Base Fitness

shotgunmcos

How do you do yours?

Do you do a block every winter? Do you keep all runs at base/easy or do you pepper it with other stuff?

How important is it?

Given a choice, drills or base?

JohnnyCrash

Try to do 4 or 5 miles 4 to 5 times a week.A couple of these runs i'll do at tempo or fartlek-nothing too regimental.Sunday lsr 10-12 miles with one of 14-16 a month.

RacoonQueen

I think the thing with running is, most will either be doing more or less the same thing all year round and just targetting races as they go with no definitive 'off season' or they'll be following a generic plan so don't realise they're actually base building during that.

Road race season never ends so most will do the same sort of training through the winter as they do during spring/summer if they're targetting similar distance races all year round.
train > goal race > train > goal race
not
build > train > goal race > recover > rest > build

Those track fairies do things properly though.

Krusty_Clown

Off-season is when you switch from a marathon plan to a 5k or cross-country plan.
I thought drills and base was a type of music..

TFBubendorfer

Base training is what I do between goal races (marathon or ultra), usually twice a year. I transition from base training to more specific training about 10-12 weeks before the race.

Average weekly mileage would be around 80. Most runs are easy, usually one faster run (about marathon pace) per week.

This time I'm experimenting a bit and adding hill repeats once per week, and I'll do a fast fartlek per week in the last few weeks of base training as well.

RacoonQueen

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Off-season is when you take a few days off for some serious craft beer drinking after running a marathon and then start 5k training.

FYP

Krusty_Clown

RacoonQueen wrote: »

FYP

It's funny cos it's true.

Ceepo

Personally I would like always mix things, keeps the mind fresh. There is no harm in doing some threshold type efforts within a run for say 3 x 90 sec, and also one other run would be done @ maybe 10% harder than easy. These runs would be typically done on days that my session/speed work days would have been on. I also live in a hilly area so even some of my easy runs would have some bit of effort in them but I wouldn't be forcing the pace on the hills. I would also try to do a Plyometric session once a week. you know them?. Sure don't everyone do them (not)
That's the bones of it for me.
Just to add this is not done in the winter as I usually race cross country. The and early spring is championship road race time

jfh

i might as well be the one to ask, is there a benefit to this base fitness?
i understand it's a lot of easy running over a few weeks? with no speed work, that right?
i'm injured at the moment so was looking at daniels 10km plan, like i have many times before, but never follow a plan. he's got a month of easy running.

Gambas

I'm doing about 50k a week of easy running at the moment, spread over 4-5 days and plan to more or less keep at that until the new year. All done at about 70-75% HRmax. I'm beginning to introduce one approx 10k 80-85%HRmax run from now, but the main aim is just to do the miles at a pace that won't stress the legs. It's the first time I've done this, so I've got high hopes!

sconhome

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Off-season is when you switch from a marathon plan to a 5k or cross-country plan.
I thought drills and base was a type of music..

That'd be drums and bass.

sconhome

jfh wrote: »

i might as well be the one to ask, is there a benefit to this base fitness?
i understand it's a lot of easy running over a few weeks? with no speed work, that right?
i'm injured at the moment so was looking at daniels 10km plan, like i have many times before, but never follow a plan. he's got a month of easy running.

Doesn't a lot depend on your racing goals? Distance, timing and how often?

I think it would be safe to say that the majority of your off season kilometers should be easy at aerobic level. But you would still do either a tempo or fartlek session at least once per week to keep some semblance of speed in the legs. Duration and intensity might be lower in these relative to your build of peak phases of training.

tergat

shotgunmcos wrote: »

How do you do yours?

Do you do a block every winter? Do you keep all runs at base/easy or do you pepper it with other stuff?

How important is it?

Given a choice, drills or base?

shotgunmcos,

I use a progression from more General Conditioning to more Specific conditioning (as a goal race approaches). Simply put, it makes no sense to hammer away at hard workouts for weeks and months on end because injury, illness, and mental burnout occur. However, one can train to a high level of running fitness without doing really hard workouts; and there is a low chance of bad things happening.

Remember this, time-course of adaptations is one of three key factors one should consider when planning training. That is, how long does it take (you) to achieve the maximal or near maximal adaptation for a particular mechanism of performance?

The fastest time-course adaptation is neural. Learning to coordinate your motor-neural pathways for optimal use of what you have at the muscular level is a quick adaptation. A practical way of looking at it is to analyze how long it takes to learn how to do something new. If a 12 year old kid joins a club and wants to learn how to do the hurdle event, I can see amazing improvements in his or her technique in just a few days time. I'll venture to say that a 50% improvement in technical skill takes place in a matter of 5-6 practice sessions. In contrast, motor-neural adaptation to aerobic generation of ATP is quite slow. A 50% increase in aerobic capacity will NOT take place in just 5-6 sessions, will it?

The point is clear, I think, then: Work earlier in your training buildup on attributes of performance that take longer to acquire. THIS IS WHY THE BASE PHASE IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! Later, as you near the goal race (event), work on attributes of performance that are quickly acquired.

One thing that is important to understand, there is an apparent link between how FAST an attribute is acquired and how long that attribute can be maintained at peak level. This is my opinion, not gospel. So, as I see it, if it takes 5-6 practice sessions to reach 50% of full adaptation, it probably takes about 15-18 sessions to reach peak (temporary) skill in the motor-neural department. Thus, if my hurdler were practicing 5 days per week on his or her techincial form, then I'd expect that in 3-4 weeks there would be some sort of plateau occuring and a probable descending effect of skill thereafter. If I were aware of this trend - a fast rise, plateau, and a fast fall - in motor-neural skill, I'd then make sure that my athlete is not training their motor-neural capacity too intensively or too frequently. Otherwise, they probably would peak in just 3-4 weeks time!

Lesson: If the season was 8 or 10 weeks long, I'd better spread-out motor-neural training in order to pevent my athlete from burning out or breaking down. .

The same sort of idea carries weight for a distance runner. If motor-neural skill is fast adapting and my athlete wants to run a peak race (let's say a 10k) in 4 month's time, then I better not be hammering them with speed work training the entire 4 months or else there is high risk of performance loss BEFORE the big day arrives.

Key point: I start Generalized conditioning (that requires low technical skill) FAR IN ADVANCE of a peak race and then, as the big event nears, intentionally progress the training to INCLUDE motor-neural skill development.

I'll state two further things:

1) You lose what you don't do enough of. If you skip mileage, long runs, and even the stamina zone (tempos/threshold) it'll erode;

2) Use your time and energy wisely and in accordance to what you can realistically manage. You only have so much time and so much energy. If you have more time, do more non-specific work that builds your capacity handle harder workouts with ease. If you have limited time do the workouts that are most specific to your race needs. You probably won't reach your ultimate potential but it's not the point for someone who has limited time.

Tergat

TRR

Legend post as usual Tergat. Good to see you posting again