This is the first time in my life when I am teaching myself to "base train".
I understand the concepts of base training (slow miles, not too many) and its benefits, but I find them hard to apply.
Lets take it sport by sport.
Running!
I have been running easy since the marathon, over 50% of miles on trails, with one longer run on steep trails ranging from 1:45 to 2:50 (that's only 8 -14 miles). The pace is v easy on these long runs, but my HR does go up on the inclines. The rest of the time I am keeping the pace easy with a few hill sprints thrown in for good measure. I don't usually take my Garming with me on these easy runs. However, as I discovered today, my easy pace is pretty fast right now. A nice problem to have, you say, but I get a little concerned because I am not sure if that is easy enough or am I going to be at my peak in January, for a C race, and overtrained in February for an A race? I am also concerned that I am locked on this pace (marathon pace) and have lost my range - not a good thing.
Swimming!
Is there such a thing as base training for swimming? I mean, all the swimming I do is drills and intervals (short and long). That is only a little different than what I do when I train for a race (except when I race I swim more miles, and I do a weekly long endurance swim).
Biking!
I have no idea what am I doing here. I get on the bike 4/week for 45 minutes playing with the resistance for 5-10 min increments, paying attention to the cadence when the folks on Gray's Anatomy are performing open heart surgery that I am not keen to see, and a 2h (3h once a month) ride where I spin for 45 min @ cadence higher than 100, and then play with the resistance for the remainder of the time.
(And I do do the strength part even though it is not my favorite thing to do!)
What do you do for base training and how do you make yourself peak for a race or prevent yourself from being at your fastest when it does not matter?
##########
Last night I watched a great movie with a running theme, "Saint Ralph". V cute, check it out!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
i am confused by it all as welll....
Great questions, I can't wait to hear what people have to say!
OH boy...this is too long to leave on your blog, but BASE just means the beginning of your training phases....ideally, BASE is focusing on efficiency, drills and FORM in all 3 sports. What is tricky is each athlete's base period is different (Meaning length and what intensity is in there). Beginners are much longer for base and Elites not as long bc most are already fit.
Base could be 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks...and it all works backwards from the athlete's FIRST "A" race.
I will say that some people don't do enough intensity in base. I personally love Hills, strength (like big ring) on the bike and short faster feet/drills (running) and faster short work cycles in each sport....and especially if someone is coming off a marathon...that athlete doesn't NEED another full base cycle in running...but shorter workouts to re-engage the faster paces and recruit the faster twitch muscles and energy systems.
BASE also means a TON of strength and bio-mechanical evaluation on the run and bike and swim....and the time to change form and try new things.
AND, also keeping things FUN..the base period allows flexibility and fun group things too.
Ok....I will stop now...I could go on. :))))
What Jennifer said! I am in my "off"season as well. I bike and run.
My base training right now is not that extensive, but it's still necessary. I do mine all heart rate based. My base HR for example is basically endurance pace- for me that means 142-154 beats per minute. I have about 2 sessions in this HR zone a week at this time. One session is 90 minutes long and the other session is 60 minutes.....
I know it's useful, but it's very mental trying to keep my HR this low for soo long.
Great question!
I know how to do "base" for 1500m race, but no idea for longer stuff or anything else than running.
For 1500m I used to continue doing intervals/repeats, but longer (750-1500m), occasional hill repeats for strength and sometimes threw in 250-300m repeats to work "fast" muscle twitches. So my base training had a lot of "intensity" elements, I did not do that many long easy runs, because that made me completely sluggish. I got extra mileage with longer repeats.
Although I am sure it is little different for IM training. 21k and 1500 are not exactly the same:)
Can't wait to see what people have to say on this subject.
What base training is is long and somewhat tricky, but what it isn't is all slow stuff like a lot of people think it is.
If you like reading and researching a good book is Racing and Training with power. It's about the bike and using power, but the principles are the same (think pace instead of watts).
What Jen said... :)
You could easily get a book -- like the Triathlete's Training Bible or Training Plans for Multisport Athletes (Bernhardt) and use their plans as a template. I don't believe you should follow any plan like that to the letter, but to examine how a plan is constructed from beginning to end will de-mystify the whole process. Look at a variety of different plans to see how different coaches move an athlete from base to race... and that will give you a very good idea as to how to go about what your own base training.
One thing that I know about your training... Your biking should likely be the discipline that receives the most time. Right now it is running...
I think "base training" is specific to each person so there is no one answer. For me, I just cut back on the miles about 50% but, really, my pace and effort remains about the same.
I agree with SSB, its tricky, it also depends on your goals as well, are you jumping up in distance or staying at the same race, that accounts for a lot of it, if you are staying at the same distance, personally I would work on power and speed to go faster.
What Jennifer said..ha! Just reading her comment tells me I am in base training, minus bike. I am focusing on running and swimming since they are my weakest events. Doing a lot of drills on the pool to improve technique (fingers crossed), and am running 4 x week. two are some speed drills with one of them incorporating some calisthenics in between 3' pick ups. Also strength training.
The big question though is, has Grey's Anatomy jumped the shark?
did you see that V3 multisport is closing!!!! wth. 50% off everything. You live near there right? i'm going to go in tomorrow after work to check out the sale....
Can't say that I know the science behind it all, but in college our base training consisted of building up mileage. After the spring season we'd take 2 weeks off, then slowly begin building up the mileage. We'd build up to around the number of miles we'd be running during the cross-country season. During base training we'd run whatever felt easy with a couple tempo runs here and there, but no real interval or hill training. Approximately 10-12 weeks prior to the A race, we'd start the real workouts. Peaking is tricky though, I think I peak after 6-8 weeks of hard training. And I'm sure everyone is different...
Gosh you have some real experts here and I think your answers are in there .. I have kind of ended up doing base training by accident these past few months but HAVE incorporated tempo and speed, just less distance. I find tempo and speed hardest to pick up again when I've let go so that's what I need to focus on.
Congrats on winning the giveaway today! wooo hoo for winning.
The neurosis hey!! I totally understand about easy pace. This is tough for me. My easy pace has usually been faster than I think it's supposed to be but I find it hard to change it. In turn my speedwork ends up slower... Also, locked in marathon pace-I get that too. I have no idea how to make sure I am at my peak but not overtrained. I am constantly a work in progress I guess and constantly learning. If you get some good answers, please pass them on!!!
Post a Comment