Lord of the Base

Bryan, that's a great post about base building and with that I hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread.  This was written by Mark Allen about base building and training in an aerobic fat burning zone and how it will benefit you in the long run. 

"There are several reasons why you want to develop your body's ability to burn stored fat. First, as you probably know, your reserves of fat are huge compared to the amount of stored carbohydrate in your body. We can have as much as 50,000 calories worth of fat stored up, enough to propel someone from Los Angeles to San Francisco. However, a trained athlete only has around 2500 calories worth of carbohydrates stored up as glycogen, which is barely enough to run 25 miles. As an endurance athlete, burning as much fat as possible during competition will help spare precious glycogen. This allows the athlete to sustain a significantly higher pace than someone who does not have a highly developed aerobic (fat) burning system. There is a second reason why becoming efficient at fat burning is important. The improvements in performance you can gain from increasing your ability to utilize fat for muscle contractions are huge compared to what you can expect from increasing carbohydrate-burning efficiency. Another way to think of it is that fat burning determines the size of your internal athletic engine. The more efficient you are at tapping into and utilizing fat reserves, the bigger your engine. Increasing your ability to burn carbohydrates only fine-tunes the engine. Most athletes focus their energies on fine tuning, usually because it's the speed work (anaerobic) sessions that make you feel like you've really worked hard. Aerobic fat burning sessions, on the other hand, often leave you feeling fresher at the end of the workout than at the beginning. Not a bad deal...you feel fresher and get faster at the same time!

How do you get faster if you are training at a heart rate below your maximum? Let me explain. Let's say that to contract one muscle cell, one fat molecule has to be broken down. And let's further say it takes one fat burning enzyme one second to break down that one fat molecule. In January, suppose you only have one of these fat-burning enzymes ready for action in your body. This means that every second you will be able to contract one muscle cell. Now let's assume that over the next several months you train every workout in the aerobic heart rate ranges, which will stimulate the production of more fat-burning enzymes. By March, you find that you now have a thousand fat burning enzymes available for fat metabolism. This means that every second you can now convert a thousand fat molecules into energy that in turn contract a thousand muscle cells every second. This translates into a faster athlete at the same heart rate. You have just become an enzymatic wonder! In the real world what this means is that in the beginning of the season at the high end of your aerobic heart rate range, the pace that you workout at may seem very, very slow. You might even have to walk up hills to keep your heart rate down. However, as your aerobic fitness improves, so will your pace. And so will your results! Prior to using a heart rate monitor, I was driven by the 'No Pain, No Gain' motto. I tried to go anaerobic at some point in almost every workout I did. When I first tried out a heart rate monitor, I was only able to run an 8:15 mile at my maximum aerobic heart rate of 155 beats per minute, which was almost three minutes a mile slower than I tried to average on my shorter anaerobic runs! How would it feel to you to slow down 3 minutes per mile? Probably pretty slow! I was aerobically very inefficient. But over time, my aerobic fitness improved. A year later I had increased the size of my internal engine and was running back down around 5:30 pace at the same 155 beats per minute heart rate!"

do you believe you got faster because you just run at 'x' HR or because you just ran more?

while I think it is important to train at a workload that allows you to to do more over time and consistent week in week out I don't believe in the whole 'base' training approach in which you limit your training intensity to one zone. i.e. I've been on a running cycle running and my easy pace (for those with HR is around zone 1) has dropped from 7 min/mile to 6:48 min/mile but I've been adding some intensity in the form of short threshold pace runs (zone 4), Tempo runs (zone 3) and I don't walk on hills . I know I've improved not necessarly because I've run at x or y pace; Ive improved because I've been running more than normal = more strain on my body producing more fitness

I really peaked with my running in the early part of last year and don't think I got any of "it" back after Boston until much later in the year.  It took me probably 6 months to get back down to a reasonable long run pace compared to where I was in March of last year.

But since ramping it up again in December I'm definitely back!!  Hitting my long runs in the low - mid 7's and today's tempo was a 6:32 average.

I'm following a very specific and structured marathon plan though, so it is not so much about base work for me as it is just shear volume and workout types.  Hell, I'm already over 200 miles this month and still have a week to go ........

'Base' does not necessarily equal low intensity/HR.  But it is certainly a good way rebuild volume after a layoff as it poses less risks.  And certainly for somebody with limited fitness.  But if you are limited by time, rather than fitness, then well-planned intensity may very well be a good addition to your base work.

Great advice and often easier said then done.

Last week I ran w/ a friend who is just faster than me. He's willing to hold back for the most part. When we came to the big climb (1/2 mile STEEP incline) I told him I was going to walk it. He kept going. That was fine.  Spiking my HR for that long was not the objective. 

Keep your eye on the prize. 

Both .......

The "accepted" standard is 3 quality runs a week to maintain, 4+ to improve.  And yes, the more consistent you are, the better over the long haul.

Fake legal disclaimer: "Results not typical for all participants.  Your results may vary."

I’ll post a follow up to this but I want to see what others think and because I need to go running ;)

From a marathoning standpoint (going by Pfitzinger-Douglas) your "base" can be thought of as the Phase I training where you are doing higher volumes at long run paces.  There will still be a day of tempo or stride work, but the focus of the phase is on big volume runs.  I've had 13 - 15 milers in the middle of the week with another long run on the weekend from 17 - 20.  Add in another 8 - 11 mile day for the tempo/stride stuff and you are already well above 40 miles in just 3 workouts.

As the training phases move on, those mid-week runs come down to more reasonable level and the focus becomes more on the higher intensity stuff but still have a decent long run on the weekend.

So for me, the "base" is really just the higher volume that you get in the early phases of training.  Having long runs basically forces you to run a slightly lower pace of course.

What about defining "base" as the "base" fitness required to jump into a race specific training period.

What I mean is to jump into week 1 of the Beginner IM plan here on BT you MUST have the "Base" to (at least with relative ease) complete 40 minute swim, 1.5 hour run, and 1.5 hour bike.

That has been my objective over the winter, to maintain that ability. Have not been real interested in gains. With that said, I did do some run intensity stuff to PR a 5 miler on New Years Day.

Thats my relatively inexperienced view.

I think you can find the definition in the same spot as "muscular endurance"

Shane

I think that too often people probably correlate their "base" with what really would be their "maintenance."

Articles/books always talk about improving and building the "base" over the winter, but really what most people are trying to do is just maintain their level of fitness from the previous season in my opinion.  And they think that occassional low intensity stuff will do that.

I like to think of the "base" as what I mentioned in my last post - the "base" is that higher volume focused work you do early in a training cycle.  Yes, most of it is lower intensity, but there is also a LOT of it, so your body is really pushed to the extreme from that perspective and by nature it cannot be in the higher intensity range and be sustained without the risk of injury.

What is that volume level for someone??  Totally varies based on their fitness and abilities, it will be different for everyone.  For me it means 50+ mile weeks for running and 300+ for riding (which I cannot do ...... it is either one or the other based on time constraints).  For others it would be different.

That's my take on what "base" means and how I approach it.  Not right, not wrong, just my way to utilize the word.

I think that's a pretty reasonable definition, but still leaves things open to a wide variety of training. 

My current "base" work includes quite a bit of intensity on the bike.  The idea is to prepare myself to be a stronger cyclist once I start training specifically for my races.  This may mean transitioning to lower intensity and more volume if I'm preparing to race long for example. 

If I were to try to maintain a "base" simply by piling on volume, I would be forced to ride much more than is practical for me at this time of year.

"Base" training for a triathlete could also include a focused sport block.  Within that block, you may be targeting a PB which requires various levels of intensity.  But the goal for the block is to raise your "base" fitness to a higher level so that when you begin your more balanced tri-specific training, you're starting from a higher level in that sport.

Again, one type of base training may be low intensity/HR.  But there are many other ways to prepare a base to build from into your racing season.

(Maybe because people who have a clue about what they are talking about are having the discussion).