Do you lose speed in base training?

You lose speed when you stop working on speed.

"Base" does not mean "practice running slowly."

It means getting your body ready for harder workouts and racing to come. That includes working on general speed.

Yes, if u ONLY run slowly. However, most good programs include a number of fast strides several times a week during base training.

Seems like the Summer of Malmo (look it up) is called for here...

I read a summary and it's great stuff! Thanks!

With any sort of high mileage plan, you WILL lose speed, even IF you do strides.

Why? Because for strides to be at their most effective, they must be done when your legs are relatively fresh.The key for maintaining your speed, is to do strength/speed building exercises at a sufficient level of raw speed. Speed is not about perceived effort, or how it feels. It's literally about how fast your legs are moving, and your body's ability to make adaptations to that speed.

If you're on 100mpw, that means you're running at least 13 miles a day. There is literally no way that your legs are going to be fresh enough for you to be able to muster that "raw speed", and your body is going to be too busy recovering from that 13 mile exertion, to make a 100% proper adapation to your strides/speed. You can probably maintain/limit the loss of your speed to some degree, but it's going to be very hard and an uphill battle.

Think about a weightlifter doing the bench press. He can do a max of 380lbs of 4 reps and 2 sets. He suddenly decides to do 10 sets of 30 reps at 45 pounds everyday to build his endurance. He can try to maintain his strength by throwing in some heavier reps, but he won't come close to doing even a single rep of 380lbs after 10x30 of 45lbs.

Do strides and some short sprints both with full recovery 3-4 times a week and you will lose no speed. Speed is all about coordination. You need to practice it, but just remind yourself a Lil here and there how to run fast and you'll be fine.

You lose what you dont train. So train it.

Good luck trying to do short sprints and strides after running 15 miles!

Do it before you start then. After a shorter 10-12 mile day the day before. You lose soecific speed endurance, you don't have to lose speed.

Just make 1 day a week something like 15-20 min warm up, 8x200 on the grass/track in spikes (or on the road in flats), and 15-20 min cool down. These days can be very fun and mentally refreshing. Not to mention they aid greatly in maintaining good running form and injury prevention.

formerD1 wrote:

Think about a weightlifter doing the bench press. He can do a max of 380lbs of 4 reps and 2 sets. He suddenly decides to do 10 sets of 30 reps at 45 pounds everyday to build his endurance. He can try to maintain his strength by throwing in some heavier reps, but he won't come close to doing even a single rep of 380lbs after 10x30 of 45lbs.

I get the analogy here, but disagree that the weightlifter wouldn't get close. A bench press bar alone weighs 45lbs, 10x30 reps with just an empty barbell is not even a warmup for someone who could bench 380lbs for 4 reps. I think if you said 10x30 at 155lbs may not get close to a single rep of 380 is a better analogy. Just saying...

Sah321678 wrote:

So if the majority of your runs are at 8;00 min per mile for base will that do anything to your speed. I've done about two weeks of base training after taking a break off season. I ask because I have some 5k races in the summer so I still want to be in decent racing form. I do harder speed oriented stuff like tempo runs about every ten days.

Slow running makes for slow runners. Plodding at 8-minute pace mile after mile with no variation at all is not training. It's plodding for the sake of plodding.