I am not a baseball fan. I really want to be but it kind of falls into the golf zone: too much time and too little activity to be of interest. What I do appreciate about baseball is that it reminds you of what you must have in order to accomplish your goal. You can’t get to home without touching the other bases. Most importantly, you can’t score unless a runner gets to first base.

When I started participating (trust me, I was not racing!) in long distance triathlon, I noticed that something was missing in my performance. It didn’t really make sense. I could run a mile fast, my FTP in a 10 mile TT was a new personal record and I had the training hours required to complete the race. Every time I raced, I would realize about halfway through that something was missing. I had no idea that I kept trying to score a home run by skipping first base.

Since I have started the Endurance Corner protocol (over a year ago) I realized that I was doing a fine job with the “Build” and “Peak” periods but had skipped the most crucial and critical foundation for success: the “Base.”

Why did I skip it? Because it is the hardest part of the season. Boring. Seriously, who wants to train to train? No tempo work? No speed work? No adrenaline rush? Are you kidding me? Shouldn’t I be pushing every workout?No?!? Let me understand this, you just want me to focus on endurance, strength and skill work? My training partners will laugh at me and drop me so fast it will make my head spin. Just writing about it starts to make me sweat.

This past year I have learned that the Build and the Peak period success depend on the depth and dedication of your Base period. In other words, you can’t build a huge beautiful house unless you have the foundation to support it! I find it ironic that I skipped this crucial part of training. I love reading about businesses that have created the foundation or base for long term success. These are the businesses that do not think about flipping or the owners getting out when going public. Many of them prefer not to go public.

When I started my business, I remember writing a totally excessive (think epic tome… epic unreadable tome) business plan, apprenticing in two other companies and lining up all kinds of professionals to assist me (lawyers, accountants etc.). I think the companies that truly have long-term success crawl before they can run. The companies that most often have failed were the ones yelling loudest about how they “hit the ground running!” Not long after, these companies show the cracks that occur from having little to no foundation or base. They are unable to weather the storms or seize the opportunities.

I have come to understand that like triathlon training, business has periodization (as do families, relationships etc.). Every year our business has a base period. We do business to get ready to do more business (train to train). We would love to be excellent all the time, but I find it impossible to be at our peak every day of every year. The companies I truly support have patience, endurance and a specific skill set. Gordo likes to refer to the Base period as something that “gives you the ability to do cool things!” I think of companies like Patagonia and Apple — companies that have base periods and then do cool things.

I ask myself frequently, “have I prepared my company to be able to do cool things?” Do we continue to have the base for growth and to embrace opportunities? Companies that answer these questions affirmatively often have a level of confidence unlike most companies. They don’t care about their stock price, earning estimates or what company “Y” is doing next.

How do you know if your company has it? People start calling your company an institution in your geography or industry. When you have that kind of mojo, it means the other companies don’t. Your company ends up becoming the barrier to entry for other companies. Now that is cool!

What do I think are the critical parts of a companies base period? None of these are glamorous but all are necessary for the foundation:

• Great people
• Terrific products
• Love of service
• The right technology
• Systems
• Redundancy
• Institutional Knowledge
• Integrity

This year, I have had a true athletic base period. Has it been easy? Hell no. Basically my training partners (olympic triathlon specialists) revved the engines and I worked the plan. Did I do anything cool? Yes. With very little specificity, I used my base period of swim, bike, run to go run the Boston Marathon with no taper (see blog post: Boston Marathon Race Report). It is pretty amazing that I could have this level of fitness, this early in the year, and use it to enjoy a lifetime goal. Getting to first base is the only way to put yourself in position to win the game!