Pre-Basebuilding Training

Audio Transcript

Coach Tony: Hey everyone. I’m here with you for this latest episode of Extra Kick brought to you by Runners Connect. Thanks so much for joining me today.

If you have a question that you’d like one of our expert coaches to answer in an upcoming episode, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We’d love to help you train smarter and faster, so please don’t hesitate to ask whatever has you curious.

Today we have a question from Katie.

Katie: Hey guys. I’m here with a training question about base building and marathon specific training.

I just wrapped up summer and fall full of half marathons and am looking at a mid-summer fall marathon and wondering what do I do with the next three months or so before I start training for the marathon?

How long should my long runs be? What kind of speed work should I have? Should I have two or three quality work outs per week?

Should I keep my weekly mileage as I know it is probably very specific to individual runners. I’ve been maintaining mileage about 45 to 50 miles per week.

Looking at the winter ahead, I’m wondering what kind of running should I keep doing and how much running should I keep doing to maintain fitness and speed, looking forward to a July marathon? Thank you so much.

Tony: Excellent question and I think the most important thing to that you can take away from this podcast, in terms of the answer to this question is you can only train for so long not just physically, but from an emotional mental standpoint.

Let’s say that Katie’s race is about eight months away. You’re not going to be able to train at a high level for seven months and mentally still enjoy it.

After a few months, three months maybe four, you’re going to mentally be fried and that’s probably the most important thing to think of and something I think most people forget about. You want to go into a race wanting to do the race.

You want to realize you have that window of time to keep your mind fresh and engaged.

I’ve done plenty of races where I’ve gone into the race, trained so hard for so long that by the time the race comes around, I don’t want to do it.

I may be in the best physical shape, but because my mind’s not quite in the right place, I don’t race well.

There’s been some other races where I’ve just been so excited to do the race maybe my training is a little bit on the low end, but I just have an excellent race.

There’s something to be said about mentally being fresh and that’s the most important thing. Let’s say that you’re going to do maybe a three-month training cycle and by this, I mean long run build up.

If it’s three months and gives you two and a halfmonths pretty much of building your long run and then the last couple of weeks of just taper.

Before that three months maybe it’s a two-month period, you want to just builds build that base.

It’s not really focusing on long runs it’s just building that mileage base which for most people is probably going to be in the 25 to 30 miles over maybe five or six days.

You get comfortable building that base and fitness.

If you’re doing a long run I’d say the most it is ten miles. It’s nothing else you just use building that base, you’re enjoying it, keep in the mind fresh, nothing too stressful not really doing much.

Mileage is on the lower end for example 25 to 30 and that’s probably for somebody who’s maybe going to maybe build up to maybe 40-45 during training.

On frequency, you can do five days a week.

I’d really try during that pre-training phase to yourself two days off that will really keep that mind fresh. Think about that if you’re doing a base of 25 and you doing five days a week, that’s five miles each day.

If you’re going to do eight miles as your quote long run, that’s seventeen miles to get you over four days so that’s about four miles. That’s a nice easy base building.

No need for speed work out.

Remember this period before training, that last phase is that long run building. It’s really the marathon training prior to that is that base building is trying to increase a little bit mileage.

Build some of that fitness and you can prepare for that final phase.

The first phase is just to enjoy and have fun with it. Forget about speed work and keep that mind fresh.

If you do that for a couple of months now, maybe its February and March, you’re starting to build that base up a little bit more and then when you get into April, May, and June, then you start to do the long runs.

Incorporate some speed work, some fartlek, some pace, and work all those different things.

Right now, just enjoy it and keep that mind fresh. Like I said that’s probably the most important thing. Great question Katie and wish you best of luck with your race.

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I hope you have a great day and I will see you on the roads. Thanks everybody.