditions he will face during the Red Bull X-Alps, sending coach Eddie Fletcher some fascinating log files.

"These two very interesting logs from Honza probably typify the sort of ‘ups and downs’ which will happen in the race." Says Eddie. "The mix of flying, hiking and running that will occur is not the best for even energy expenditure but reflects reality rather than the contrived training efforts which can be controlled for duration, intensity and speed.

"A few weeks ago, he hiked up to a launch spot to fly his new wing that he will be using in the Red Bull X-Alps, flew around for 1hr 20min and then ran back to his car.

"His heart-rate (HR) was as high as 175 and as low as 68.

"Similarly on May 8th he went to a different site, ran and hiked up to the launch (albeit without much altitude gain) flew a bit but was slowly sinking out.

"He therefore landed on the side of the hill and hiked up to launch again. He relaunched, but slowly sank again, and landed on the side of the hill a second time. Again, he hiked back up, launched and this time flew all the way into the valley. Once safely down, he packed up, took a dip in the river, and hiked back up to his car.

"Here again he recorded a wide HR range: 172 maximum and 83 minimum."

Perfect half marathon effort from Christian

Coach Eddie Fletcher was recently impressed by Christian Amon's effort in a half marathon race, held in his hometown of Hallstatt.


Finishing a very impressive 27th in 1hr 20min 12sec, Christian's Training Effect (TE) recorded on his t6c, showed a perfect upwards curve meaning his energy was well managed and distributed.


"He adopted an even pace strategy, which is always the best way, and averaged 16km/h (3min 48sec per kilometer) for a great 80 minute run," says Eddie.

"At this intensity EPOC is very high and his Training Effect was well into level 5 indicating that a ‘long’ recovery period would be required afterwards. Needless to say in subsequent days he followed this race with very steady TE levels 1 and 2 recovery sessions."