mile repeats during base?

There really is no purpose for doing any sort of repeats during base phase. If you're in true base phase you'll at best need to do 200-400s a couple of times a week, but this is more for turnover NOT for speed. A tempo-ish mid-distance (think 5-10 miles) at somewhere between training and workout pace will (pardon the pun) be a nice change of pace to break up the phase. (mileage suggestions are dependant on you base phase mileage for YOU!

mile repeats are solid sessions starting the month before going into your competitive season. doing it with 3-4 minutes rest at about 20-30 seconds slower than race pace is ideal

There's something to be said for touching on all of your key training paces, year 'round. This doesn't mean that you're really working on your VO2max, but you can run at that pace occasionally to help maintain gains from previous seasons.

For example, if your bread and butter VO2max workouts are 5xmile with a 2 minute recovery and you're doing this 3-4 times/month before your goal races, then perhaps you would do 3xmile with a 2 minute recovery, 2 times/month during your base phase. That way, when you start focusing on that kind of running, you don't find yourself going 3 seconds per quarter slower than you were at the end of your last season.

yes, we did interval miles (6) every monday in college, (aug to nov); in conjuntion with our 80-110 mile weeks; which was our 'base period' for track season. But, we were competing in X-C meets every week, with the idea to compete and do our best.

All phases have a purpose and the base phases purpose is to build and develop aerobic capacity. Doing workouts that promote the anaerobic state are counterproductive in this phase. The only reason many runners want to do any type of speed in the base phase is for lack of patience. There is this fear that if you don't always do something fast, you will end up slow. The key is to build the strength and endurance in the base phase so you can handle hard training when that phase comes up. Reverse the logic; would you do long miles during the sharpening phase before your peak races?

Not long miles, but you would still be doing easy aerobic runs. This is why I suggested shorter, less frequent vo2max workouts during the base phase.

you missed the one caveat in my post that affects most of the runners in school. They run and compete in Cross County races during the fall for their schools. Running interval miles once a week in college, or racing 10k on Saturday, never seemed to hurt my base prep work for track, from Aug to Dec, as I was always running around 100 mpw.

As long as you have put in at least 6 to 8 weeks of base before August, you are good to go for the mile repeats. Your're right, I missed that. My post mostly applies to those who do anaerobic training from June though August which is generally the base phase for school age runners.