7 tips for Running: Tip #3 (Base Training)

The Riddle of an Ironman's Life

Base,Base, Base!!! You have to develop your aerobic engine and the bigger the base, the more solid the foundation, the higher the peak. Build gradually, steadily
and frequently, interspersed with regular recovery sessions.

Putting in the hard yards!

The more consistent the pressure you put on your plumbing system(cardiovascular)  the better and the best way to do that is to train at a more consistent ‘effort’ level in base training, so be careful of taking the hard/easy methodology of training too literally.

I am a great believer in what I call steady state running. In an ideal world, discovering your  aerobic threshold, lactate turnpoints and key heart rate zones would be great,
but it is not absolutely necessary. Steady state running is running just beyond
conversational pace and upwards and there are two ways to judge when you have
‘maximised’ this form of training. (In other words just below the red line…

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The Bigger the Base, The Higher the Peak!

7 Tips for Ironman Running-by Alec Riddle

http://ironmansa.com/2014/04/13/7-tips-to-ironman-running-tip-1-rest-and-recovery/

http://ironmansa.com/2014/04/14/7-tips-to-ironman-running-tip-2-easy-running-2/

7 tips to Ironman running Tip #2 (Easy Running)

Small choices and Little steps lead to GIANT consequences over time.
Successful people take little steps each day, embracing the small windows of opportunity that are presented to them. They march towards their goals, one step at a time and the days become weeks, the weeks become months and the months become years. And before you know it they have reached a place called Extraordinary.

Your running could improve beyond recognition; it is about making small choices and taking little steps over time BUT it requires immense patience and belief in what you are going to do, or have signed up for! The problem in this modern world that we live in, is that we expect instant results and we think that by going faster, harder, longer & more often we can accelerate our improvement. Unfortunately the opposite is true, so set aside the instant gratification mindset and be prepared to build slowly.

When you start out, or get going after a break (Rest & Recovery) it is important to start with easy running. This is the tedious part of the programme, as you can’t see quickfire results, but this is about laying a foundation. It is about preparing the body (and the mind) for the base training; the long runs and quality sessions which will be added in months to come BUT first up you have to allow the body to adapt to the low intensity stress that any form of running will subject it to (even easy running).

I call this Training to Train (T2T)! IT entails many conversational type runs and just allowing the body to feel comfortable with running. In preparing for Ironman, our group would run a 20km run on a Tuesday at a comfortable/conversational pace, nothing hard just Time on Legs for 1hr40-50. For most folk training for Ironman (and it was for our group), this would be a key session in the months leading up to Ironman as we are often time limited in our build up.

Imagine if you decided you wanted to be a better runner and you started 8-10 months prior to your IM or 70.3 and one of the first things you worked on was ‘easy running’ and within 2 months you were running an easy 20km mid week run every fortnight? Picture the foundation you are building and what can be built upon that Foundation, it is actually quite mind blowing to say the least!

I have utilised an example of a 20km run, but don’t go leaping into 20k runs, as I could and perhaps should have utilised an example of a 5 or 10km run. It should not be taken out of context.

Another important thing to realise is that ‘stress’ occurs when we exercise and it is about the time spent doing, so I would rather advocate time as opposed to distance. The reason for that is that a top IM runner may take 80 minutes for 20km and another athlete may take 2 hours, same distance but more stress for the slower runner, assuming both are running at the same effort.

I would advocate 3-4 weeks of easy running, before moving on to a more focussed Base Training Phase, which will be discussed under Tip #3.

Base Training

Base,Base, Base!!! You have to develop your aerobic engine and the bigger the base, the more solid the foundation, the higher the peak. Build gradually, steadily
and frequently, interspersed with regular recovery sessions.

Putting in the hard yards!

The more consistent the pressure you put on your plumbing system(cardiovascular)  the better and the best way to do that is to train at a more consistent ‘effort’ level in base training, so be careful of taking the hard/easy methodology of training too literally.

I am a great believer in what I call steady state running. In an ideal world, discovering your  aerobic threshold, lactate turnpoints and key heart rate zones would be great,
but it is not absolutely necessary. Steady state running is running just beyond
conversational pace and upwards and there are two ways to judge when you have
‘maximised’ this form of training. (In other words just below the red line, as when you are red lining it you are upsetting the blood’s ph levels which can also lead to injury/illness).

One method is to do your steady state runs on set routes and the tempo/pace gradually increases automatically as you improve, or become fitter. Initially you will detect substantial time improvement, at similar effort,  session to session, or week to week, with some improvement thereafter,  although not as rapid. Once your improvement is negligible you are ready for  the next phase.

The other option, for those with heart rate monitors, is to run a set route and
either run at the same pace, while detecting a simultaneous lowering of the
heart rate, alternatively to run with the same effort, but faster due to the
natural progression and detecting a similar heart rate as previous sessions.
Once you find the effort, time, or heart rate is sticking somewhat you have
achieved your objective in this phase. Raynard Tissink used this methodology in his Base Training a few years back and the results were quite amazing.

Example: I was training 3 athletes for their marathon debut on this type of steady state training, just building a strong base and suddenly a local marathon popped up on the scene, with a US$2,000 bonus for a sub 2hr 15 min win. It was 2 months earlier than we were planning for so we had done no speedwork, not track, just steady state running and fartlek, but we decided to go for it on 8 weeks base training.  Simon Mpholo won on debut (2hrs 14) and the other two ran 2h15 (Norman Dlomo) and 2h16 (Petrus Sithole) respectively.

For me the key is to keep consistent pressure. So if I was running ‘hard’ twice a week interspersed with two easy runs (plus my long run), then I’m getting a graph where the peaks and valleys are quite far apart. So instead of woking on running the ‘hard’ runs harder, I would run those at a similar effort, or slightly easier and rather work on upping the effort in the easy runs, bringing the peaks and valleys closer, ensuring more consistent pressure on my plumbing/cardiovascular system. See pic below illustrating that in this phase of training, the graph on the left is the ideal!

Caution: Most runners are far too impatient and want instant results, so test themselves and as soon as you test yourself, you need ample recovery, which defeats the object. For this process to work you need to be patient, very patient and let the body adapt in its own time. Do that and you will be amazed at both the interim and end results.

Important tip for Triathletes: Learnt from 5 time World Champion Simon Lessing of Boulder Coaching: Runners and Cyclists often tend to neglect their swimming as it is a small component of Ironman or Triathlon, but doing more swimming is vitally important. It not only improves your swimming time (even if it is negligible) but it builds your aerobic engine with little chance of injury. As Simon says swimming helps cycling and running but it doesn’t work the other way around and good swimmers are able to be competitive in triathlons a lot sooner than good cyclists or runners. I totally agree with this, so do not neglect the swimming!

A Dream is a Wish until commited to a Plan!