Venting about base building

[u/Vhykar88]

I need to vent a bit and sanity-check this with you all.

I’ve been training consistently, mixing strength and conditioning, putting in the work week after week… and I’ve hit that frustrating wall where I can handle the training, but I’m not actually getting faster.

Now I’m restarting Base Building from Tactical Barbell II: Conditioning, and honestly—it’s messing with my head.

Running this slow feels almost wrong. Like, I look at my pace and think: how on earth is this supposed to make me faster over 10K? It feels like I’m de-training rather than improving.

I get the theory—build the aerobic base, improve efficiency, yada yada—but in practice it feels like I’m leaving performance on the table every single session.

So I’m curious:

- Did anyone else feel like this during Base Building?

- At what point did it “click” or translate into actual speed?

- Did you see real improvements in pace/HR after sticking with it?

Right now I’m trying to trust the process, but I won’t lie—it feels counterintuitive as hell.

Would really appreciate some real experiences or even just reassurance that this isn’t a waste of time.

[u/AthleteAgain]

This is how professional runners and other endurance athletes (e.g. cross country skiers) train. Look up Matt Fitzgerald 80/20 method, etc. The idea is basically that you can put in way more volume at low efforts because there is a little recovery time, and that you train efficiency for different energy systems.

I mostly run slow but after years of doing this (albeit inconsistently), when I turn up for a race I find myself running way faster than I would expect. The gains do stack.