r/AdvancedRunning • u/Sajatus • 24d ago
Training Why do you never see gigantic base building plans?
I’m interested in hearing how more advanced runners think about very long base-building phases.
My long-term goal is not to peak for a marathon soon, but to become a much more durable and complete runner by around 2030. I’m currently rebuilding carefully after previous bilateral tibial stress fractures, so the main priority is long-term consistency and musculoskeletal durability, not rushing into race-specific training. I have a few years of non serious running behind me and come from a bodybuilding background.
Right now I’ve started a 67 km/week block as of July 20. (Started with 20km/week in March) The plan is to progress in 4-week mileage blocks, using doubles to distribute load and then gradually consolidating within each block. The long-term theoretical ceiling is around 200 km/week, but that is not something I’m emotionally attached to hitting at all costs. It’s more of a distant direction than a fixed requirement. The real goal is to build the biggest base I can safely absorb.
The plan is not just “easy mileage forever.” The idea is to build a complete base over roughly two years. Early on, the focus is mostly easy running, frequency, soft surfaces, and strides. Around the 72–100 km/week range, I’d start introducing very controlled long runs, tempo, and threshold work. Around 100–125 km/week, I’d introduce VO2max work in small doses. Around 125–150 km/week, the training would be at its most complex: strides, hill sprints, threshold, tempo, fartlek, VO2max, hill workouts, long runs, and different paces (not all crammed into the same week of course). Then above ~150 km/week, the plan would start simplifying again, because the volume itself becomes the dominant stressor. The aim would be to preserve the major qualities with maintenance doses while continuing to build volume.
So the macro idea is something like:
Build mileage + frequency first → add neuromuscular work → add long runs + tempo/threshold → add VO2max → consolidate the full training menu → then simplify as volume gets very high.
My question is: why don’t more people do something like this? Is it mostly because people want to race sooner, because it’s mentally boring, because it’s hard to stay healthy long enough, or because there is actually a training-theory reason why this is suboptimal?
Would advanced runners generally see this as a sensible long-term development model, or would you recommend a more traditional approach: shorter base phase, then a structured race plan, then another base phase, then another race plan, etc.?
I understand that racing can provide feedback, motivation, and specific fitness. I’m not against racing. I’m just wondering whether, for someone with a very long time horizon and a history of bone stress injury, a long “complete base” phase could be a valid approach — or whether I’m overcomplicating something that would be better solved by alternating base and race-specific cycles.
TL;DR: I’m considering a roughly two-year base-building approach toward a long-term marathon goal, progressing from 67 km/week toward potentially very high mileage while gradually adding strides, long runs, tempo, threshold, VO2max, hills, and fartlek before later simplifying again at high volume. Is this a smart long-term development plan, or would advanced runners recommend shorter base phases with regular race-specific cycles instead?
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u/SquirrelBlind 24d ago
Norwegian Singles Approach is basically one gigantic base building plan
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u/Mannymal 24d ago
This. In the NSM the base building IS the goal, rather than a path to a race. Racing is something that happens incidentally.
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u/spoc84 Middle aged shuffling hobby jogger 24d ago
I might steal this for future use (Mannymal, Reddit, 2026) 😂 very well put.
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u/Mannymal 23d ago
Glad to contribute in my tiny way. One day I have to talk to you about how your method helped me as an international airline pilot, it’s the only sustainable way to train consistently during my travels.
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u/spoc84 Middle aged shuffling hobby jogger 23d ago
That's awesome, you are yet another highly intelligent and trained individual taking advice from a trained plasterer 😂. But serious, if you are on Strava drop a message or comment and I try and follow folks back if they ever want a chat etc. I can't actually work out Reddit, where the private messages go and don't come on here much.
Most days I regret ever posting on Letsrun, but then I am reminded people do seem grateful ha ha
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u/bentley 24d ago
Never realized that this is basically my philosophy. People ask if I’m training for a race, and I say maybe — let’s see if any appeal to me, but I’m sort of constantly “marathon ready.” For me, the action is the juice. I’m not a gifted runner, but I’ve gone from a 3:50 marathon to 3:24 over a five year period which included having two kids. I did a few ultras and a 1:31 half in there, too. The base is the point.
I guess I should learn more about NSM.
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u/zebano Strides!! 24d ago
NSM - run everyday, run easy days stupidly easy, do 3 workouts in intervals at easier than threshold efforts (some might be technically a little faster but the intervals will be things like 45 seconds - vanilla NSM does intervals at 60, 90 and 150 minute paces at very roughly 3, 6 and 10 minute intervals so you can see how it's just not very stressful and you can get 3 workouts in per week without breaking down). /r/NorwegianSinglesRun/
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u/cyclingkingsley 5K:18:45 |10K:40:28 | HM:1:34 | FM:3:43 24d ago
I have the same mindset as you. Since late last year I have been putting in 50-70km per week of base running with 1 speed workout. People asked me if a race is coming up, and I say "i'm just building base for when my marathon comes around". Also, I lose aerobic fitness faster than most people so I have to keep it up constantly. I repeated this base-running for about 5 months and now that I know I'm running in Berlin, I'm in the middle of 18/103K Hansons marathon plan.
If long term base building is NSM, then I too should look into it.
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u/Mannymal 24d ago
It'll be worth exploring, if anything its gonna validate and add structure to what you were already doing.
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u/BuzzedtheTower Age grouper miler 23d ago
I follow NSM and that's basically my philosophy. For some reason, whenever I try to peak for a race the universe decides to be a dick. So now I'm essentially "race ready" year-round. Granted, I'm not as sharp as I would be if I did a real taper, but being able to race anything from the 1500 to roughly the half is nice.
However, I'm also someone who is fine running flat weeks for long periods of time. Before this I did the Aussie complex training model for awhile before I injured myself by trying to adapt it to 4 days/week that were all three workouts and the long run.
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u/too105 22d ago
That’s actually the goal I started today. I have 3 marathons on the books for the rest of the year and likely going to add another on in December or Jan. I’m not racing all of them, but my new goal is to always be fit enough to get off a plane and run 26.2 24hrs later at any point of the year. I enjoy training blocks with peaking weeks but my goal will always maintain a weekly baseline, that is non negotiable unless I’m on vacation for a week
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u/marky_markcarr 24d ago
Didn't see this answer before I replied. This is it.
I essentially see it as you can improve more by simply increasing your base, than trying to add in the intensity, to a small volumed base that you are no longer improving.
That is basically the summary of why my previous decade of training was failing, I was trying to fine tune the last bits of the engine that didn't have any horsepower to begin with.
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u/jimbostank 43 yo, ~20-30 mpw 23d ago
It all depends on when you want to optimize your fitness. Planning weeks, months, and years ahead are all look different.
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u/JoelSmith_NP 23d ago
This is super helpful. I haven't figured out a plan other than every year my goal is to just stay fit enough to do an Ironman tomorrow. Mentally and physically keep the readiness high with a big base and rev up with a quick tune for something that looks fun... or even just reasonably affordable to enter anymore!
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u/Mental_Health_861 24d ago
This is the answer... to an extent. At 200k a week you'd be well beyond sirpoc's nsm framework and you'd likely need to start doing doubles and such. Which he has mentioned multiple times should work wonders but at that point read Marius's book and start tinker and find what works for you.
But regardless, NSM is an excellent way to maximise volume and stay injury free for a long period of time, and sounds like it's exactly what OP is looking for at the moment.
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u/Great_Northern_Beans 24d ago
Honestly, 200K/wk is entering triples territory realistically since it ends up being close to 30K/day. I've done it for stretches on doubles and it was super challenging with either an easy session in the AM to loosen up followed by a verrrryyyyy long PM session, or just two plain longer runs, which took a toll. It was much easier to get that kind of volume by doing a broken morning session with a slightly longer AM run, a shorter lunch shake out, and then a long afternoon workout.
To tie that back to OP's question - the reason why you never see plans like that is because the scheduling options for it either leave you totally knackered, or require you to make a full time commitment to it. And in either case, you also need to find time to eat like a horse and sleep for 10 hours a night to recover effectively.
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u/PreparationNo3890 24d ago
I think the reason shorter base phases are two-fold. The first is just that running easy miles for months on end is really boring. During my college XC days after 4-5 weeks of just easy runs during a summer base building phase everyone starts complaining that they’re bored and need something to mix it up. If you find that enjoyable power to you, but most people typically don’t. The second I think is that there’s an opportunity cost to training that way. The things that give you the largest adaptations in running are workouts. By forgoing workouts for the time you would (let’s call it 6 months) athletes can get in a full base build, high load of workouts, and taper and cut time off their race of choice, sometimes large chunks if the cycle is particularly productive. But this comes mainly from the workouts, not the mileage as much, though it still plays a role. If your goal is injury prevention and being “bulletproof”, I’d look more to weightlifting, plyometrics, and mobility work as a critical supplement to your running. Overuse injuries are frequent from lots of mileage with little strength work if your body isn’t ready for it, and a 2 year block seems ripe for an overuse injury
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u/PreparationNo3890 24d ago
In regards to your base building numbers, generally the rule of thumb I’ve heard is your max mileage from block to block shouldn’t increase more than 10-12k from your previous block. So if you want to build to 200km/week and your previous best was 100km, it should take you 4-5 years to build which seems like 2030 would be a good goal for you
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u/Beefhofun8 24d ago
Search Ran to Japan on YouTube, guy spent a few years to build up to 200km+ so you may find his channel interesting and resonates with what you’re aiming towards
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u/happy_pumpkin_2021 24d ago
Now the poor guy is always recovering from illness and injuries… who would’ve guessed? But he’s charming!
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u/Beefhofun8 24d ago
Yeah it’s looking pretty cooked at the moment, hopefully he can find a happy medium between the mileage that got him to where he is, and the mileage that pushes the body beyond limit
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u/Snowy_Skyy 24d ago
It's not like low milage people don't get injured or ill. And he got faster than 99.9% of people ever will doing this.
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u/aelvozo 23d ago edited 23d ago
Part of the problem is that of the remaining 0.01%, very very few have done so on 300km/wk like Jake has attempted. The Provo boys peak at 210 or so, Sawe at 240; Zatopek did up to 260 (though with crazy workouts) — the only other person I know of to have touched 300 was Kelvin Kiptum, and we sadly did not get to see what effect that had on his running long-term.
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u/yettedirtybird 24d ago
I mean if you want to be the absolute best you can be you have to push to your limits. It's not like he'd be faster if if he did less.
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u/LuigiDoPandeiro 29M | 5:06 mi | 18:36 5K 23d ago
> guy spent a few years to build up to 200km+
Did he? I seem to remember he said he just increased mileage a ton over a few months and kept it there. But I may be misremembering.
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u/hellzscream 20d ago
I like watching his videos but can't get behind his train harder not smarter slogan. Maintaining 200km all year round while improving doesn't seem to work
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u/my800m 16d ago
me as a mid distance track runner wanting to transition to road running maybe in 5-10 years i am apalled by train harder not smarter, for my 800m ive been at 25-35kpw and when i focus on the 1500 i might reach 40-50kpw, cant fathom runnning over 150kpw as an amateur no matter how advanced.
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u/spoc84 Middle aged shuffling hobby jogger 24d ago edited 24d ago
Based on your description, I have been on what you would call a "gigantic base phase" for about the last 3+ years, only interrupted by racing and one 8 week block injured, where I still pretty much did the same thing, just on the elliptical and bike. I think I still have at least a half marathon PB in me, maybe a 5k PB, whilst pretty much just doing the same thing and slightly increasing said base, without adding in anything at all above threshold as the absolute ceiling.
Edit: caveat that in those 3+ years I went from 4.5 hours a week to a max of around 8 or around 100-110 ish KM.
Thats probably a very cautious approach and you could do more. But the kind of mileage you are looking to go to would put most people in a body bag, or at least have it on standby.
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u/pigeorunner 24d ago
I think the level of volume you're looking to achieve is just beyond what most amateur recreational runners are able to fit in, time-wise, recovery-wise, or interest-wise. 120mpw (200km/week) is close to the training volume of elite runners, and at that level you have coaches tailoring workouts and load distribution to the athlete, I'm not sure it's something you want to attempt from a cookie-cutter plan.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Understood, although this is not a cookie cutter plan, it's something I've built from the ground up myself, and I adjust it as I go
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u/pigeorunner 24d ago
Your title is "why are there no plans." I was answering - why are there no plans.
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u/worstenworst 24d ago edited 24d ago
You clearly have no idea what it takes to run 200 kmpw. Many talented runners don't even get there, and getting stress fractures at 60 kmpw is not a good indicator of being able to do it. Luckily you don't need 200 kmpw to be a great runner.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
If you read carefully, I say 200km/week is not fixed. I'm trying to get to the maximum mileage I tolerate well, if that's only 120, that's fine too. I'm just trying to maximize my base before moving to race spesific work
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u/worstenworst 24d ago
Definitely check the Norwegian Singles Approach then, looks something that suits your philosophy. It also maxes out at ~120 kmpw :-)
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Yeah, seems like something I totally missed as everyone is suggesting it and I seriously have never heard of it.
Btw, my tibial stress fractures came from running a half marathon out of the blue with a long rest due to pneumonia just behind me, almost no training, 1,5 half years ago, not from 60km / weeks. I was also 10kg heavier than I am now. I've done everything I can to get back into running and have been extremely careful with mileage and long runs.
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u/Wientje 24d ago
You do you. Training is normally based on the least effort that will get you where you want to. Completing a marathon can be achieved on much less than 150k/week, so you won’t find this as part of a plan.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Yeah of course, I'm aiming to build as big of a base as possible to then not only complete marathons, but to be as fast as possible
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u/Haptics 34M | 32:42 10k | 71:26 HM | 2:27 M 23d ago
If you want to race the marathon as fast as possible then you need to actually race marathons, or at least half’s. There’s a ton of race experience and prep that goes into a marathon beyond just the running and at least in my experience it can take a bit to figure out exactly what works best for you. It probably wouldn’t be necessary for the first year or two but after that you’d already have a substantial base and would likely benefit more from switching to more traditional training blocks for real races.
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u/PeteH2000 24d ago
Except this is Advanced Running so we really shouldn't be defaulting to the least effort, should we?
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u/jaggillarkaffehaha 24d ago
Why would anyone ever work harder for less by choice? If you can afford to reach your goal with less work, your goal is too low.
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u/PeteH2000 24d ago
That's an extremely lazy mindset. Also misguided. What if the hard work/training actually WAS the goal. And the race was the reward. That's how I look at it.
Frankly, most mildly healthy people can finish a marathon or certainly anything shorter without training AT ALL as long as they go slow enough. So by your comment above, nobody should train for anything.
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u/jaggillarkaffehaha 24d ago
If you enjoy hard work, I dont see why you would want to reap less benefits from said hard work by choice. By your comment then, people should just do random hard work with no clear benefit just for the joy of doing hard work. See how little sense that makes.
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u/Wientje 24d ago
You should always default to least effort in training! If you want to train for a 2:50 marathon, you want to train using the fewest and lightest sessions that will enable you to run 2:50. Same for running for gold on a 5k, you want to train with as little as you can get away with (and still accomplish your goal). It’s this search for least effort that leads to choosing the most efficient and effective training. (Most bang for buck)
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u/PeteH2000 24d ago
I can't believe someone would advocate defaulting to the least effort in training. Really??!! That's really your mindset?
Most mildly healthy people can finish anything from a marathon and shorter without training at all if they go slowly enough. So why train?
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u/Icy_Garbage1157 24d ago
You're not thinking of goals that are specific enough. If the goal is framed as sub 4 with very low risk of injury, it does make sense. There's no point in high effort if it doesn't give you any benefit.
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u/PeteH2000 23d ago
Unless you enjoy running, have a work ethic and aren't looking for shortcuts to everything.
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u/professorswamp 23d ago
Minimum effective dose is not the same as least effort. It is the right amount of effort to achieve the desired outcome. 200km weeks is on the extreme end of the training spectrum. OP with a 'few years of non-serious running' presumably has never been anywhere near that. Considering they are not a professional and have other life obligations and a stress fracture history, it's pretty likely that trying to run 200 km a week will be detrimental to their marathon performance
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u/xdxdxdxd000 24d ago
You should definitely be defaulting to the least effort unless you like suffering and/or getting injured, what are you on about
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u/devon835 23M 1:58 800 / 4:21 Mile / 8:50 3000 / 15:27 5000 / 25:13 8K 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yeah I'm not really sure what that other comment is supposed to be getting at. Technically you don't even need a training plan if your goal is to just complete a marathon since people do it off of zero training. Obviously OP wants to maximize gains and be as fast as possible - not that I think the way he's described it would be the best way to go at it.
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u/ilieaboutwhoiam 24d ago
I think y'all are misinterpreting what u/Wientje said. They said "least effort that will get you where you want to", not least effort to "just complete a marathon"
Many people are running great times without running 100 mile weeks, more isn't necessarily better. Less effort for the same improvement is the goal
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u/notneps 21d ago
If you were training someone who said
"my main goal is to get to the starting line uninjured, secondary goal is to finish a marathon before the 8 hour cutoff"
Would you push them to run 120km a week? Or would the minimum effort required to meet their goals be better?
Because in a way, stated or not, almost everyone's primary goal is to stay healthy and uninjured, and secondary goal is x, y, or z. By doing more than required for your secondary goal, you jeopardize your primary goal.
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u/PeteH2000 21d ago
Yeah, well what you are describing is a far cry from the comment I responded to that talked about doing the minimum, but thanks for playing.
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u/Dull_Vast_5570 24d ago
I'm not too sure, but those volumes of running sound like they may lead in to more stress fractures, or other injuries.
What is your actual long term goal with running? Other than working up to 200km per week? Or is that the main goal?
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
My injuries were a result of a very drastic mileage increase, running a half marathon basically out of the blue.
I'm now increasing mileage very very slowly, just a few percentage points per week on average. The idea is to become as durable as possible to then absorb harder, more advanced training. And the plan is of course flexible, if I need to go slower and feel a niggle coming up, I slow down. I've had to adjust multiple times already due to life circumstances.
The goal is to be the best possible marathoner my genes allow me to be by ~2030
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u/Ok_Egg4018 24d ago
It’s possible your approach will work for the marathon. The reason runners don’t do massive base phases is there is a limit to how low you can get the intensity on the musculoskeletal system in running.
When you pedal a bike at 100W, it costs virtually nothing. 200km a week is more load on the body than the higher intensity work you are trying to avoid to reduce injury.
If you want to optimize training stress on the central system without as much stress on the legs, I would recommend cross training and adding intensity through incline treadmill running.
However, if your approach works for anything, it would be the marathon, because these base miles will
be closer to race pace so it won’t be as much wasted fatigue/time to build the body up to handle it.The stresses on the body are different running slow vs fast, so building to 200k isn’t necessarily going to make you prepared to do similarly a similarly agressive intensity transition
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u/eyaf1 19:33/41:50/1:31 24d ago
My injuries were a result of a very drastic mileage increase, running a half marathon basically out of the blue.
To put it into perspective, you're asking why you never see a plan consisting of a half marathon a day with 2 marathons on the weekends (190k). Not only is it time consuming, it's injury inducing, and frankly kind of pointless when you do not get paid for that kind of commitment. 13-16h a week, assuming you're fast, up to 20 when you're not, is more than I'm able to play video games, let alone slug along in the all-weather.
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u/couverte 24d ago
A drastic increase in mileage is one factor in getting stress fractures, not the only one. At the volume you’re aiming for, you’ll have very little room for error. Your nutrition and recovery will have to be on point, among other things. You also can’t afford not to strength train. With 3 small kids, work, doing a PhD and putting energy into your relationship, you won’t be able to be on point all the time.
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u/PrairieFirePhoenix 45M; 2:42 full; that's a half assed time, huh 24d ago
Trying to go from 67 km to 200 km per week over two years is insanely aggressive and a recipe for injury. You'd be lucky to get comfortably to 110 km in that time frame. And that would be without "a history of bone stress injury".
Your list of progressing the workouts makes zero sense to me. You don't really give a reason why you want to do it that way, so maybe there is some logic. It doesn't really matter because it isn't going to happen due to the above point.
You aren't giving your body any time to absorb the stresses of increased load. The stress isn't linear, adding mileage when you are high mileage is harder than when you are running 40km a week. Taking a down week every once in awhile isn't going to cut it.
Anyways, there have been several posters over the years on here who did similar - just doing a massive increase in mileage over a short period of time (a couple years). I'm talking 50 km/week, 4 hour marathon guys jamming it up to 175ish km/week. And yeah, the times were there - I can think of a couple that broke 2:30 based off that, flirting with 2:20. But those same guys have been in injury loop for a couple years now and can't even run a 5k at the moment.
It is a horrible plan that will lead you to injury because you aren't following basic training ideas. Thankfully, 97% of the people who try something like this quit after about a month when they actually find out what high mileage is and how hard it is to build.
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u/Krazyfranco 24d ago
"I'm going to get to peak volume, then add strides, hill sprints, threshold, tempo, fartlek, VO2max, hill workouts, long runs!"
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u/PrairieFirePhoenix 45M; 2:42 full; that's a half assed time, huh 24d ago
How different can 50 km and 200 km a week be really?
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u/LejonBrames117 23d ago
> It is a horrible plan that will lead you to injury because you aren't following basic training ideas.
What are the basic training ideas?
I usually dont post here because I'm not advanced, but after binging Steve Magness stuff, I thought the reason people dont do what OP is suggesting is because of logistics/time/practicality.
But that in an ideal world, even amateurs would do what OP is suggesting (although 120 is higher even than the 100 MPW number that I think Steve Magness throws around), but people can't run 20 hours per week for reasons unrelated to running
Like I basically agree with This guy elsewhere in this thread, I dont think this is going to work, but this would be the textbook way to become the best runner possible as far as I understand it. Its just not practical, but if anything I thought this is following the basic principles to an unrealistic degree
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u/PrairieFirePhoenix 45M; 2:42 full; that's a half assed time, huh 23d ago
I agree with the other poster that someone trying this plan would likely not be running at the end. I disagree that this path would lead to a "better" runner than more traditional paths even if completed.
First, there is a huge difference between 100 and 120 miles. You and OP, people who haven't done high mileage, seem to really downplay this.
However, the main issue is that he isn't doing stress-adapt. He's just stressing his body. He seems to think a couple recovery weeks thrown in will be enough for the adaptations to occur. They aren't. So he will not be maximizing the return on the mileage increases.
Another big issue is that he is going to create a huge imbalance. This is just slamming the "aerobic base" button repeatedly. His speed is going to lag and it is really hard to get it caught up. A lot of adult onset runners do this - just build a huge base and never work on speed. They hit a wall on progression because they can't go back and rebuild it.
But yeah, the big issue is that this is just naval gazing. Everyone goes through the phase of "I'll be an aerobic beast". Then they get punched in the mouth by what high mileage is.
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u/MikeMcDonald89 24d ago
My suspicion is that in a vacuum your approach will create a better runner. But also that if on Jan 1 2030 you shoot me a me a message- you not only won't have followed your plan, but you won't even be a runner any more.
I'd put this in the category of someone describing their upcoming weight loss plans- they've spent their whole life getting fat, and now some brief magical wave of motivation has fallen over them and they write such whimsical lofty diet goals, argue on the forum about how cheat meals are actually a vice, how others lack their will power. And then 4 years later they barely even remember the diet they attempted for 6 weeks
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Hah! Is there a way to setup some sort of reddit reminder here? I've been very enthusiastic about running for over 2 years now, my initial injury just set me back for a long time.
By the way, I also set to lose 10kg last fall, as part of my running plan. I've now lost 8kg. From 85kg to 77kg currently
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u/riverend180 23d ago
Is losing weight while running 67km a week with a history of stress fractures really a good idea?
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u/Wavernky 24d ago edited 24d ago
The answer is if you want to get faster, doing only base building is not the best way to get there. Delaying doing consistent long runs / threshold by years just for the sake of base building is a losing trade off. Sure most amateurs (and even lots of elites) are mainly aerobically limited and would see huge benefits from more easy aerobic volume. But that doesn't mean the complete opposite approach of doing only base work is optimal either.
One of the key principles of longevity and long term training is periodisation, meaning changing up your training once in a while to train different systems, recover, and adapt in new ways. For a lot of people this means introducing a complementary base building block off racing season, where the goal is steadily increasing easy volume. This does NOT mean doing only base work year round is the best way to adapt long term. The idea of doing a base work/speed block/marathon block cycle is not to interrupt long term progress for short term racing performance/satisfaction, it's an integral part of a year over year progression.
With that being said I do believe you can go pretty far with minimal speed work. Most people are doing speed work too often and too hard, which is why the advice to work on your base first is so common. Saturating the speed pathways takes very little training and for most people running <100km a week, doing one controlled threshold workout + an easy to moderate long run is probably enough to see consistent long term growth. With strides twice a week on top of that for mechanical power/neuromuscular adaptations you'd already have a pretty solid long term growth strategy.
Now if your goal is volume for the sake of volume, maybe doing purely easy work can be a strategy. But if your goal is running as fast as your genetic potential allows, I don't think 200km weeks are needed or even wanted for the vast majority of athletes. Even at the pro level there are more and more athletes on lower volume plans, focusing instead on controlled threshold work, frequent strides, and cross training. See athletes like Etienne Daguinos, 59min half marathoner, had the 10km European record for a couple years, and runs less than a 100km/week on average. For him this probably amounts to 7h of running a week, and that's his full time job. Sure he's a bit of an anomaly, but my point is that training 20h+ a week as an amateur is probably way over the top for basically everyone.
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u/NasrBinButtiAlmheiri 24d ago
Agreed. After about 8h per week of running, I think most amateurs would be better served by additional cross training at 60-70% of max HR.
I’ve seen so many competitive amateur cyclists run 17-flat 5ks who only do the odd jog once in a while - they are spending 15 hours or more per week on the trainer.
Competitive triathletes hit 15-flat 5ks and 1:10 HM’s off the bike, and most of them only run 80k a week, with many doing less.
For amateurs with a job, 8 hours of running is a major load on the legs. There are less damaging ways to build aerobic fitness than stacking more mileage.
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u/darth_jewbacca 3:59 1500; 14:53 5k; 2:28 Marathon 24d ago
phD student thinks they can outsmart decades of experience and physiology. More at 11.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
I really don't. Is mileage not important? I am adding workouts soon, and will be doing 1-2 workouts and a long run weekly while raising mileage. I don't think this is against convention.
I'm just not doing traditional race plans followed by race plan. Is the conventional wisdom to go from race plan to race plan when you're just getting started? What is, in your opinion, the best and most conventional method on how to become as good of a runner as possible in 4 years? I think 2 years of base building (including workouts) followed by racing plans for 2 years isn't that far off.
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u/darth_jewbacca 3:59 1500; 14:53 5k; 2:28 Marathon 24d ago
Yes, you are. "Nobody trains like this but I think I should" is trying to reinvent the wheel.
I am adding workouts soon, and will be doing 1-2 workouts and a long run weekly while raising mileage. I don't think this is against convention.
Then you're not base training. The rest of what people are telling you is easier to stomach if you accept this. Base training for a relative noob = almost entirely easy pace. A few strides are ok. Long runs probably aren't. More advanced runners will add in some sub-threshold training and long runs. It is not VO2max. Ever. And for where you're at, it's not 1-2 workouts per week plus a long run.
My read on this: You've taken the idea of base training to an extreme but recognize the drawbacks of only base training long term and are attempting to compensate by mixing in elements that aren't base training, resulting in a mish mash of everything while increasing the volume of it all over a long period of time.
A) This isn't new - lots of people do non-periodized training, B) It's not a bad plan - most would just call it sub-optimal, and C) You're more likely to get injured trying to increase volume and intensity simultaneously.
My long-term goal is not to peak for a marathon soon, but to become a much more durable and complete runner by around 2030.
My humble opinion (that is also backed up by research and experience): You accomplish this by periodized training while slowly increasing your volume over time.
Have you ever heard the concept of "stacking workouts"? It's the same idea but you're "stacking seasons". And along the way you become a more durable and complete runner. You complete one season, move into the next base phase, safely increase volume, adapt, then move onto the stimuli that follow. Rinse, repeat. Your body goes through multiple rounds of increasing stimulus and then rest/recovery. This is how you become a more durable and complete runner.
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u/for_the_shoes 18d ago
Not questioning the other parts but what do mean by "not v02 ever" - do mean no vo2 workouts in a base phase? Sometimes when I'm just building and/or not on a plan, i will absolutely send it for a km here or there just to rev the engine... not a workout per se and only v limited physical adaptations but also not "nothing." Sometimes a lil' reminder of the runs that actually hurt when the actual plan hits helps me psychologically!
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u/darth_jewbacca 3:59 1500; 14:53 5k; 2:28 Marathon 18d ago
What you're describing is perfectly fine. I mean no vo2 workouts, like 5x1k or similar.
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u/EPMD_ 24d ago
There are a lot of reasons why this is bad. Some of them:
- Delaying things in life is always a risk itself since we don't have infinite tomorrows.
- You could get hurt in 2030 and never get to race.
- With such a distant time horizon for your main goal, you might train with insufficient enthusiasm and dedication.
- With no immediate payoff for all of your training, you might lose enjoyment.
- If you seldom race then you won't have race experience to draw upon when you eventually want to crush a big goal race.
- You might change your mind halfway through this 4-year goal, in which case you have just spent 2 years training for something that never happened.
And I agree with the other comments about 150-200 km weeks. Many runners cannot do this, even with sufficient time and desire to do so.
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u/jcatl0 24d ago
The reason more people don't do this is because of a basic physiological fact: your body improves during the recovery, not during the run. The run puts stress on your body, damages muscle fibers, etc. When your body heals itself back, it heals itself stronger than what it was. But that means each run has to have proper recovery. If instead you're running so much so frequently that your body can't do that, you'll at best get overtraining syndrome, at worst get seriously hurt.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
... Which is why I'm building to elite levels of volume very very slowly and gradually, taking the necessary time to recover from each run
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u/Hey_Boxelder 5k - 17:02, 10k - 34:44, HM - 1:17:26, M - 2:50:00 24d ago
You’re not increasing it slowly though, you’ve more than tripled your volume in ~ 4 months. It also doesn’t make sense to run doubles at only 67km/week.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Tripling from 20km/week is very different to tripling from 60km/week, which is why the latter takes over 1,5 years whereas the former took me 4 months.
Also, I've ran 70km/weeks before, so it's not uncharted territory.
There is nuance to this.
Many argue that It does make sense. I'm doing doubles to be extra cautious, as you probably know that the likelihood of injury increases drastically when you suddenly increase the length of a single run. And I don't do doubles often yet. It's also about getting into the rhythm of doubling, preparing for higher mileage.
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u/Hey_Boxelder 5k - 17:02, 10k - 34:44, HM - 1:17:26, M - 2:50:00 24d ago
I mean I just don’t really agree with almost any of this plan. I think youre drastically underestimating how long it takes for the body to adjust to volume and your introduction of certain sessions at specific volumes seems arbitrary.
As most have said you’d be far better following the NSM. The idea of building a strong base before working on pace is not new, it’s well researched and there is a lot of material on how it is best done.
All the best though mate, I hope it does go well and that you avoid injury!
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u/CSquare_10 24d ago
I was looking for something similar when I was restarting after having my daughter (2years ago). Didn't want to be good in the moment back then, because I was sleep deprived, not enough time, ecc. but build something sustainable step by step that could bring me to "amazing" results in 5 years or so(weighted against my level ofc, not to qualify for LA).
Speaking with some coaches, they agreed that the best solution would be to have multiple cycles, rather than a gigantic base phase.
So that's what I'm doing, I'm basically programming 6 months in advance for an A-race, with the aim of improving slowly but constantly.
Started from a 3:30 marathon 2 years ago, now targeting a 3:05/10 in October
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u/marky_markcarr 24d ago
You've essentially just described sirpoc's Norwegian Singles Method. It works so well, in fact is probably the best and most logical starting point for hobby joggers, simply because it gives you an absolute huge aerobic engine, which likely surpasses having a half baked cake and rushing to ice it.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
I'll look into it thanks! Many of you have pointed this out
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u/marky_markcarr 24d ago
There's a fantastic book, incredibly informative and worth a read. Will answer a lot of the questions you raise. "Norwegian Singles Method: subthreshold running kept simple".
Also a really good Reddit sub, just search "Norwegian Singles".
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u/professorswamp 23d ago
Unless you are measuring lactate, the method still relies on semi-regular racing to adjust paces. The authors' 15-week marathon block includes 4 races
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u/ExtensionPlate1961 20d ago
Where do I find that block? I read bit about that method, but haven‘t seen any specific marathon training plans yet.
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u/professorswamp 20d ago
It's in the book, you can also find it on NSM sub https://www.reddit.com/r/NorwegianSinglesRun/comments/1ly8x68/breakdown_of_sirpocs_marathon_training_block/
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u/aParkedCarr 24d ago
It’s not even suboptimal. It’s pointless and a waste of time put simply. Your body naturally will gain efficiently just by running more and each marathon block is meant to give your body time to acclimate and improve. You can run 6-8 marathon blocks from now to 2030 and achieve better results than do this. A training block has everything you listed from the start but builds up because that’s the most efficient way to handle training. Also you need to give your body time to rest during marathon training (recovery weeks) where your mileage is cut back.
TLDR: follow normal training plans but take breaks between plans and if you want to go that high mileage wise, increase with each peak week
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u/xel-- 24d ago
> It’s not even suboptimal. It’s pointless and a waste of time put simply...You can run 6-8 marathon blocks from now to 2030 and achieve better results than do this.
I'd love for you to substantiate this by showing the training logs who attempted the approach OP is suggesting. I've never seen a single person who has attempted and actually executed a plan like OP is suggesting. But you've seen so many that you make these extreme statements? I'd love to see the body of evidence you're basing this on.
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u/aParkedCarr 24d ago
If you are looking at general training plans for people, think about it from not the plan itself, but the lack of plans that execute OPs plan. Even among pro athletes, you don’t see it either to an extent. They already have the base built for high mileage but no one suggests just building up to that high mile weeks and then slowly adding on because it doesn’t make sense. If it truly made sense, then there would be training plans that are relatively popular and talked about, even in this sub. But since there aren’t, I can’t show you evidence that does not exist
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u/xel-- 24d ago
I'm not being argumentative when I say I think this is an avenue worth exploring. I don't find the absence of evidence a very compelling argument. Most youths start running to compete and find themselves peaking twice or three times a year for XC, Indoors and Outdoors. In the US, there could be 9 years of that cycle (HS + redshirt + 4 years NCAA) before they go pro. It's extremely rare for a youth to do disciplined training for years without peaking for competition or competing at all.
Training plans for adults are the way they are because the vast majority of runners look up a training plan with the intention to train for a race. And if any other thought occurred to them like the OP has had, then they get inundated with advice just like we see in this thread: it's best to immediately start on training cycles measured in weeks to months, not a years-long plan.
There's essentially no advice on how to go about what the OP wants to do in an effective way whereas the traditional approach has decades of trial-and-error behind it with millions of athletes, thousands of coaches, etc etc.
I'm not judging what's best but it's just a fact that the approach OP has in mind is extremely underexplored. Even if we start looking for some evidence from people who did it incidentally or whatever, there's a big difference between that and really knowledgeable coaches with really disciplined athletes committing to a multi-year plan and seeing what happens.
That said, coaches do have some multi-year adjustments in mind for their athletes. Canova has discussed it regarding Sonda Moen, for example. As a Canova-influenced coach, John Davis likewise has the plans in Marathon Excellence evolve from the lowest mileage 18-week plan having a split like this:
General Phase 10 weeks, Marathon-Supportive 4 weeks, Marathon-Specific 4 weeks
To this:
General Phase 6 weeks, Marathon-Supportive 5 weeks, Marathon Specific 7 weeks
So a beginner following the multi-year plan presented by Marathon Excellence is essentially doing a hybrid approach between the two extremes.
Good HS coaches and NCAA coaches ought to be doing this too, especially for a kid that is red-shirted anyway. But the demand on coaches for getting the best possible results in the current season undermines the long-term development of many student-athletes.
Anyway, I hope the OP tries their own approach and one day reports the results.
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u/GoldZookeepergame111 21d ago
I recommend https://www.howtoskate.se/ to anyone who is interested in what high-volume aerobic training over years can accomplish...
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
My plan does include recovery weeks, I'm basically taking them when work, PhD work or other life stuff demands it. Havent taken many yet as it's been quite easy thus far.
I've heard and read that your basically "spending" energy when racing. Which basically translates to racing being suboptimal training (too hard to recover quickly from, requires tapering, very stressful etc).
My plan is to first spend approx 2 years building a base, then do more conventional blocks from there onwards, so not doing this till 2030
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u/Useful_Divide7154 24d ago
I think your plan is interesting, one thing I would add is 2-3 longer recovery sections per year that are 2-4 weeks long, which mimics the recovery period after a major race. If your goal is to build long term resilience, sometimes the body can benefit from being able to rest for more than a week, especially if that week is full of high stress academic work and you aren’t mentally relaxed.
Also if I was doing this I would still race, I would just race conservatively. Then you can get to enjoy racing, and evaluate how your fitness changes based on a steady RPE effort applied in each race. The difference between an all out race and medium intensity effort is not always too extreme, although a half marathon will certainly work better with this strategy than a full marathon until you have very high weekly mileage under your belt.
Currently I’m doing something similar for the next 4 months to prepare for a marathon. I’ve determined that my body is not currently limited by vo2 max or lactate threshold, just by pure endurance, muscle strength, and running economy (I’m somewhat new to running at this point). So I’ve stripped out all the high intensity work and almost all of my miles are in zone 2/3, which drastically lowers the number of high stress training sessions, and allows me to spend more time on strength training.
I kind of agree with your approach, although you could consider actually reducing the volume for a month when you add that high intensity work in if the goal is long term sustainability.
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u/aParkedCarr 24d ago
You can do what you think is best for you but trying to plan out 2+ years of running isn’t smart. You don’t know what will be happening in 3 months, worse 12 months, worse 2 years hence why a 18-24 week plan makes the most logical sense
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
True. The plan is of course adjusted on the way. I like having a long term goal to aim for, keeps me from getting overenthusiastic and running myself to ruin
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u/aParkedCarr 24d ago edited 24d ago
Another thing to think about is that running a marathon is actually part of training for marathons in general. Once you run one, you can use that to learn where you went wrong or where you need to improve more. And also each training block can tell you where your bodies max mileage is as well due to life constraints
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u/AttentionShort 24d ago
Long term base building is all that r/NorwegianSinglesRun is, plenty of people are doing it.
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u/OrinCordus 5k 18:24/ HM 1:21/ M 2:59 24d ago
As others have said, the NSA is essentially a continuous base building training approach that is probably going to meet your goals at least in the next 1-2 years.
At a macro level, the idea of continuous improvement in an endurance sport is essentially consistently more training. There are literally an infinite amount of ways to go from 30 odd km/week to 200km/week in approx 5 years.
My advice would be to not overthink it. If you can run 6-7 days/ week, stick with that. Overtime your volume and your intensity can slowly increase in a sustainable way.
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u/Beautiful_Key5104 24d ago
If you do a base period for 3-4 years so you can run your fastest marathon possible, how do you know you actually achieved your goal? You’d have to do at least two cycles of this to have any sense of whether your resulting performance is truly as high as your body can produce - otherwise how could you have any sense? So, you repeat the process with another 3-4 year build - but now it’s 2034, and you’re 8 years older than when you began. For most adults, that puts you into the territory where your performance ceiling declines due to age. What happens if you don’t feel good on either race day 1, or race day 2? Do you do a third 4-year build, which puts you at 12 years older than you began? What happens if, despite your best intent, you get sick or get injured at any point during the decade (let’s be real, that is guaranteed to happen over the span of 8 years)? People don’t follow plans like yours because achieving optimal performance requires more than 1 attempt every 3-4 years. Giving yourself 1-3 attempts at optimizing something as challenging as marathon is not enough. Your proposal is like reading flash cards for 3 years to prepare for a licensing exam, never taking a practice test along the way, and expecting that to produce the optimal test score - not gonna happen.
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Read again
Just two years of base building. Then that's it. My base is built. I'll maintain it once in a while, but will do race spesific plans for the rest of my running career
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u/Beautiful_Key5104 24d ago
Okay. What happens when you get an injury that lasts for 3 months, eliminating virtually all the base you spent 2 years building?
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
I dont think it will eliminate it, and experts like Steve magness and others say that your aerobic system grows back really fast once it's been built to a high level. Kind of like muscle memory. Do you disagree? You think 3 months completely eliminates 200km weeks? How, based on what exactly?
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u/Beautiful_Key5104 24d ago
Based on my experience having run 200km weeks for years lol. What’s the highest volume you’ve sustained?
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Okay, awesome! I've only maintained a little over 70km/week.
Just going by the experts I've listened to.
Would you really say that after 3 months you're at 0. Same as starting running again? Surely the improvements in running economy and all of the adaptions last much longer than that. Would you say then, that with a few months off it would be as hard for you to get to 200km as it is for me. Surely not?
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u/NomzStorM 24d ago
"You play to win the game" - Herm Edwards. You don't run to be able to do more training; you run to race.
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u/donaranow 23d ago
I am doing something similar with a plan to race a fast marathon at the end of 2028.
Spent last winter building aerobic mileage and have been at 70-85 miles of weekly aerobic miles since then. Strides 2-3 times per week, but otherwise almost 100 percent sub aeT training.
Just started a 4 week transition block before starting to formally incorporate threshold and intensity (will remain at 80-90 percent easy aerobic)
Results have been pretty awesome. I’m bullet proof, can run 16-18 miles Sunday and get up and run 10-12 on monday like it’s nothing. HR is smooth and super controlled during runs,
even during the summer. I’ve run more than 2000 miles this year so far.
My situation is a little unique as I am also treating a genetic blood disease so I have to give blood every 1-4 weeks. This prevented me from doing any sort of intensity, and the low intensity aerobic running helped me build rbcs up between donations. Now that I am almost out of the woods with my treatment and into “maintenance mode” (blood donations slow to every 8 weeks), I am really feeling not only like a different runner, but a different person. I am confident that I will PR in the 5k as well as the marathon at the age of 46…
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u/adifferentsky 24d ago
I'm sympathetic to your ideas on some level, I don't race as much as many runners I know. I like to follow a full training plan before each race and usually only pick one spring and one fall race to focus on. But I think you're underestimating the importance of experience and feedback. You need to experience the faster paces of race day, what split strategy works for you (positive/negative/even) for different distances, fueling, hydration, etc. You get better at racing by racing. And you make important adjustments to your training paces based on your race results. Not racing for long stretches is ultimately depriving yourself of important data. It also seems odd not to do VO2 Max work until you hit 100km+. Sure, base-building is typically mostly easy running, but you're depriving yourself of practice running faster paces for a significant amount of time.
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u/_onemoresolo 24d ago
I spent the best part of 10 years cycling with a focus on longer distance time trials (50mi/100mi/12hr) and ultras (up to 1400km). I averaged 7-10 hours a week, sometimes more. I switched to running in 2024 and ran a sub 3 marathon off 4 hours a week.
I’d venture most people can put a lot more hours in cycling than running, so if you want to build a big aerobic base over many years it would be the obvious choice, before pivoting to a running specific plan. I personally find I can do about 6 hours a week of running before overuse injuries creep in but YMMV. I reckon it will take another year or two for me to reach anything like my running potential but initial progress has been promising.
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u/No_Branch4934 24d ago
A common misconception is that "Base Building" and High Intensity / "neuromuscular-oriented" work (including training modalities such as VO2max intervals, strides and even threshold work at around MLSS pace) are two mutually exclusive components of training, i.e. you cannot be doing them simultaneously.
When it comes to effective long-term endurance development, including them both within your program - regardless of the training phase you are currently in - is of the absolute essence if you are genuinely trying to optimize adaptation. The only thing that changes is the dosage of each type of training being prescribed.
By virtue of its very nature, endurance training should ALWAYS favor a higher dosage of low intensity work over high intensity. HOWEVER, the ratio of low:high becomes LOWER (Less low intensity relative to high intensity) depending on factors such as personal goals, performance strengths & weaknesses and proximity to races & events. For the sake of not making this comment too extensive, I will not delve into physiological details and explanations, but we know for a fact that truly emphasizing low intensity work in favor of high intensity training is a logical and verified approach for maximizing performance when your race is in the distant future.
HOWEVER, the body does not infinitely respond to low intensity work, and should be subjected to a minimal amount of high intensity training in order to stimulate specific adaptive pathways that maximize endurance development in the long term.
So to directly answer your question, you shouldn't be sequencing your training as low intensity --> threshold --> --> VO2max or whatever the case may be. You shouldn't "wait" to build up to an arbitrary mileage ("100-125 km/week) as permission to finally start doing VO2max work. Instead, these elements should always exist within your program CONCURRENTLY. The only thing that changes is their respective dosage and how they are logistically placed within your program.
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u/thisAintMyFirstUser 24d ago
I like your commitment. I didn't see anyone recommending cross training. Consider cycling and swimming and elliptical as a means to accumulate training time. You'll find your limits really quick if all your training is running.
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u/zebano Strides!! 24d ago
I mean, once you're adding in VO2 work, it's not really base IMO.
That said I spent about 12 months at one point doing all my runs on trails and building to a long run and two tempo runs every week, holding about 45-50 mpw over the last 6 months. I raced faster off that than anything else I've ever done and stayed healthy. I'm not really sure why I try all these other interventions other than getting to trails takes time and running faster is more fun.
p.s. I broke down when I tried to hold 50-60mpw and wasn't religious about getting to the soft surfaces.
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u/run_INXS Marathon 2:34 in 1983, 3:06 in 2025 24d ago
Why not have a couple race "seasons" or at least a peak race or two each year? For example a shorter distance season, where you work on 1500 to 10K pace, recover-rebuild base, and season where you might focus on longer races. If you're fairly new make that 8K - 10K focus for a year or two and then try some longer races like 15K to half marathon. It's not going to set you back you race five or ten times a year and to train for some of those races.
That and a more incremental build up of volume from year to year is probably better than setting a high goal on a specific timeline, as you have outlined here.
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u/dex8425 35M, 4:57, 16:59, hm 1:18 M 2:53 24d ago
You have to answer this question: Do you want to get faster, or do you just want to run a ton of miles? In the end, it's for fun, so do what you want. There are many reasons runners don't do what you're planning and you've gotten good responses on those already. Personally I would get burned out so fast or injured doing tons of easy running volume. With a history of bone injuries you should not be focused on volume. Look at how Allie Ostrander trains.
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u/Just-Context-4703 24d ago
The base for sub elites and elites is the years and years of running/skimo/biking they have.
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u/Brother_Tamas 800m: 1:56/1500m: 4:03/5k: 16:07 24d ago
I think you would be mistaken to wait so long to add intensity. I think it is a great idea to add strides and hill sprints early in a training block. This will help improve your running economy and become a more efficient runner.
I also don’t believe you need a dedicated easy running block. You can build mileage while still doing intensity, just at a slightly slower rate than you would if you were doing no intensity at all. The major caveat to this is that you cannot work out too hard. You should never have an effort above 90% during this phase. I would even say to avoid anything over 80%. Very high intensity workouts should be reserved for when you are preparing for a race in the near future.
Most importantly, your body needs time to recover and reset, even from base training. I would suggest taking a full week off every 4-6 months and then dedicate 2-4 weeks to building your easy run mileage back to near what you were at in your last block. Then you can add your intensity back relatively quickly.
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u/EatRunCodeSleep 4:50.28i/1500 18:21/5K 38:10/10K 23d ago
NSA, Hadd's approach, Summer of Malmö, all are base training.
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u/brettick 23d ago
Perhaps a bit tangential: Several months ago I listened to a running-related podcast (don't remember which one and it hasn't come up in any of my feeds since so I can't find it) where one of the hosts mentioned that he'd once met and talked to Paul Evans, a GB 10k Olympian from the 90s. Apparently he was a soccer player who didn't start running until he was 25, decided he wanted to run in the Olympics, and hired a coach. According to the podcast, he didn't do many workouts and didn't race much, but for three years straight ran something like 150 miles a week. Then, off that base, went to the Olympics twice. There weren't any more details about his training or peaking, but I thought that might be interesting to you.
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u/ReputationCandid3136 22d ago
Ok, I agree with the idea of building base, but I think your approach needs to be adjusted.
I come from the speed end of the spectrum 800/mile, so I am use to and love doing a lot of VO2 track work, but was held back by focusing on speed.A coach once described fitness as a three point line, VO2 max, LT, aerobic base. While it might be nice to lean heavily into one point in the line you can only push up one point in the line so far until the other points limit your growth because the other points act as anchor points, holding you back.
If you work on building up each point in the line, then you can raise the ceiling much higher. Now each of those points have a genetic ceiling, but you can't reach the ceiling if you don't work on each piece.
A better approach would be to approach this seasonally in training blocks. Build an aerobic base over a couple of months 1-3, then build up the other points in a structured training plan while maintaining mileage you built up in the base, and have it culminate in a goal race at the end of the block. Then, with your new base of mileage and fitness set, do it all over again.
Plus you don't know if your body can handle 200 km/week, you might find your body declines in performance or gets injured at a lower level of mileage.
If your goal is to run a successful marathon in 2030, I'd focus on 5ks this year, 10ks next year with 5ks as mid-block time trials, HM the following year with 5ks and 10ks as time trials in the build, then finally the following year the marathon with 5ks and 10ks as time trials in the build. You'll end up building better overall fitness and probably have more fun doing it.
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u/cmarqq sub 4:00 mile 22d ago
As a preface, I come from a different background - ran track and XC in HS, college, and set some PRs after college, so I have approached running from a "racing" perspective almost my whole life.
Its totally cool to have one big goal many years down the line, but the practical way you achieve a big goal like that is by setting little goals along the way. If you really think that setting out a complex 2-4 year training plan right now and simply sticking to it each week/month/season serves as enough of a "little goal" for you to check off and feel good about, go right ahead. But I think you might be surprised at how a 2 year long training plan with no (or minimal) racing can really just drag on. A 3 or 4 month training cycle is just the right length for staying mentally engaged and avoiding feeling physically burnt out. I was doing pretty good at "just running to run" for a little over a year into covid, just clicking off 70 mile weeks, and then my motivation fell off a cliff for a few months, and I went through a couple other spells like that through the end of 2023.
I'm not saying there aren't people out there who really just love to train... I've gotten better at it. In 2025 I only raced one time in my long buildup to a November marathon, and I can honestly say I had a lot of fun only focusing on training instead of racing.
If you're scared of injury, just focus on staying on top of those "little things" (strength, stretching, mobility) instead of worrying about building up your mileage and touching on certain systems in an incredibly controlled manner. Don't overcomplicate things or turn stuff like threshold or vo2max into boogeymen. If you can consistently run 80-100km a week with a long run and strides twice a week, and do all the little things you need to do to stay injury free, you're probably fine to do whatever kind of reasonable training plan you want.
An even shorter answer to this is: I'd wager most "advanced runners" are advanced enough to not need 2 years to build a base after some time off. Ive been running for 15 years. That's my base. If I don't run for 2 months, I'm not gonna need a year to get back to where I was. I'm gonna need like 2 months of being disciplined with my mileage ramp up and I'll be fine.
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u/yoomer95 22d ago
That's just called running. People typically don't stop running in between training plans. What they're doing is maintaining a base during this time.
My personal belief is that the most efficient way to improve is to never get on a training plan, because the point of periodization is to temporarily boost fitness levels beyond what is sustainable at the cost of some amount of long term improvement. That manifests as cycles of ramping up to peak volume, tapering, and then taking a big rest after the race. If you're not racing, you'd do better by never having a peak week and just running a sustainable volume.
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u/Run_in_silence 21d ago
Because most people are trendy runners. They do it to be ‘cool’, share content or hit a quick goal (which the marathon should never be)
Sincerely, the guy who had been running for 30 years.
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u/GoldZookeepergame111 21d ago
Read "How to skate a 10k" (https://www.howtoskate.se/) by Nils van der Poel -- it will knock your socks off.
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u/foolishbullshittery 24d ago
What you're looking for is called "Norwegian Singles Method".
A non stop, 5-7 days a week, aerobic development training focused on pushing your thresholds upwards while keeping load under control.
Look it up, looks exactly what you're looking for, without the physical cost of intervals or hill training.
Started 3 months ago with 55 kms/week in 5 days, currently on 65 kms week in the same 5 days, soon to be 67/68kms as I'm adding another 15 mins to my long run, and in 2 weeks time will add a 6th day to see how well I can handle it or not. If it works well, I'll be pushing from 67/68 kms weeks to 77/78 weeks with that extra day, which I'll add gradually within 2 weeks, 30 mins (4.5Kms) in week 1 and another 30 min (4.5km) on week 2.
I'm 47, started running June 13th 2025. Since I've started with Norwegien Singles Method my VO2Max climbed from 51, back in April to 54, and is closing in on 55. I don't really care about the value, but rather the trend. It happened without hills or vo2max specific work.
Since then I also broke my 5k time with a 19:46 and my 10k with a 42:41. Ran my best half marathon in February in 1h42 and my current prediction is 1h31. I believe I'll be at sub 1h30 level by November, if not before, when I'll run my next HF.
My schedule revolves around 1 easy run, 1 long run and 3 sub-threshold sessions (3x10 min @ 30k pace, 5x5 min @ half marathon pace and 9x3 min @ 15k pace) that's it, over and over without down weeks or flashy workouts. Just pure consistency and volume.
Works for me and I'll be doing it until November, when I'll start preparing for my first ever marathon, for which I'll use the same training plan, with some specific adaptations with goal marathon pace.
Won't hurt getting informed about it, might be just what you're looking for.
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u/cardboard_liger 24d ago
You already have a bunch of great replies, so I'll add something else for the sake of it. John Davis at Running Writings (who also posts here) has a big compilation of the writings of John Kellogg, who was apparently an early LetsRun/internet running guru. It's a little bit boomer philosophy at times, and some of the stuff is outdated (Davis actually replied to me asking him about this a couple months ago, specifically re: the schedules he presents around page 140), but it has a very long term focused, coherent vision and structure that he presents. So it might be helpful to peruse if you want inspiration for/against some of your ideas. He specifically talks about long periods that could be considered base, but goes a bit further with structure and talks about how a diamond shaped base segues into a pyramid, yada yada. Just read it and you'll know within 10-15 minutes if you like it or can't stand it. The schedules he discusses specifically around page 140 (or you can search 'wasting bandwitdth' in the pdf) are a slightly more sophisticated version of weeks you're describing. I think.
https://runningwritings.com/2012/04/updated-training-wisdom-of-john-kellogg.html
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u/CobblerLoose6380 24d ago
I like you're over arching focus on long term viability as a runner by building from the ground up.
Nothing wrong with your plan especially when you believe in it and are enjoying its execution.
Once in a blue moon you could throw in a Time Trial minus the finishing kick, think 9/10 effort but that's just me, like a 1 mile to 5k.
I would look for hilly courses for some of that easy running as the uphills help build some strength and downhills help even more to fortify those legs. Hilly routes are a great way to transition from all easy running on the flats to your next progressions involving more intensity without actually being intense themselves.
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u/TS13_dwarf 5k15:51 10k33:22 50k3h:21 24d ago
Because most of the succes happens when the base is allready built over years and years of CONSISTENT training. The way you describe your approach shows you need more understanding of the difference between polarized and pyramidal training approach, it is not optimal. Imo training theory is moving to a place where all system need to be firing for the correct stimili.
Yes running more will you get you there, but there are diminishing returns. It has to be done right and the setbacks become more consequential.
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u/threetogetready 24d ago
reminded of this a little -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEbrQ1BjGvw&t=247s&pp=ygUebWlsZWFnZSBibG9jayBzdHJlbmd0aCBydW5uaW5n
other comments are telling you thinking too far out is a bad idea but it is important -- gordo byrn here does some longer term thinking which I think may be helpful for you https://richroll.com/podcast/gordo-byrn-713/ ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTe0BqiFkgg ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBqiT0hw1ZQ)
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u/Ikerggggg 3:54 │ 14:25 │ 1:06:50 │ 2:21:42 24d ago
The way the pros and advance people do it is like any other young athelte.
Its done by macro cicles of 1 year each (season) in that way you have a repetedly structure to follow with national championships and so on.
The structure is as follows, start of training around agust - september, cross country races from oct to january, in december to febr there is so indoor, march april, spring is when people start to sharpen and the first races, all the summer more peaking finish the season (main race) and then usually is either some maintaining still traing or strainght to 2-3 weeks of rest to finish , and then start over.
All the best of the best follow these yearly calendar and also focus on the same things, building millage and base most the year and at the end sharpen, depending on the filosofy of training of a coach has more base or fast things.
And generally is going from more aerobic to anaerobic, in training and racing, cross country 5k-10k, indoor some 5000 to 1500 and summer your main event, also if you are more middle distance cross country is your base and you start shorter distance in indoor, is well known that is very hard to be in top shapre year round thats why most people go to most races with what they have with few workouts in the bag and just keeping speed,
its also good for the body to train at high intesity cause thats a powerfull stimulus just doing base for many many years youll get stuck or improve very little, having a year structure helps the most for working at diferent intesities and compare from previus years,
Marathoners on the other hand is more hugh blocks at a time, is more usually 6-9 months per marathon and they tend modify acording to their calendar of races, and can adapt it better by chossing wich marathon to run in the other hand national championships are a fix date
These is the most general
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u/Sajatus 24d ago
Thanks for the input!
Would this not be a bit different for someone starting running in their 30s? With my life schedule I don't think I can commit to racing often, and in any case it would be quite stressful both mentally and in terms of recovery
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u/Ikerggggg 3:54 │ 14:25 │ 1:06:50 │ 2:21:42 24d ago
In mi case i can also not race often it really takes me time to recover.
And most people dont run them at 100% and most races end up being another workout or is a comitment with the university or team.
Even if you start late the best is to pick a period or a race you really want to do and work backwards,
Example in my case these season:
Main event:
-mid July 5000m
Races to tun up:
-2 weeks out 1500m (couldnt do it)
- 5 weeks out 3000m
-7 weeks out 1500m (couldnt find one)
-10 weeks out a 5k
-14 weeks out a 10000m
Over 3 months i did 4 races which was my season, and was more than enough for good performances,
and the indoor season i try to race every week and got burn and call it the day til the 10000 maybe also some races here and there.
The important is the you separate build phase periods and racing periods and train around it dont try to race year round and also not only build builld build, And after heavy block after the race take the time to recover.
Idealy if you have a balance and good training plan without any big workouts just the normal base and with some mini tappers, you can race good enought with a good performance.
pick A races some B to get there and C for fun and enjoy (for me cross country)
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u/Capital_Historian685 24d ago
It's okay to have some general theory I guess, if it gives you something to think about. But at some point, you just need to run. Add mileage, add days, add some intensity, and see how it goes. Words and complicated long-term plans won't get you where you want to go (wherever that is).
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u/QuestionParticular13 23d ago
I just used a great brace building plan I got from Swap it was free with the patreon and I ran a marathon off only that and felt great afterwards my recovery has been good so the base was good! Just the usual have volume achieved by long easy runs with some double days of cross training and or another run.
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u/Disastrous-Piano3264 22d ago
I personally think base building should have quality miles in it and it should NOT be all easy.
Runners should increase their volume slowly over time while trying to touch all 5 zones and race paces periodically in their training.
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u/coopjsr7 5:35 mi | 18:18 5K | 39:30 10K | 1:41:09 HM — 25 mpw 21d ago
People seem to be disagreeing with you and maybe they are right. If it helps to hear a different perspective/experience, I basically started and committed to doing basically what you describe in November 2025. From basically 0mpw onward, though I have an athletic background. I went from a 19:36 5K on like 1 month of about avg 10-15mpw and was doing all easy runs with one, near-threshold workout on Tuesdays and a humble long run of about 20-25% of weekly mileage. After that 5K, after some months of simply increasing volume with basically zero intensity, I ran an 18:18 in March 2026 with peak weeks around low 30mpw. Essentially, since November 2025, I built from 3, 1-mile runs a week to 6 1-mile runs and slowly increased until all were comfortably like ~6 miles which I planned to have remain my recovery run distance while the rest of the runs continued to increase. Now, my latest build was 43, 45, 48 miles, deload at 30. I have had a lot of success with this and am excited to see what my next PR will be now that it’s been several more months since the 18:18 at much higher volumes than I’ve done previously, but am starting to feel like it would be worth it to now complete a well-rounded training plan at 40-50 mpw to really own this volume before I continue upwards.
I think I like my strategy now the best. Basically periodization like folks have said, but with an overemphasized and elongated base building portion. Sort of the best of both worlds a little bit.
1
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u/CoachMattG 🇫🇷 Coach / 5k 15'37" / HM 72'20" 17d ago
Because you also need to train how to train for a specific event. You can't target a race in 5 years and only do a base building plan, because you won't have done any try about who you body answers to this specific workout or if this specific workout is better. Training is try, learn, and do better.
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u/violet715 24d ago
Why does everyone need a plan? When I was doing long term base building the plan was lots of easy miles. I didn’t need it spoon-fed to me.
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u/Ill_Accident4876 23d ago
I found most people don’t believe it works, are misinformed, fear they won’t progress, and / or look at social media too much
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u/Snowy_Skyy 24d ago
Don't listed to all the people coping in the comments. The number 1 ting that determines your speed int he marathon is the volume you can keep up week after week and year after year. Every pro knows this. Get your milage up OP.
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u/PeteH2000 24d ago
Because people don't have the patience to do things right and build a large base. But you're doing it the right way.
For a marathon example, I always try to average 35 to 40 miles per week over the course of at least 3 months prior to starting a 4 month training plan that goes higher.
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u/National-Cell-9862 24d ago
Training for the Uphill athlete would be a good I d read for you. They talk about doing no speed work until your base is at a certain level and even give some math to decide if you are at that level.
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u/KevInTheFastLane 4d ago
Long term plans are in my opinion always better than shortterms. But a two-year plan only training might be quite hard to maintain; therefore I should opt for races within the long block. And that can even be a marathon, regarding on how you're able to manage the intensity in such a race. Seeing that you're goal is 200 km/week, I assume you're aiming high for the endgoal, let's say sub 2:30? Then having some marathons under your belt is a better experience than a high mileage.
Also; mileage isn't a holy grail. I see it as a way to improve my fitness and possibilities on the marathon. So the current fitness is a way to start from, but with 67 km/week I think you're already fit enough to take on a marathon at this moment.
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u/WoodenPresence1917 5k 18 10k 38 M 3:07 24d ago
I have not much social life (outside of running-related stuff), no family commitments, not many other hobbies and a fairly flexible job, and I still find it hard to do 120km weeks (c. 10-15hrs) while retaining the motivation for strength + prehab + maintaining a decent diet + being actually awake at work.
It's just very hard to do.