Pablo lives on the Canary Islands and runs in the mountains there. In 32 days he flies to Andorra to run 100 km in the Pyrenees, climbing the kind of vertical the rest of us only ever look at. He has been training for it almost the day he came home from his last 100 km, and the build he has put together is the most disciplined polarized work I have seen on the platform this spring.
The athlete
Pablo finished Transgrancanaria Classic on March 6, a 124 km Canary Islands mountain ultra that most people consider a season in itself. He was back in structured training the next week, prepping for Trail 100 Andorra on June 13.
His weekly mix is unusual for a runner: 19 trail and road runs in 90 days, 11 road rides, 3 mountain bike sessions, 9 strength workouts. He picked Polarized as his periodization model himself, which on paper means lots of low intensity and a small dose of hard work above threshold. In practice for Pablo it means the road bike absorbs aerobic volume on the days his legs need a break from impact, the MTB stands in for vertical when the body needs a rest from running but not from climbing, and the gym keeps the chassis intact for the descents that destroy quads.
The weekend that told the story
The single moment in the last three months that says the most about Pablo's preparation: the weekend of April 18 to 19.
Saturday, he raced 2KV Pico de La Nieve: 12 km, 2,200 metres of vertical climbing in two hours. A short, brutal vertical race on La Palma. Most athletes would call that a hard day and recover Sunday.
Sunday morning, less than 24 hours later, he ran for four hours and eight minutes. The plan called it "Recuperación Activa" (active recovery), 202 TSS, IF 0.70. To a road runner that combination reads as punishment. To a 100 km mountain runner with depleted glycogen and worked-over legs from a vertical race, it reads as exactly the rehearsal Andorra demands: hours of trail on tired legs, the second day of a back-to-back, the body learning to keep moving when the obvious thing to do is stop.
That is one of five separate four-hour-plus trail runs he has logged in the last 90 days. The names of the workouts give it away: "Rodaje Recuperación", "Recuperación Larga", "Recuperación Activa". For most athletes recovery means a 45-minute easy spin. For Pablo, recovery means almost five hours on his feet in the mountains.
What the score noticed
| Date | Total | Overload |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-19 | 76 | 59 |
| 2026-04-26 | 77 | 65 |
| 2026-05-03 | 74 | 54 |
| 2026-05-12 | 76 | 73 |
The score is pretty steady through the spring, which is the point. Fitness Base sits at 89-92 the whole window: his pace at threshold is not moving in dramatic jumps, because at his depth of training real fitness happens on the scale of months, not weeks. Overload has climbed back to 73 this week as he loads up the final pre-taper sessions. Load Management at 95 throughout, the signature of a Polarized model done right: lots of easy, a little hard, monotony low.
The 32 days ahead
Pablo is in Peak phase now. The plan has him sharpening with VO2max work and threshold sessions through the end of May, then folding into a two-week taper into the start line. If you have ever stood at the start of a 100 km mountain ultra, you know what is in front of him: hours of climbing, hours of descending, weather that will change three times before he is done, an exhaustion you cannot really train for. What you can train for is the legs that keep going. Pablo's legs already finished one 100 km this year. They get to do another one, after 32 more days of work.
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Buena suerte, Pablo. Vamos.