Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

kochevnik wrote:

The Ingebrigtsens are ALL 1500m specialists FIRST for the most part - this thread and the Strava group are filled with NON-1500m runners - and I think they have mostly adjusted the training to fit the longer races - for example - KI and Sirpoc do 3x3200m reps and rarely or never do the 400m reps. For them I think this is a reasonable alteration - but for 1500m type runners I think it might be unnecessary. The original Ingebrigtsen training seems to concentrate on 400m 1k and 2k reps and nothing longer. That's what 1500m specialists should do IMO.

I also don't see a huge utility in long runs for 1500m runners. There was someone on the strava thread who said he never did ANY runs longer than 1600m and PR'd his HM time.

I also question the emphasis on so much Easy mileage - if the entire point of easy days is to recover - it matters not how many of those miles you do - perhaps it is only necessary to do some minimum mileage as just a way to make sure your body MOVES on those days and flushes all the waste products from your system.

I don't know. But it seems to me the THRESHOLD runs are the 95% training and all the other stuff - long runs, easy days, hills etc - those are last 5% training.

One last thing - using distance for the threshold reps I think is a mistake - CTL and other type measurements are a version of something weight lifters have known and used for decades - you improve your hypertrophy and strength based on Time Under Tension. 5 slow reps can beat 10 fast ones because the TIME the muscle is being subjected to stress is greater.

I think thresholds are the same - you don't target 10x1k or 25x400m - instead you target the hours per week. Look at 10x1k for Jakob versus 10x1k for a hobby jogger like me - a session like that is 50+ minutes for me - it might be HALF that time for Jakob.

It cannot possibly make sense for hobby joggers to be spending twice as much time doing threshold training as Jakob.

And since all these reps vary little in pace ( a few seconds per k faster or slower depending on the distance of the rep) - in the end all that matters is the TIME you spend doing threshold reps during any given week. And the distance of any specific rep might be mostly irrelevant.

As u get faster u naturally end up doing more threshold mileage even while keeping the total time the same.

Lots of slightly different ways to skin this cat.

kochevnik wrote:

PerthBased wrote:

We all know Jakob is a handy 1500m runner, but most on this thread seem to be longer distance specialists. For me, 5k is as long as I race seriously and my main interest is the 1500m, probably more closely followed by 800m but then I enjoy the 3k/5k a lot too. Perhaps you can get away with training like this for 1500, just, but it’s hard to imagine it being good for the 800m? Or perhaps it is a good way to build base during the winter, then switch to (or include) more traditional lactic tolerance type training come summer. But has anyone here applied this as a middle distance runner?

The Ingebrigtsens are ALL 1500m specialists FIRST for the most part - this thread and the Strava group are filled with NON-1500m runners - and I think they have mostly adjusted the training to fit the longer races - for example - KI and Sirpoc do 3x3200m reps and rarely or never do the 400m reps. For them I think this is a reasonable alteration - but for 1500m type runners I think it might be unnecessary. The original Ingebrigtsen training seems to concentrate on 400m 1k and 2k reps and nothing longer. That's what 1500m specialists should do IMO.

I also don't see a huge utility in long runs for 1500m runners. There was someone on the strava thread who said he never did ANY runs longer than 1600m and PR'd his HM time.

I also question the emphasis on so much Easy mileage - if the entire point of easy days is to recover - it matters not how many of those miles you do - perhaps it is only necessary to do some minimum mileage as just a way to make sure your body MOVES on those days and flushes all the waste products from your system.

I don't know. But it seems to me the THRESHOLD runs are the 95% training and all the other stuff - long runs, easy days, hills etc - those are last 5% training.

One last thing - using distance for the threshold reps I think is a mistake - CTL and other type measurements are a version of something weight lifters have known and used for decades - you improve your hypertrophy and strength based on Time Under Tension. 5 slow reps can beat 10 fast ones because the TIME the muscle is being subjected to stress is greater.

I think thresholds are the same - you don't target 10x1k or 25x400m - instead you target the hours per week. Look at 10x1k for Jakob versus 10x1k for a hobby jogger like me - a session like that is 50+ minutes for me - it might be HALF that time for Jakob.

It cannot possibly make sense for hobby joggers to be spending twice as much time doing threshold training as Jakob.

And since all these reps vary little in pace ( a few seconds per k faster or slower depending on the distance of the rep) - in the end all that matters is the TIME you spend doing threshold reps during any given week. And the distance of any specific rep might be mostly irrelevant.

As u get faster u naturally end up doing more threshold mileage even while keeping the total time the same.

Lots of slightly different ways to skin this cat.

velku wrote:

shirtboy2022 wrote:

Agreed. The distinction i would make is obsessing over how fast to do the "easy" mileage is a fool errands in this system. If you are doing 3x sub T workouts in the week, you should be treating those easy days always more conservative than you think you should run them. Those are not there to generate extra stress. If anything, always round these runs down any way you can (or with whatever metric you are using to track them) to not compromise the other sessions and unnecessarily add fatigue.

I struggle with this myself. When i start feeling good I always fall for the false choice of speeding up the easy days. Never fails. But it always fails me. I made this mistake last fall and have been trying to be very conservative with these, since they are there to only glue together the real work in the week.

For reference, last fall i would set my 'cap' so to speak at 75% of MHR. This year ive been adamant about staying under 70% MHR and even WELL under that with much better day to day fatigue response.

Thanks for this. You have proven always a very sensible poster in this thread over the last year. I also totally agree with you. It's always something I do. I have a week where I'm feeling great and run 10 seconds faster per km for the easy runs and that ALWAYS seems to be the starting point for the inevitable wheels falling off. I follow sirpoc on Strava and I just can't believe sometimes how consistent and disciplined he is, along with KI. I just can't stick to it. I literally don't know what's wrong with me. Engrained runners instinct? Anyway I'm glad someone as smart as yourself Shirtboy actually falls into roughly the same trap as me. Kind of makes me feel better.

shirtboy2022 wrote:

Charlesvdw wrote:

I agree that time is a better metric than distance; you're not the first one to say this by the way.

I disagree on the importance of easy mileage. They are not junk miles, but an essential part of this training method - and of all other successful methods.

Agreed. The distinction i would make is obsessing over how fast to do the "easy" mileage is a fool errands in this system. If you are doing 3x sub T workouts in the week, you should be treating those easy days always more conservative than you think you should run them. Those are not there to generate extra stress. If anything, always round these runs down any way you can (or with whatever metric you are using to track them) to not compromise the other sessions and unnecessarily add fatigue.

I struggle with this myself. When i start feeling good I always fall for the false choice of speeding up the easy days. Never fails. But it always fails me. I made this mistake last fall and have been trying to be very conservative with these, since they are there to only glue together the real work in the week.

For reference, last fall i would set my 'cap' so to speak at 75% of MHR. This year ive been adamant about staying under 70% MHR and even WELL under that with much better day to day fatigue response.

pure lol wrote:

kochevnik wrote:

The Ingebrigtsens are ALL 1500m specialists FIRST for the most part - this thread and the Strava group are filled with NON-1500m runners - and I think they have mostly adjusted the training to fit the longer races - for example - KI and Sirpoc do 3x3200m reps and rarely or never do the 400m reps. For them I think this is a reasonable alteration - but for 1500m type runners I think it might be unnecessary. The original Ingebrigtsen training seems to concentrate on 400m 1k and 2k reps and nothing longer. That's what 1500m specialists should do IMO.

I also don't see a huge utility in long runs for 1500m runners. There was someone on the strava thread who said he never did ANY runs longer than 1600m and PR'd his HM time.

I also question the emphasis on so much Easy mileage - if the entire point of easy days is to recover - it matters not how many of those miles you do - perhaps it is only necessary to do some minimum mileage as just a way to make sure your body MOVES on those days and flushes all the waste products from your system.

I don't know. But it seems to me the THRESHOLD runs are the 95% training and all the other stuff - long runs, easy days, hills etc - those are last 5% training.

One last thing - using distance for the threshold reps I think is a mistake - CTL and other type measurements are a version of something weight lifters have known and used for decades - you improve your hypertrophy and strength based on Time Under Tension. 5 slow reps can beat 10 fast ones because the TIME the muscle is being subjected to stress is greater.

I think thresholds are the same - you don't target 10x1k or 25x400m - instead you target the hours per week. Look at 10x1k for Jakob versus 10x1k for a hobby jogger like me - a session like that is 50+ minutes for me - it might be HALF that time for Jakob.

It cannot possibly make sense for hobby joggers to be spending twice as much time doing threshold training as Jakob.

And since all these reps vary little in pace ( a few seconds per k faster or slower depending on the distance of the rep) - in the end all that matters is the TIME you spend doing threshold reps during any given week. And the distance of any specific rep might be mostly irrelevant.

As u get faster u naturally end up doing more threshold mileage even while keeping the total time the same.

Lots of slightly different ways to skin this cat.

Ok so we have all decided to make this thread a lot about the interesting progress of sirpoc, maybe rightly so. It's a clear example, training and progress there for all to see, training nearly laid out. But let me pose this. You think the dude goes from almost 19 to 15:40 and faster soon, with his 3 sub threshold runs and the rest of the week off? With say just one extra 30 min easy run on one day? Nothing else? You high? This thread is full of dumb posts this is #1.

Also dude, time got covered in like page 2. If you run 1k repeats in over like 3.5 mins, run 3.5 mins instead of 1k. Jesus Christ dude. It's insane we are this long in with nobody actually still understanding what's going on. You must be high again if you do 10*1k a week 3 times at 50 mins a time. LITERALLY NOBODY is dumb enough to do this. Surely. Please. Please tell me I'm wrong or I have no hope for humanity intelligence.

fasttwitch 400 runner wrote:

CAA wrote:

Really interesting post. How is your top end speed/pop now - any affect or has it held up?

My top end speed and pop has declined with age naturally, it's the first thing to go. I used to race a pretty decent 200/400 and it's the same with most of the guys I used to race with, past 35 that goes south damn quick. I kind of like this long distance stuff, the longevity is there! I can still probably run a decent 400 in an age group race though. It's maybe there at the end of a 5k now I'm aerobically half decent as well. But I don't think speed or sprint exists in the way people think it does? Unless I have the aerobic engine there's no real way to use it. It's more like who is just slowing down less rather than sprinting at the level I race 5ks.

I am glad to see my post got some good feedback. Hope it genuinely gives some help. Because it probably did take me twice as long as most people seem to mention to get the results , being so fast twitch, but in the end, we got there. I am still improving and I am almost only using what sirpoc has been using. Shamelessly copying his schedule from Strava, but with not quite as much time but the caveat of that I am aiming for the same amount of time spent sub threshold. So that's nothing apart from the 3 sessions a week. So I do think it can work across the spectrum, as by the looks of things and from what people have said I couldn't be more fast twitch and him more slow twitch.

I think patience is the key to all of this. The whole thread in fact. It's not going to create the miracle pill the internet wants, but it'll slowly get you there. But this is not for the ones who want results in 6-8 weeks even. Probably, even slower if your muscle fibers are more like mine. But hopefully hope that we can all get there in the end. Please bare in mind I am very very slow compared to some of you guys who I'm in awe of. I was happy to break 20 if I ever break 19 I think it'll be a miracle.

coach kwel wrote:

shirtboy2022 wrote:

Hey, hard to escape our innate trappings, even when your 40+ y/o!

Given any choice, my default is to overdo it. Pretty much my base toxic trait!

He's got the advantage of the outsider. Not quite an encumbered as a lot of us wear with 'this is how you get fast' or 'this is the formula to use'. Coming from cycling i think is a huge help because cycling is relentlessly focused on what works in the endurance world and also not to turn it into some sort of secret sauce.

I think you have hit the nail firmly on the head. Great post. Being an outsider sirpoc has the massive advantage of not coming through school, college etc as a runner. Most of us are corrupted by it, stuff engrained into us that just does not make any logical sense to outsiders, especially from other sports maybe the curve. People still think running is somehow special to all the rest of the endurance sports. Okay, maybe we have to be a little bit more careful with the impact on our bodies. But inherently, the same things and focuses get you towards you as close to your peak and where you might want to maybe thinking to start icing the cake, as they do in other sports. But with coaches shouting from the rooftops, this is how it's meant to be done, run 5k repeats damnit!!! I've been guilty of it in my time as well.

Coming from the outside he has been able to look and simply think 'how can I maximise the talent I have to the limitations of time I have?' not caring one bit really what anyone else thinks. That there is no speed work, not 5k pace work, no hils, no repeats. Because you look at it from how cyclists look at it....'how can I maximise performance?' look at how cycling has changed in the last 10-15 years. Imagine telling cycling coaches 25 years ago that they would be training like they are training now. They wouldn't believe it. I think that's what those of us with all these years of running struggle with in this thread. Making the same mistakes even though we know we are probably wrong, or at least not maximising what we could be still, even to this point.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

Andrew Coggan: See anything actionable in there? I don't.

Actionable? Somewhat. For someone in a hotter climate, especially as the seasons change from hot to cold and cold to hot. If a guy does a "standard" workout at a familiar pace and notices higher/lower decoupling, it helps to calibrate how much to adjust. I agree that it's mostly a "confirmative," post-run metric, but I find it helpful.

The guy I was responding to has been quite concerned about getting paces right. jecht (relatively less-experienced runner?)has been experimenting and trying to figure out how easy his easy pace ought to be. He can come back from an easy run thinking it was easy... check his aerobic decoupling... see that it was too high (or just right or whatever)... and then recalibrate his definition of easy. It might be actionable in this way for someone who doesn't have experience with what "easy" is supposed to feel like.

Andrew Coggan wrote:

I don't think that really dedicated/elite/pro cyclists really train much differently now than they did 25 y ago. It's still entails a high volume of plain vanilla endurance training with occasional more intense/structured sessions (or races).

Even at the amateur/hobbyist level, things haven't changed that much. To the extent that they have, the widespread availability of power meters and the proliferation of those selling their services as coaches has only tended to increase emphasis on higher intensity structured intervals, which seems to be the opposite of what this thread is about (sorry, haven't read the whole thing).

Anyway, if you want to do a little mind-bending/outside-the-box thinking, you could try to wrap your head around the two swimmers about to compete in the US Olympic Trials who were out of the sport many years doing CrossFit, then came back recently to set new PBs. (IIRC, one is a mother of three.)