Base Building & Turkey Trot

The least favorite phase of running, for me, has always been base building. Slowly increasing run frequency, building mileage and finally working on pace (carefully obeying the 10% rule) requires more patience then I can typically muster. One thing I hate more then improving slowly, however, is being injured. So, as I complete my pregnancy 'comeback' I'm going to try and take base building seriously.

I have never been great about following training plans. But, since I like the focus they give me and the sense of accomplishment when I meet them, I almost always have one in place. For my base building phase, I plan to 'loosely' follow this plan from marathontraining.com (link):

My Plan

I tweaked their plan a bit. Since none of the 'long' runs are really all that long, I moved them to Tuesdays (from Sundays). I have a much lower chance of skipping a long run if it's not at the end of the week (silly, arbitrary mental block on my part because, after all, what does the calendar day really matter?). I almost always miss at least one planned run. However, I try to make it one of the shorter runs, at least. My cross training will be minor, likely consisting of little more then yoga and walking the dogs =)

Right now, I'm at week 3. I'm going to try and carefully adhere to the 10% rule at least - never increase your weekly mileage or your long run mileage by more then 10% at a time. With 'long' runs starting out so short, the second part of the rule won't really take effect until the end of the base period.

The final challenge for me is observing the step-back weeks, where mileage is decreased to allow for rest and recovery. I'm good at following these during a marathon training cycle, when I really feel worn down, but will likely be skipping these during the build-up. Eh, what can I say? I know I'm impatient =)


Finally, the Turkey Trot portion of today's post:
Run, Walk, Bike, or Trot a 5k while benefiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (they will receive 100% of the donations!! Visit the website here http://www.dailymile.com/turkey_trot. Then, Tweet, Facebook, or blog that you are participating (easy buttons on the site!) and pick a donation amount. $1, $5, or $10. Everything helps! (donations made securely with paypal)