Building your Base

You might have heard elite runners talking about building a base in the winter training months and have wondered what they were talking about.

Base training serves as the foundation for what is to come later in the year. Much like building a foundation for a house, base training serves to provide the runner with a strong foundation to not only help train harder in the spring and summer months, but also will helps to make the runner stronger for the long slog through the summer.

Base training typically can include long slow runs and weight training. The base gets built up over the course of weeks, in terms of miles, no more than 10 percent increase each week until a maximum miles is reached. Periodic rest weeks can and should be taken to avoid becoming stale and the training can become boring. In fact, many good runners will also through in some light speed and streghtening work such as hill sprints to break up the training.

Base training is important for everyone, but is especially important for those who plan to run in half or full marathon. You will need to build your base before thinking about tackling the high mile weeks that will come later.

If you have any questions on training and building your base, please let me know through this blog and I will be happy to respond.