How much do you vary your base building? (Read 109 times)

Curious how much variation everyone does during base building?

All easy runs?

some longer/shorter?

throw in any workouts during the week? tempo, long, intervals?

go all by feel/mood vs a schedule?

If I'm actually training for something....Mostly easy on different routes of mix of distances, aiming for 45-60min duration + 1 quality day (select between interval, tempo, hills) mid-week + 1 longer day.  The role of the easy days is to fill-in between the quality workouts.

If I'm jogging around with goal to maintain something resembling 'fitness' and burn off calories...just head out the door and run for 45 - 90 minutes.

* Some longer/shorter, all easy

* Some hills (easy)

* Occasional tempo

* No speed work

 

This is exactly right. The only thing I'd add is including strides as a way to get "speed" in without doing intervals. I don't necessarily do tempo runs in the traditional sense during base building, e.g. a set distance at a prescribed pace, but instead will do fartleks when I'm just too damn bored doing easy runs every day. I'd say 95%+ of mileage is easy running pace, whereas during a training cycle, that number is more around 80%.

Huh, thinking about myself, I don't know how to answer. Do I do any base building? Maybe not; maybe my base is always built.  November through February, I'd say I'm in maintenance mode, just maintaining fitness, as Milktruck does, but I run year round. The rest of the year, I have 1 or 2 races each month, and I try to do a bit of preparation for them. The actual "building" that I really do is when following my spring and fall marathon training plans, but they presuppose that my base is already built.

 

My general schedule is a brief intervals run on Wednesdays, long run on Saturdays, and easy runs all the other days...with appropriate adaptations for races or life in general.

This entire thing is almost exactly me too. The 12 week period of marathon training twice a year only increases the seriousness of my weekly speed workout, and the length of my LRs. In my current marathon cycle, I'm barely increasing my total weekly mileage volume; in the last 1.5 years or so, I've upped my year-round maintenance volume to roughly 65mpw, and I don't feel the need to exceed the low-mid 70s for marathon training.

 Traditionally, base building was either two purposes:

 

1) Coming back from a long layoff or injury, where you don't want to be doing speed work as you are getting your legs ready for a cycle

Makes sense.

2) Mileage actually much higher than you would do for a cycle, e.g. for a mid-70s marathon cycle, you might base build in the 90s range to build up a significant aerobic base.

 

I don't know may people who follow (2) these days, but (1) definitely applies for a lot of folks.

That's a heck of a base.

FOr me base building is specific to road marathons. I try to keep a 40-50 mpw "non-training" run mileage during the year. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't. For my most recent marathon I was trying to get my weekly mileage up to the starting level of training, and it was all easy. I'd also run whatever I felt like running. Saturdays have always been for long runs so I started those at 10-13 miles or 90 minutes depending on weather and life.

Run by mood won't work for me. It changes too frequently. Run by schedule works better. I don't FEEL like getting out of bed for a 7am 14 mile long run when I'm not training, and part of base building for me is the mentality of doing it during training. I don't schedule my daily run distances and I don't do workouts. I just have a few runs about 1 hour long I can lengthen or shorten if I was feeling ambitious when I started, or lazy, and they seem to fit my approach.