We all know that an athlete can’t peak for an entire year. That’s why we rest and go on to rebuilding the whole thing.
Distance runners start this process by base building: The build up of high-end aerobic running. A typical week like this might be filled with two-a-days of nothing but that; running. And in this, runners build the aerobic endurance to withstand greater stresses later. That’s real fine and all, but there’s something missing. There’s got to be more we can do to better prepare athletes for a great season.
Speed: During the base phase, runners will typically touch on some stride-outs for speed maintenance, a change of pace with some fartlek workouts, a bit more up-beat with tempos, and some early, light intervals to keep in touch with that maximum aerobic output. These are real fine, touching on a whole lot of aspects that make a strong runner. The name of the game is still speed; who can cross that line in the shortest duration of time? Speed development has got to fall into place somewhere in the base phase, but I haven’t a clue where.
Strength: There’s an insane amount of room for progress through strength training. But how should we periodize this into the base phase?
I’m just an average distance runner from Stockton, CA that’s trying to put together the best Track season he can through smarter training. Elitetrack just seemed like the real fitting place to help me. Thank you in advance.
Just saw this post. For strength you should be doing a lot of reps. You are a distance runner and do not need to be putting on mass. So if you are hitting the gym I suggest doing sets where you do 3 sets of 12-15 reps or even 15-18 reps. Strength and Speed are important. Also an exercise I love to have all my athletes do is a stair carry. You find a huge staircase in your city (the ones we use have 200 stairs) and carry a teammate who is your weight or heavier (preffered) up them. This will help you build up strength in your legs and also endurance so your legs aren’t what is holding you back at the end of the race.
Mass gain isn’t determined by the amount of reps. It’s a careful interplay of resistance, rest, tissue hit, etc. High intensity lifting (low reps with high weight and high recovery) has been proven to increase running economy in distance runners – https://elitetrack.com/articles/articles-read-4683/ . I’m not even going to touch on your staircase walks or that you just dug up a 3 year old post in order to link your own site on your first post however.