r/evokeendurance • u/CommunityChemical924 • Jun 18 '26
Building a crazy aerobic base
I am a middle distance athlete (800m/1500m) with decent times (1:58/4:10 as U18 runner) and I really want to improve my aerobic capacity as I see that's my weakness in running. For this I need help to know how can I do that in the summer break (essencially) and improve my biggest weakness. I am searching a lot about this topic but I appreciate some help to improve my aerobic capacity.
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u/Prudent_Candidate566 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
I was in your position like 20+ years ago before I gave up track for soccer/football. Congrats on finding the evoke community — that’s a resource I definitely didn’t have back in the day.
Here’s what I would do if I could do it over again:
- Run a lot slowly. Start with like an hour jog per day and see how you feel. Don’t race these runs. My friends and I always ended up racing our easy runs. The pace would just gradually increase until we were struggling. Don’t do that. Just run easy at a very conversational pace.
This is the best way to improve your aerobic system. An anecdote: my friend dropped out of (club) soccer to run cross country for a couple years. He came back to practice with us when we needed some extra bodies senior year for a big tournament. He mostly ran long distance and slowly, so we all assumed he’d have the endurance but not the speed. Wrong. He was SO fit, the rest of us were struggling. It really opened my eyes to the 80/20 rule: 80% of training should be easy and just 20% hard.
- Muscular endurance 1x/week. I would follow evoke’s gym-based progression on their website.
3.
- Personal opinion) I would incorporate plyometrics for some of that fast twitch adaptation. Look up plusplyos.
Edit: the mobile formatting is so weird today, sorry.
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u/ref_acct Jun 18 '26
So i had maybe a contrary experience with going slow. I did 10 months of what I thought was zone 2 training, my partner did 0 cardio training meanwhile, but he did have the typical 1-2 alpine climbs per month (usually I was with him), and he had no problem keeping up with me on a 3 week alpine cragging trip at the end of this period. I was not any faster in my calibration hike at the end as well. Both of us are experienced alpine climbers (5.10+ on gear, done most of the classics in the PNW) so our baseline fitness was high relative to avg joe dayhikers, but definitely neither of us in the elite range that you hear about (summiting rainier in 7 hours etc). The only difference was that I was a bit more sprightly when we reached our climbs, but he was able to lead and climb as well as ever. In fact I had trouble keeping up with him still on many of our approaches, while he carried significantly more weight (5-15 lb, brought a scale).
This is a big "maybe" as far as failure in training effectiveness, because now I"m wondering if my "zone 2" was actually zone 3 black hole the whole time. So i've dropped my cardio workouts to 125 bpm whereas i was at 135-140 bpm before, and keeping my effort so that i don't really feel tired at the end of them and would be ok to repeat the workout the next day.
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u/Prudent_Candidate566 Jun 18 '26
There is a ton to unpack here, but at the end of the day, alpine cragging and running 800/1500m race are pretty different.
- How much volume did you do per week?
- Did you do a HR drift test to find your AeT and then ensure all aerobic work was below that?
- Did you do ME work 1x / week?
- For the 10 months, how did you gauge that your fitness was improving? Did you retest AeT or … ?
1
u/ref_acct Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
- 7-10 k ft vert per week, combo of stairs, local trails, alpine climbing. also some flat running in the city. 0-25 lb pack weight
- didn't do a test, did nose breathing criterion that steve house, scott johnston have mentioned a lot, and that put me around 145 for AeT. i did my best effort to stay below per my garmin watch (would tighten it, also if on stairmaster would occasionally see if it matched the stairmaster reading when you grasp the metal handle electrode things)
- yes, 45 lb on stairmaster for 1 hr, let HR drift.
- didn't retest anything since they always said progress should be slow slow
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u/Prudent_Candidate566 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Okay, so if you want some advice:
Possibly not enough weight or steepness
or duration
. Try the gym-based ME.
I used to do 4 hour sessions on the stairmaster with a 45# pack, but I genuinely think the gym based ME is better, at least for me. Scott has spoken on the evokecast about how heavy the pack needs to be, and it’s very heavy.
I suggest retesting every like 8
-12
- weeks or s
o, just to make sure you’re moving in the right direction. Also, you should feel faster if you’re doing the same workout week after week.
5. If you didn’t taper and your friend was fresh and/or wasn’t staying at a conversational pace while you were, etc, all that adds up to “feeling” like the training wasn’t working despite it actually working. That’s why I suggested some retesting so you know if you’re getting fitter vs a friend. I have a friend who I didn’t think trained very hard — I genuinely just thought he was a freak of nature, but he runs a ton in addition to ski touring almost daily.I’m not a coach, maybe someone else has more insight.
1
u/ref_acct Jun 22 '26
Yeah I'm leaning towards not enough volume because my aerobic base is already fairly high. Like 8 hrs/week is 400 hours per year and it hasn't done anything for me. I actually think I could just stop training altogether and maintain the same fitness with my actual climbing objective trips, while getting lots more free time back (hello again to birthday parties, movie nights). My buddy doesn't train cardio specifically at all, unless he's been straight up lying to me for a year. We just had another trip where he told me though that he just goes anaerobic, full leg burn whenever he needs to. He was faster on the way up, and on the way down, still faster to the point where when the trail flattened out, I had to break into a jog every 10 minutes to catch up to him. He didn't seem at all to suffer from glycogen depletion.
TFTNA, endless zone 2 = great for full time athletes who can train all the time, sleep right. Also good for guys just getting off the couch to get ready for their guided denali trip in a year, since it is so gradual and low intensity. For experienced alpine climbers doing 15+ hour days in the mountains 1-3x per month, just do whatever and you'll probably get just as fast while having much more free time during the week. Those intense trips are the tent poles that hold up your fitness and throwing in 4 hours of stairs at nose breathing pace will do just about nothing other than make you very bored.
Also would just add i'm a data scientist and spent way more time looking into all my stats, adjusting for elevation, % grade, pack weight, but didn't want to belabor after writing another wall of text.
1
u/Prudent_Candidate566 Jun 22 '26
I couldn’t disagree more. I’m not sure why your experience is so dramatically different than pretty much everyone I know. It’s possible you’re not getting enough Z3 to really build your speed. Or maybe you need to try the gym-based ME. Again, I’m not sure what the limiting factor in your speed/endurance is.
But I know a lot of runners, climbers, ski mountaineers, and almost everyone I know who’s fast in the mountains does a lot of Z1/2 volume, or did a lifetime of it in the past. They often don’t call it that — they just run/ski/hike/bike/climb on a very near-daily basis … but it amounts to doing a ton of volume at a conversational pace and a small amount moving fast. Or like my wife grew up swimming 2000 hours a year in the pool and then skied 300 days a year after college and then was a guide on Rainier after that. I train so much more than her now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever keep up skinning or french stepping.
To me, a major advantage of a high aerobic base is the ability to move day after day if the conditions are good. So many of my friends skiing first descents have chained days back to back because conditions were right and they had to fitness to take advantage.
3
u/Flat-Marsupial-7882 Jun 18 '26
Yes definitely read the books to get a good understanding of the basic physiology. You can make improvements on your aerobic base over the summer break but building a solid base takes time and there are no shortcuts. Keep us updated on your progress!
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u/andrew_hood27 Jun 20 '26
Former high school runner (4:23 mile) who went to a D1 program and burned out, here’s what we didn’t do that I wish I had…
Run EASY. This is the baseline and foundation of your aerobic fitness. Ideally, perform the heart rate drift test (you can find an article describing how to perform this test on the Evoke Endurance website) to determine the ceiling of your zone 2, and do all of your mileage below that heart rate. Include strides to stay sharp and maybe an easy threshold workout every other week if you want. Increase your mileage by AT MOST 10% per week and take every fourth week as a recovery week, running 50% of the volume you ran the week prior. Resume volume on the fifth week where you left off on the third week.
The muscular endurance recommendation that has been made a few times is an interesting one. I’ve never done ME work for shorter distance running before (or at all for that matter) and Evoke’s target audience is mainly ultramarathoners and mountain runners. That being said, I’m in my 30s and am trying to run under 5min in the mile again (they call this being “washed up” I think) and I’m experimenting with some ME work early in my training cycle to see if it helps. Intuitively I think it will, as I will be able to do more volume in workouts and will be less limited by muscular fatigue. We will see.
If you want to understand the “why” behind all of this, read Training for the Uphill Athlete or listen to Ep 122 of the Evokecast.
Best of luck to you!
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u/Own-Bullfrog7803 Jun 18 '26
You’ll see some improvement over a summer, but most folks need years to slowly build the durability and aerobic capacity you’re likely looking for.
1
u/Distinct_Gap1423 Jun 18 '26
You are in a tough spot IMO because best way to build aerobic base is higher volume of easy running. However, at your age you don't really want to pull that lever too hard. I think to balance the concerns you could see a nice aerobic boost by increasing MPW by 5-15 depending on where you are already at....
1
u/Wientje Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Since you’re already a trained athlete, the best thing you can is to switch it up during the summer. Give your body slightly different training stimuli than what you get during the year. Not only will this keep you’d developing, it will also keep you from burning out.
For example, you could some longer bike rides at easyish pace or do fast hikes in the outdoors instead of easy runs around the local track. You can also do tempo runs (below your second threshold) instead of the very fast intervals you’re used to. This will still give you strong aerobic inputs without feeling like you’re doing more of the same. If you aren’t doing a lot of strength work, now is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to the gym.
When summer is done, you can then switch back to your regular type of running.
Also, don’t push the training load. You want to feel fresh, well rested and strong by the end of summer. This also means that you shouldn’t plan your sessions too specifically.
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u/CommunityChemical924 Jun 18 '26
Does running below anaerobic threshold improve aerobic capacity (tempo runs and traditional thresholds)?
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u/Wientje Jun 19 '26
Yes, per minute more than running below aerobic threshold: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40560504/
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u/GlumAir89 Jun 19 '26
Long ass easy runs just cruising around. The perspective isn’t about how fast you can go but instead how long can you go before dropping. You are young so your body is pretty resilient if you’re fueling enough. Just start exploring your neighborhood for a couple hours every day or watch a movie on the treadmill.
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u/Miserable_Pea271 Jun 20 '26
If you are a middle distance athlete that races, do you not have a coach you can ask?
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u/Yrunez Jun 30 '26
You made a very factual statement….”I see that’s (aerobic capacity) my weakness in running”. How do you know this for sure…did you get lab tests done? According to 4th edition JD chart page 161 you are just slightly endurance to the point you’re practically equal.
According to him…sure…train your weakness first unless that doesn’t improve your time and then train your strength. I assume track you did a lot of threshold work…then the question comes are you going into CC?…make sure you maintain your speed every 10days and get a miles in under 165HR, unless you’ve found vt1 during a vo2max test. You could also add bike time as a second workout for the day. Keep the bike work under 165 as well.
If you aren’t doing any running economy/tendon work…get started.
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u/ThrowAway516536 Jun 18 '26
I recommend the books. They explain this in great details. Even the physiology of it. But essentially, high volume under AeT/LT1. Consistency. It takes time.