Traditionally, late autumn through to early spring marks the rebuilding of aerobic and strength foundations in the periodised programs of most endurance athletes. It coincides with shorter days, poor weather, dangerous road and trail conditions and with it all, seasonal health concerns.

As in any periodised ( or recovery-based) training program the main aim is progressive adaptation and improvement but not unhealthy obsession. It is OK to miss the occassional session and to roll with the punches in terms of other commitments. It’s not only the traditional big mileage time it is also about addressing core strength and particularly any imbalances or injuries that need rehabilitation and conquering.

Athletes that embark on regular, disciplined base training throughout the winter establish a substantial aerobic foundation that will carry them through to early summer; it’s like  money in the bank.The gradual low-intensity, repetitive nature of base miles often (but not strictly ) done on soft winter trails strengthens ligaments and tendons in key joints, enabling the athlete to gain strength in these crucial locomotion areas and prevent iunjury onset ahead of spring time speed work.

Hill work and snowshoeing or dune running ( if accessible ) are important ingredients in a successful winter build-up and offer stimulating and challenging alternatives to the daily grind.

A common misjudgment is to tune your base mile phase to a metronome like beat of low intensity with way too much time spent in HR Zone 1; it is usually of more use to venture to the dizzying heights of Zone 2 low ranges during winter miles, This means, roughly you should be spending a good deal of your time exercising at between 60-75% of HRmax. In terms of progression over a typical 12- to 16-week base phase, training should gradually increment from the low end (i.e. 62 to 71 percent of lactate threshold (LT), or around 61 percent of max heart rate) of the aerobic energy system to the high end (i.e. 90 percent of LT and 80 percent of max heart rate). In the case of say, a running program, adding 5km-10km gradually to your weekly total before a stable mileage rest period then add to the progressive total over the ensuing three weeks.

You should include a fartlek session once a week whether you are running, riding or paddling adding to the faster sections of these kind of activity over a 3 week period; it breaks up the monotony and helps ready your body for speed work in spring.

Whether it’s multisport, adventure racing or MTB enduro you will need a well developed oxygen transport system that is also efficient with it, giving you the horsepower to work  at a high percentage of your VO2max without accumulating lactate. Once it does start to accumulate, indicating a greater contribution of anaerobic metabolism to the energy supply, you must reduce the workload in order to avoid premature fatigue. Prolonged aerobic training produces muscular adaptations that improve oxygen transport to the muscles, reduces the rate of lactate formation, improves the rate of lactate removal, and increases energy production and utilisation.

The high levels of aerobic conditioning needed to give you this aerobic efficiency also hold another advantage, the ability to use a greater proportion of fat rather than carbohydrate for muscle fuel. Aerobic conditioning enhances the ability to use abundant fats while exercising, thus sparing your limited by precious carbohydrate, stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen.

Your body also undergoes a number of key physiological adaptations during this winter of aerobic training with increased stroke volume of the heart and greater capillary and mitochondrial density occurring.

A greater stroke-volume sees your heart pump more blood per beat. With increased capillary density, more blood can be efficiently transported to working muscles. Mitochondria are cellular structures  that generate energy from fat and carbohydrate oxidation. Your base endurance miles can significantly increase the number of these mitochondria.

For cyclists (and paddlers) muscle strength is a critical success factor. Both sports are power endurance based. If you spend time and effort in your base phase working on sports specific strength along with your aerobic foundation you will be come far more efficient in your movement patterns and use a smaller percentage of your maximum strength to maintain the same workload.

Base training is an excellent time to work on form and economy as well, since, as intensities increase later in the season, it becomes harder for an athlete to concentrate on form. As you reach the end of the base phase you can commence power work in brief burst and total recovery between efforts e.g. ergo session with 15 minute warm up and big ring build up efforts with a pattern of 30 seconds middle of your power range slipping into 15 seconds at 80% then a 60 second recovery, looking at 4 sets of 5 of these reps.

Like it or not you may need to have your anaerobic system deprecate during the base phase. Of course, with this comes a decline in effective anaerobic endurance; equating to a drop in your top gear speed.

There is no getting away from it, those who have spent years annually paving a new base and adding onto the previous years have a competitive advantage over the novice athlete. If you are new to your endurance sports; be patient and look and work long term. Start building now.

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