How Long Will It Take to See Results From Base Building?

Hi all,

I was wondering how long, in yours or someone else's experience, it takes for results to show from the base phase. I am only in week two, but I have ~3 months left to get ready for (hopefully) a cross country season in the middle of March. I am a freshman in high school and this is my first real base building period. My plan, which was given to me by my coach, is as follows: Build up slowly (around 3 miles per week) to a maximum of 45 miles. Every fourth week, cut the mileage a little bit. Every week there is one hard workout in the form of either a tempo, a fartlek, or hills, and one long run that makes up about 25% of the weekly mileage. Strides are 2 times a week, and short hill sprints are once a week. Both of those come after easy runs. Lifting, core, stretching, and foam rolling are done throughout the week as well. Using this plan, when can I expect results to show? Will I be ready to run fast come the season? Would you make any changes? All advice is appreciated, and thank you in advance for your help.

Freshman with questions wrote:
Hi all,
I was wondering how long, in yours or someone else's experience, it takes for results to show from the base phase. I am only in week two, but I have ~3 months left to get ready for (hopefully) a cross country season in the middle of March. I am a freshman in high school and this is my first real base building period. My plan, which was given to me by my coach, is as follows: Build up slowly (around 3 miles per week) to a maximum of 45 miles. Every fourth week, cut the mileage a little bit. Every week there is one hard workout in the form of either a tempo, a fartlek, or hills, and one long run that makes up about 25% of the weekly mileage. Strides are 2 times a week, and short hill sprints are once a week. Both of those come after easy runs. Lifting, core, stretching, and foam rolling are done throughout the week as well. Using this plan, when can I expect results to show? Will I be ready to run fast come the season? Would you make any changes? All advice is appreciated, and thank you in advance for your help.

Seems fine for a freshman.

You are getting a base of fitness. Your ligaments, tendons and muscles will all improve.

That is, if you can stay off of roads and sidewalks as much as possible.

Running is jumping forward.

Bounding is jumping forward, but more up than is optimal for fast running, which is why the hip rotation slows when bounding.

Once you have momentum, maintaining momentum efficiently is very important, and that is why so many distance runs are done rolling from the heel to the ball of the foot. I don't advocate just rolling, because there isn't much spring in their steps, but many distance runners do run that way.

If you bound up hills, you will feel gravity pulling, and you will have to apply power to maintain a good speed. Bounding up hills is a preferred technique for developing the power to run fast, and the Lydiard system doesn't work for track without bounding up hills. That system has too many miles per week, but Lydiard was not fast and did well training as a marathoner, so....

When you do strides, use the power to take long strides without slowing down your hip rotation. You will start to feel like a sprinter, because "jumping forward" is what the great ones do.

In the end, you will have gained fitness to handle the interval workouts. You will have learned and developed some aspects of speed from bounding up hills and then applying that in strides. Your core work will combine with your taking small leaps forward (this is CC and not the 800m, so the leaps are not so powerful), and you will have much greater mechanics to generate and transmit energy from when your foot makes contact to the ground, while your body moves over the foot (from momentum) as your knees are slightly bent so that the legs flex slightly when absorbing your weight, and then you "push off" in a small jump forward.

All this happens naturally, and you can really emphasize these mechanics simply by bounding up hills, while using longer runs to develop the fitness to do the upcoming faster workouts.

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