Base2Race Club

The Specific Phase targets the precise speeds, muscle-fiber recruitment patterns, and metabolic demands required to perform at your goal race pace. At this stage, training focuses on two complementary components:

1. Running at race pace

2. Training the total spectrum of supporting fibers that allow you to sustain race pace—those activated at slightly faster and slightly slower intensities

Together, these stimuli develop the mechanical efficiency, metabolic durability, and pacing familiarity needed for peak performance.

Primary Objectives of the Specific Phase

1. Optimize muscle-fiber recruitment sequencing
   → Efficient activation of slow-, intermediate-, and fast-twitch fibers in race-specific patterns

2. Enhance neuromuscular coordination
   → Refine stride economy, stiffness regulation, and motor-unit synchronization

3. Maximize metabolic efficiency
   → Improve lactate balance, fuel utilization, and glycogen conservation

4. Develop precise race-pace familiarity
   → Learn the exact effort feel, rhythm, and biomechanics of your target pace

These are the determinants of your peak performance.

1. Muscle-Fiber Recruitment: Why This Phase Matters

Your Base Phase targeted both ends of the fiber spectrum—very slow-twitch (Type I) through foundational aerobic work, and very fast-twitch (Type IIx/IIb) through neuromuscular strides and frequency.
Your Support Phase narrowed the range, applying moderate suprathreshold and subthreshold stress near race-relevant speeds.

In the Specific Phase, the goal is to train the exact fibers and firing patterns you will rely on during the race, while reinforcing the metabolic machinery that keeps them functioning under fatigue.

Three Core Training Modalities of the Specific Phase

Your specific workouts will fall into three categories, each with a distinct physiological purpose:

1. Race-Pace Sessions

Stimulus: Mechanical and metabolic specificity
Description: Intervals at goal pace that are intentionally moderate in duration and density.
Purpose:

• Encode precise pacing

• Improve biomechanical economy

• Reinforce race-specific recruitment patterns

These are not maximal sessions—they are accuracy sessions.

2. Slightly Faster Than Race Pace (105–115%)

Stimulus: Speed endurance and lactate-tolerance development
Description: Intervals performed marginally faster than race pace, with progressively increasing volume.
Purpose:

• Improve buffering capacity and lactate clearance

• Increase recruitment of higher-threshold motor units

• Make race pace feel mechanically and perceptually easier

These sessions raise the ceiling of your sustainable speed.

3. Slightly Slower Than Race Pace (~+15 sec/km)

Stimulus: Aerobic durability and glycogen management
Description: Long runs at ~10–15 seconds per km slower than goal race pace.
Purpose:

• Enhance fat oxidation and glycogen sparing

• Develop musculoskeletal durability

• Extend time-on-feet at near-specific mechanical loading

These runs establish the endurance “backbone” that supports performance late in the race.