Weblogic

I recently came across this article thanks to athleticcoaching.ca.  The article was written by Chris Pilone who is New Zealands middle and long distance coach.  He provides a nice overview of training programs developed by three endurance coaching pioneer’s: 1.  Franz Stampfl, 2. Arthur Lidyard and 3. Frank Horwill.  All had major impacts on endurance coaching.

I’d like to focus on Lidyard since most of us are in our winter months and focusing on base training or at least some form of it.  Lidyard was one of the first to advocate a base training phase for his distance runner’s.  Although the training was adjusted for ability and experience, the concept was fairly similar:

Pilone writes: “Lydiard advocated a period of 10 to 12 weeks of long aerobic running to build a base.  Volume recommended was one hundred miles per week with one run a day at a good aerobic pace.  Contrary to popular opinion, this running wasn’t jogging but running at a pretty solid pace, depending on an athlete’s fitness and ability.”

Most of us will never reach 100 miles per week of running in our training, especially us triathlete’s.  However, we can apply the same principle.  The keys are mileage and strong aerobic pace.  Since Lidyard’s programs existed well before sport science quantified training zones, it is difficult to interpret what he actually meant by strong aerobic pace.  But there are some clues.  For one, it was a pace that one could handle every other day and maintain a sufficient weekly volume.  It was more important to push the volume than the intensity in the runs.  If one was tired, then the plan was simply to run slower.  Eventually an athlete clues in on what is too hard and what is too easy.

With the athlete’s I have worked with, from good age grouper’s to elite athlete’s, generally most workouts in high volume base weeks will be at a steady (factor 9 zone 3) or easier pace.  If an athlete is handling the weeks well, we will bump them into mod-hard training (zone 4).  A steady run for most experienced athlete’s is fairly easy to do for an hour.  However, when you add in steady swimming and especially steady biking and then more steady runs, they become quite difficult to do.  The goal in most of these athlete’s base training is to do as much high endurance and steady training as possible.  This is my equivalent to Lidyard’s strong aerobic pace.

You should not start your season out thinking this way unless you have year’s of quality training behind you.  Always apply the principle of progressive overload.  Start easier (light and endurance training), then build in steady efforts.  Eventually you can add more and more steady as you get fitter.

I strongly believe that base training should not be easy or light.  It may start out that way, but in order to benefit the aerobic system and your muscular endurance, it is important to create sufficient fatigue.

For those of us in a real winter that has the likes of ice and snow.  I will either put these types of weeks in spring or in your final build-up and that will depend on your experience with endurance training.  It is still base training, but, it is placed strategically to align with outdoor training opportunities.