Good morning!
It’s that time of the year. Football is over (Congrats to the Seattle Seahawks!) which usually means we’re heading into spring and trying to add more miles to our weekly schedule. I am a huge fan of building and or maintaining a solid base. Like most people, December was pretty busy for me with family visiting, but I rolled into January and February with one clear goal: Build that Base!
Why is base building important?
For the running nerds - most running events (10k to the marathon) are purely aerobic events. That means performance is largely determined by how well you can deliver and utilize oxygen over time. When you increase steady mileage at controlled efforts, you’re improving stroke volume, and increasing mitochondrial density. Those aren’t flashy changes, but they raise your aerobic ceiling. In simpler terms, you’re improving the engine that supports everything from threshold work to race pace and you want a big engine. Without that aerobic platform, workouts feel disproportionately hard because you’re operating closer to your max capacity all the time.
From an injury prevention perspective, base building allows for gradual adaptations to tendons, fascia, joint surfaces — they remodel in response to consistent, progressive loading. Base building provides that repeated, submaximal stimulus that encourages adaptation (improvement) without overwhelming the system. If you skip that phase and jump into intensity, the aerobic system might tolerate it for a few weeks. The connective tissue often won’t and that’s when you’re forced to take some time off or contact your favorite PT.
In practical terms, base building allows you to safely and consistently increase your mileage while building your aerobic capacity to prepare you for the harder workouts. It’s not meant to be overly exciting or sexy. Most strong half marathon or marathon performances in May or June are rooted in decisions made right now — consistent, controlled miles that didn’t feel heroic at the time.
My tips on base building
Consistency over ego days.
Commit to a realistic number of weekly runs and protect it. For a half marathon, that’s usually 3–4 days minimum. For a marathon, closer to 4–5. The key is consistency.Keep most miles truly easy with 1 harder session per week
Light tempo work or strides can maintain rhythm, but your base isn’t built at threshold. If every medium-long run drifts toward “moderately hard,” you’re accumulating fatigue, not fitness. I like to rotate through a mix of short fast 5k work (1-2 min repeats), some long runs that finish somewhat faster or 4-5 min half marathon repeats indexing higher on recovery.Increase mileage gradually.
Your aerobic system adapts faster than your connective tissues. Small, predictable increases allow tendons and fascia to adapt instead of react.Treat the long run as aerobic development, not a test.
You should finish with something left. Depletion every weekend usually signals you’re pushing too much right now. The hard part will come.Revisit the fundamentals.
Fueling. Sleep. Shoes. None are flashy, but all determine how well you absorb training.
Workout of the month
The Long Run
Nothing fancy this month.
If you’re building toward a late spring half marathon, a good goal right now is to gradually work your long run towards 8–10 miles. If you’re eyeing a marathon, that range might be 10–14 miles depending on your current base.
The key isn’t pace. It’s control. Run the first two-thirds at an honest conversational effort. Maybe bring a friend and an honest test would be carrying a conversation. Once or twice over 4-week period, you can let the final 20–30 minutes drift slightly quicker — not a race effort, just a steady progression. Think “comfortably steady,” not “digging.”
If you finish feeling like you could have kept going for another mile or two, that’s about right.
Athlete Spotlight
Congratulations to Payton on her recent half-marathon race. Payton ran 1:29:42 (6:51 avg/mile) and accomplished her goal of running sub 1:30. Nice job, Payton! The future remains bright!
Payton at the finish line!