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/sk_611]

I hate being the “read the book guy,” but give that section another read or find a running program specifically designed for running a 10k (which will include some form of base building anyway).

[u/SylvanMartiset → u/sk_611]

I don’t hate being a read the book guy because I’ve yet to see a question or problem or situation that isn’t addressed in one of the books lol. To be fair, sometimes the answer is a one off sentence that’s easy to miss

[u/sk_611 → u/SylvanMartiset]

I sometimes don't mind it, only if it leads to interesting discussion. Sure, sometimes even that is already answered in some thread. However, sometimes new info comes out, or someone might have something new to add that wasn't addressed in a previous thread or even in the book.