Building a good aerobic base is very important to all
middle distance runners. This is most commonly done with steady runs.
Also useful are slower interval reps and fartlek training, the latter of these
being a mixed pace long run. Commonly, this would involve effort and recovery
periods of a set length of time - for example 2 minutes easy running and then 2 minutes
of effort.
It can also be useful, particularly for the avoidance of injury, to build
your aerobic base with some cross-training, doing other sports such as swimming,
cycling or team games. Mainly this should be used early in the training period
as specific running will be more useful as it comes up to competition time.
