Ultrarunner Andy Hooks builds aerobic base by gradually increasing weekly mileage to 45-50 miles while keeping all runs low-intensity. He emphasizes patience and love for running over speed work, framing injuries as learning opportunities and comparing base-building to a bank account that needs consistent deposits.
Chapters
I think the most important thing you always look at is people love it. You look at Mark Allen, you look at Matt McTomey, they love running. They love doing what they do. And I think that's, if I were to recommend anybody to anything, is don't try to beat yourself up over it and don't get lost in the forest of, you know, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. Do it. If you can only run 2 miles and that makes you feel good, stick with that. And then eventually, if you're patient enough, It will get better. 2 miles becomes, like you were saying, 2 miles becomes 3 miles, 3 becomes 4. And life will get in the way, of course. I mean, that gets in the way of everybody. And the thing about it is, is not to let it get to you. And I think that would be the most important thing. And I think what helped me from the 4-hour to a sub-3, and then, you know, going beyond that because of wanting to do more, is because it then becomes an addiction. In a good way.
I don't mean in a bad way.
But you want to challenge— it becomes something you want to challenge yourself with because now you have that love, you have that training, and then you want to, you know, you want to pull that thread just a little bit more. Like, what else? What can I do? And that's the thing. I'm thinking about wanting to do the Bigfoot 200 because I want to keep pulling on that string a little bit because you want to see how far can your body go. And I think that's— if there's any one recommendation I want to say to somebody is to, is to have that Once you have that and you get your patience in, because it is a process, it's not going to happen overnight. It's taken me a lot of failures. I think I kind of showed that before. I mean, I've had so many injuries with— but nothing with them with the maffron. It was all because of, you know, fun stuff happens. But, but as long as you can learn from everything, learn from your failures, because there really is no such thing as failure to me unless if you didn't learn anything from from it, and I learned a lot from it, and, but I still had that love. And I think by having that, I was able to keep going. And I think that's the most important part is the love, but also being patient with it. I mean, it's like being in a relationship, basically. You have to love being with who you're with, but you also gotta be patient with who you're with. It's the same thing with running. Training with someone who's getting ready to, wanting to do a Boston qualifier, and I think she's gonna be running SIM, And I think that's what you're going to be running too, uh, in December. So yeah. So the main thing we've been training for with her and also with another, uh, uh, girl. So I'm training two of them. And the, I think the most proper thing is what I've been noticing is, is with the heart rate training is to get past. I think it's with a lot of people though, too, is, is to get past this idea of you're not getting any progress. I think that's been, this is huge barrier because you're not running as fast as you want to, or you don't think you're running as fast as you want to. And I think, uh, so with them, I had to bring it on kind of slowly, 40, 40 miles a week and then for a month and then kind of slowly bring it up to 45 to 50. And so that'd be like monthly. And that's just more of just doing straight, strictly aerobic, no speed work, nothing else. And just going with that. And I think what I've learned though from them is, but also too, is how much they, they enjoy the running though too. And I think that, cause they're always texting me and calling me and say, hey, you want to do, let's run this route and everything else. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like they're almost running me ragged. I'm like, oh my goodness gracious. But, but they love it. And that's the best part. And I think that's, like I said, we were talking about before, it's something you really got to love and something that you got to be sustainable with.. And I think that part finally got into them with the training-wise. And so they're able to see their gains slowly progressing over time. And I told them like, you didn't have to do hardly all that much, did you? And they're like, oh yeah. So that's, that's been pretty much pretty interesting to see when, when I'm around people. And I think that kind of blows their minds that they think that they have to go hard. I'm like, no. And a lot of people think, well, why, why are you running so slow sometimes? I'm like, Well, cause I'm running, getting ready to run the next day. And I know some of y'all are, you know, I can run another 10 miles the next day or another 15. I'm not gearing toward running a race right now. I'm looking forward to running to the next day. Yeah.
And well, here's something else. You're, you're talking about running 10 miles, running 15 miles. Like I'm getting back in a training cycle and it's very humbling. Again, I used to like where Like you, I was running 10, 12 hours a week and then life got in, like priorities. I was finishing the marathon course and was working and hanging out with the kids. And so realistically, the last few months I've been running maybe 25 miles a week, maybe 20 miles a week. So like only running a few hours. And for me it was very humbling to even, I would run 3 or 4 weeks ago, like 45 minutes. And at the end, even at MAF, I was like, oh yeah, I had a really good workout. I started feeling tired at the end. Now I'm like 3 weeks further and I'm already built up to 90 minutes again. And now that is my, my next base again. And that feels comfortable. So how quickly some of these things can build up again and start become comfortable. Like once you have some kind of base there, it, it is much easier to get back into it again too.
Yeah, and I think that's the most important thing is that, but also like when you're doing what you're running, I know a lot of people think, well, I'm only going like these 3 miles when I kind of get back into it. But you already have, you yourself, you've already had that base. You've already had your blueprint. Like I always tell like the people that I'm running with, I've already put my pennies and nickels in the bank account, so to speak. That's already been built up in that nice little safety deposit. So when you're starting to come back, your body's now starting to, you know, kind of get re-back into the system. For anyone else, I mean, you, it becomes the surprise to them. But for someone like you and myself and maybe others who've had that built up with that math running, yeah, it takes time, but we now know, but we know that it's going to get there. It's not something you just lose overnight, even if you were gone away for a period of time.
And I think even if you have never If you haven't built that up yet, even just going out for 20 or 30 minutes, but doing it consistently 4 or 5 times a week and then gradually building it up. And yeah, at the beginning you might be walking like half the time and your walks will become shorter and your jogs will become longer. You build it up to 35 minutes and 40 and look how much you can accomplish by just doing that like 4 or 5 times a week.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
So it's, it's not— but I mean, that's incredible because you think about it and you're like, man, it's just— and then when you go back, you're like, man, I can't believe I was walking and I was doing that other stuff. And I was like, man, that, that was only 2 months ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And I think a lot of people that— and when they kind of go into it, they, they should see a more perspective, I think.
