Must read: Marius Bakken (13.06 5k) very thoroughly on how the Ingebrigtsens have copied his training

MB was inspired by the Kenyans after having done altitude multiple times. He ran 25K/day and a lot of threshold training, typically 1-2K.

Master of LolIy wrote:

Gjert doesn't even deny that, he mentions using Marius Bakken principles in an interview.

Marius Bakken was the most advanced athlete / coach of his time and came to his training concept through a lot of trail / error + advanced analysis. A legit distance running genius, who trained himself to 7:40 3000m and 13:06 5000m, both were Norwegian records untill Ingebrigtsens came along.

I always followed Bakkens blog and admired him for the incredible work he has done.

His blog was pretty incredible. I remember their training group drawing blood to measure lactic levels. It's still up....

. Closest ever to pulling the IL triple at the state meet.....Won the Mile and 2 Mile and got 2nd in the 800m.

EV3 wrote:

reader, wrote:

Thanks for sharing, interesting read. Basic week is 2 threshold runs on Tue and Thur for a total of 4 threshold sessions a week. All done as intervals (max ~6min), no long tempos. Saturday faster or hill work.

Any thoughts on what 3mmol/l translates to for most people for paces or heart rate?

https://www.mariusbakken.com/training-corner/kenyan-training/kenyan-training-a-practical-guide.html

From this article it appears to me they are training roughly marathon pace for the 3mmol. (See Illustration 1).

Seems to fly in the face of a lot of the accepted paradigms.

Maybe I have misread the article?

Seems like with 6 min intervals you would need to run faster than marathon pace to reach 3mmol.

Funny he talks about this yet has nothing to State regarding his "blood poisoning". The guy was clearly experimenting with an intravenous "medication". That on top of being associated with a dirty coach who has since been banned from coaching seems bizarre and would love to hear him speak on these topics. No more secrets

reader, wrote:

Any thoughts on what 3mmol/l translates to for most people for paces or heart rate?

Its around 85% HRmax, as an orientation.

Norway speaking wrote:

Turns out Gjert didn't invent the wheel all by himself:

http://www.mariusbakken.com/the-norwegian-model.html?fbclid=IwAR1fYnCFHO0UzpZe3hIwwlWeZVnWNwrnOqWTL2xQJ59-YCzksX-oJvx2UD8

Nice read thx.

This information is not to underestimate:

Keep the easy training easy.

In terms of lactate, we are below 1.0 mml/l, heart rate below 70 % of max for the easy runs

lexel wrote:

reader, wrote:

Any thoughts on what 3mmol/l translates to for most people for paces or heart rate?

Its around 85% HRmax, as an orientation.

That’s the thing Americans think they need to run “threshold” work rate at 88%. Really it’s a range of 80-88%. It’s much easier to get large volumes at 80-85%. Either through steady state runs or tempo intervals.

Daniels 20 minutes tempo at one hour race pace is garbage. The best world class runners simply aren’t doing it. It’s better to do a long run at 80% like East Africans do or large volume short intervals at 85% like the Norwegians.

Letsdance wrote:

lexel wrote:

Its around 85% HRmax, as an orientation.

That’s the thing Americans think they need to run “threshold” work rate at 88%. Really it’s a range of 80-88%. It’s much easier to get large volumes at 80-85%. Either through steady state runs or tempo intervals.

Daniels 20 minutes tempo at one hour race pace is garbage. The best world class runners simply aren’t doing it. It’s better to do a long run at 80% like East Africans do or large volume short intervals at 85% like the Norwegians.

Norwegian Stephen Seiler‘s work basically says this emphasis on threshold is a waste of time.

Clearly there are a bunch of lurking variables at play here to determine the optimal system for each individual.

Master of LolIy wrote:

Norway speaking wrote:

True, but in the interview he says he only talked to Bakken once or twice to learn from Bakken's mistakes, but it seems the core of his system was developed by Bakken.

Gjert - and Ingebrigtsen brothers in general - are sly dicks. The way they run at the EC, passing on the inside, shoving, tripping, talking trash about competitors... Henrik also has lied to me about not knowing who Cole Hocker is 3 months before Olympics. They are shady MFs.

Lol. Imagine being so winded up. Calm down. Pretending to not know who your rivals are is classic mind games.

dfbfgh wrote:

reader, wrote:

Thanks for sharing, interesting read. Basic week is 2 threshold runs on Tue and Thur for a total of 4 threshold sessions a week. All done as intervals (max ~6min), no long tempos. Saturday faster or hill work.

Any thoughts on what 3mmol/l translates to for most people for paces or heart rate?

Is there a way to accurately and effectively do this without a lactate meter? Maybe using power or, as mentioned above, heart rate?

No.

Master of LolIy wrote:

I always followed Bakkens blog and admired him for the incredible work he has done.

He had a forum a long time before that.

Cabral was there and made many good posts about Lopez and Mamede.

It was disappointing when that forum disappeared.

It looks like he paraphrased some of those postings and put them in his own words on his blog.

dfbfgh wrote:

reader, wrote:

Thanks for sharing, interesting read. Basic week is 2 threshold runs on Tue and Thur for a total of 4 threshold sessions a week. All done as intervals (max ~6min), no long tempos. Saturday faster or hill work.

Any thoughts on what 3mmol/l translates to for most people for paces or heart rate?

Is there a way to accurately and effectively do this without a lactate meter? Maybe using power or, as mentioned above, heart rate?

You can get reasonably close by relying on perceived effort, though dialling it in can be hard.

As he mentions in the post, Kenyan runners are able to feel threshold better than others for some reason.

Mike L wrote:

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

Probably it suits a special type of runner and not as good for others. In Norway now, "everone" is following this. probably not best for all.

Excellent point, Jon.

Actually I found Marius comment about this later in the article. He claimed it would work for most, but there is a chance that he met and interacted with mostly those that fits the normal aerobic model. Those with more fast twitch type might have to think differently. Magness has covered this and others. But it might not need too much change... Maybe a polarization of the threshold work of being comfortable M-pace in the morning and less but faster work in the evening. I dont know..

Ho Hum wrote:

dfbfgh wrote:

Is there a way to accurately and effectively do this without a lactate meter? Maybe using power or, as mentioned above, heart rate?

You can get reasonably close by relying on perceived effort, though dialling it in can be hard.

As he mentions in the post, Kenyan runners are able to feel threshold better than others for some reason.

I agree. There are some principles behind. Morning reps is not that hard to hit with 2h race pace and feel. It is t build base and just not go too hard, better err on the slow side. Evening reps is maybe more tricky because you should touch threshold, but not go in average over. But again, feel can work. I also point to using breathing as a feedback of workload. One could do some lactate measurements to calibrate feel and threshold and breathing. But feel is very consistent. Think about how you could hit rep splits in the same workout even without a watch... Also the development through the workout is important. If over threshold the last rep will feel different than the first. Below threshold it is really the volume that makes you tired, not the intensity so you should be able to do a lot of more reps if you had to at the end. Let us say 10x1k, you should be able to comfortably do 3-4 more. For the morning reps, you should be able to do double the reps.

Letsdance wrote:

lexel wrote:

Its around 85% HRmax, as an orientation.

That’s the thing Americans think they need to run “threshold” work rate at 88%. Really it’s a range of 80-88%. It’s much easier to get large volumes at 80-85%. Either through steady state runs or tempo intervals.

Daniels 20 minutes tempo at one hour race pace is garbage. The best world class runners simply aren’t doing it. It’s better to do a long run at 80% like East Africans do or large volume short intervals at 85% like the Norwegians.

Daniels is outdated for me. I have the feeling with Daniels methods you become a good runner but not a great runner. Too hard training also.

The Norwegian idea to split the tempo run into intervals is quite brilliant. I think you get less muscle damage by having those intervalls shorter, but the overall volume can be similar or even more, compared to the traditional 20 minutes tempo run. So win-win. Having less (small) muscle damages means you are recovered earlier and that is fruitfull for a long term training.

I do not get what Marius means with muscle tonus in this regard.

I believe also that with that shorter intervals the brain is more forced to learn 'running' because of the changes of velocity all the time. Further i believe that the body needs to adjust more because of the permant disturbance of homeostasis also generated by pace changes.

Have no prove for my theories :)

Loved the article but also had no idea what he was talking about when he kept mentioning muscle tone. I do not monitor my muscle tone before or after whatever workout I am doing.

Possibly he meant soreness and this was a language issue? Or am I missing something?

london 5ker wrote:

Loved the article but also had no idea what he was talking about when he kept mentioning muscle tone. I do not monitor my muscle tone before or after whatever workout I am doing.

Possibly he meant soreness and this was a language issue? Or am I missing something?

Definitely meant muscle tone, ie the amount of tension in the muscles. Muscle tone is useful - you wouldn't be able to stand up without it - but more is not better. His theory seems to be that exercise temporarily increases muscle tone in the working muscles which lasts long after the exercise is complete. This can lead to discomfort/pain/injury. You're probably familiar with having restless legs after a really hard day of training or racing, and that interfering with your sleep. He would prefer to train in a way that prevents muscle tone becoming elevated for too long, and he believes that splitting up lactate threshold work into intervals, often performed as two sessions in one day, is preferable to doing the same amount of total work as, say, one continuous tempo run.

He links to his dissertation in the piece and there's an english language extract at the bottom

I might be misunderstanding this but Marius makes it seem like the most effective threshold pace is quite a bit slower than traditional threshold pace. Closer to marathon pace. In the article about the Kenyans, who don't seem to be doing double threshold days, he says that their levels of lactate are lower. What I took away from this is that training at slower than threshold pace, even if only doing on session per day, is more effective. So doing something like 6xMile at marathon pace or a bit faster with short rest and progressing towards threshold for the last rep would be the best way to train.

Norway speaking wrote:

Master of LolIy wrote:

Gjert doesn't even deny that, he mentions using Marius Bakken principles in an interview.

True, but in the interview he says he only talked to Bakken once or twice to learn from Bakken's mistakes, but it seems the core of his system was developed by Bakken.

He may have talked to Marius only once or twice, but have access to what Marius said or written in English and Norwegian.

Back then Marius and Tom McArdle were my favorite guys/blogs to follow.