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Should This Be Your Engine-Building Season?

Many readers may be recovering from their “big event” of the fall, perhaps the TC 10 Mile or Marathon. After taking a couple of weeks to recover and recharge, it’s natural to start to wonder, “what next?” The weather is still great for running and even when it does get colder, there’s no need to hibernate all winter long. Rather, it’s a great time to build up one’s overall fitness. The details of what that means may differ depending on your running history and goals. However, for most runners, it means focusing on long-term aerobic development.


People may refer to this as building their base or foundation. Those terms are helpful in capturing the fact that aerobic development is fundamental to success in distance running. But a base seems to me like a stationary, immutable sort of an entity. I prefer to think of this as a time to build a bigger aerobic engine. Regardless of what you want to call it, every distance runner wants to achieve this aim.


Rather than discuss specific types of workouts, etc. that can be implemented, I want to just talk about the two main variables that can be adjusted in any training period - volume (mileage) and intensity (pace). When building a base, some people ask, "is volume or intensity more important?" Like most questions related to training, it's not a simple either/or answer, but rather a balance. So let's talk about how increasing volume and/or intensity can be used in building that big engine that will keep you running strong for the months ahead.


Mileage. I will start with the obvious way to go about the job - increasing training volume, or weekly mileage. Of course, this should be done in a gradual, progressive manner, but especially for the runner in the first few years of their career, simply increasing volume in a reasonable manner can yield excellent results in developing the aerobic system. The time under task that higher mileage running requires leads to all sorts of positive adaptations and is an easily quantifiable way to build the engine. There is, however, an upper limit for the efficacy of this approach. If mileage is increased too quickly, or induces excessive fatigue and loss of quality of running, then it may be too much too soon. Patience and consistency are far more important here than what one can do in a single week. 


Pace. Any coach will tell you that not all mileage is the same. Even when it comes to steady aerobic runs, there's a difference between running 7 and 8 minutes per mile. Once an athlete has found a "sweet spot" for their mileage, where they are able to handle the volume without excessive fatigue, another variable to adjust is quality. I don't generally prescribe specific paces on normal distance run days, but usually over the course of the first few years of working with an athlete, we typically see that pace per mile move down, on average. It's worth emphasizing that this is not due to specifically targeting a faster pace on what is supposed to be a very controlled run. Rather, this should occur as athletes gain fitness, and naturally adjust down to faster paces as a reflection of that increased fitness.


While there's no "better" one of these two to targets for improvement, you may want to look at your own history to see where you have more room for growth. If you have done very low mileage but typically like to do everything fast, then you may benefit from laying off the throttle on your runs, but extending them longer. If you tend to do lots and lots of long, slow runs, you may benefit more from picking up the pace a bit and reducing the volume if necessary.


A little experimentation may be necessary, but it's worth it. Finding that sweet spot of a challenging but manageable level of both volume and intensity will lead to steady, sustainable fitness gains down the road.


This article originally appeared in the The Connection, TCM's weekly e-newsletter. Subscribe here. Find more Motion Expert content here.


Photo by Ben Garvin.


 

Chris Lundstrom, PhD, is a running coach and exercise scientist who specializes in endurance exercise performance. He is one of the team of Motion Experts TCM has gathered to help its subscribers and participants get the most out of their running. He coaches the Minnesota Distance Elite team and their squad of national class runners, including Olympian Dakotah Lindwurm. He teaches in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota, and also works with novice and high school runners. Follow and support MDE on their website: minnesotadistanceelite.com and on Instagram: @minnesotadistanceelite.

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