Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Thanks for this post, I just looked at sirpoc race last night. He ran an entire KM give or take a few meters, on an actual beach! Well, according to what I've just seen on Strava. 15:48 is absolutely remarkable considering this. Take a look at pace between 1-2km. On a normal course , let alone a fast course he would surely have absolutely destroyed his PB. Look at the other splits, 48 hours after he runs sub 32. Troll loses again LOL.

Hard to not agree with this comment...specific is key and coach JS shown many over year and beyond that his long time coached athlete improve beyond recognition under his 40+ year experience tutoring. Many of his long time coach keynan runner use his simple but effective system. Sirpoc may take more. Maybe he will learn from the great swede. There are pro like coach JS, some say magic 🪄 but also poor amateur like sirpoc . Sad to see downvotes for great swede and upvotes for poor Brit amateur. Luckily These forum still free speech.....so the great ever youthful swedes fans can come to his defence 🇸🇪🧙‍♂️

Come on Jan, please stop. I know you need to self promote but start a thread and we can call you out on your Kenyan athletes, they went backwards after signing up with you in fitness and times, lied about their times, or trained with someone else off you plans, then went back to their previous coaches and instantly improved.

Thanks that's very useful.

Is there a calculator I could use to work out TSS scores?

TSS = (1/36)*(s)*(t/p)^2

where

s=# of seconds

t=threshold pace

p=pace of run (or grade adjusted pace)

Pay attention to your facebook pages.

And by the way, that is a horrible haircut Jan.

As a counter to the guy who tested way off, my anecdotal experience has been that the sirpoc suggested paces are spot on. I solely use the pace calculator from the strava group. Never used a lactate meter, don’t even own a HRM. Just rely on pace and effort. If I'm feeling a little rough one day (particularly now with high heat/humidity) I’ll just back off a few secs/mile

Been rolling 6 days/week with 3 subT’s for the most part since December 2023, missed a bit of time earlier this year for illness and life reasons but have still seen big improvement. 20:3x last fall on a flat course with perfect weather, 18:5x a few weeks back on a rolling course in 70+ dew pt. Hoping to crack 18 for the first time in over a decade later this year when the weather cools off

Look up lactate step test and you'll find a variety of protocols. There is no standard protocol because the protocol is dependent on the athlete's ability. You definitely need to cross LT2 though -the way LT2 is estimated on a lactate curve is by the change in slope that occurs at LT2 so a couple steps above LT2 are absolutely required to make this curve and have accurate paces.

Some general guidelines for crafting your own protocol:

• The "best" test is pretty much the longest one someone can execute with their fitness.
• Longer steps provide more accurate measurement. 3min is the absolute minimum, 5-6min is much better assuming the athlete can still get enough steps in to plot a full curve and be within the session volume they can handle.
• More steps provide more resolution for plotting the curve. Common step change is +1km/hr running speed for each step.
• Proper warm-up and starting pretty slow on the first couple steps are important for getting good data. Take a resting measurement before the warm-up, complete a very easy warm-up, take a measurement following warm-up. The first couple steps should be below the lowest estimation of the athlete's AeT/LT1. A very common issue is starting too fast and overshooting this which causes people to miss LT1.
• Ideally would do the test in good conditions that are the same/similar to what the majority of workouts are done in -this familiarity will make for better execution of the test itself AND make the data from the test easier to apply to workouts (which is the whole point).
• If using a treadmill make sure the treadmill is accurately calibrated. If using a track it may help to practice pacing ahead of time, particularly to get some of the slow-moderate pace right.
• Make sure nutrition is normal going into the test -too much or too little carbohydrates will throw off lactate the numbers.
• Make sure sleep and stress are normal going into the test -lack or rest or high emotional stress can throw off the lactate numbers.
• While the volume at a super hard effort isn't very high in these tests (by definition most of the work is under LT2), still need to be mentally and physically prepared to run quite hard for a couple of reps at the end of a pretty long session -very different type of "hard" than a normal tempo/threshold session.

I recently did the following test and feel like it worked out pretty well for me, even with me botching the pacing on step #1 and failing to complete the final step. Currently at low 15min 5k ability running 110-135km/week

1. Test
2. 10min super easy warm-up (5:00/km pace)
3. Test
4. 7x1600m/90s starting at 14km/hr (4:17/km pace) +1km/hr each step. Was supposed to start at 13km/hr but messed up the pacing so bad that I just skipped into the next rep. Paced well after that. Test after each step.
5. Failed 8th rep making it only 800m, basically just ran out whatever my legs had left then stopped.
6. Test.

Got pretty clean data despite a couple mistakes, but better pacing and getting an extra data point below AeT/LT1 would have been helpful. To get LT1 we're looking for that first change in slope from baseline, so we need to establish baseline accurately.

I'll also point out that the pace estimates I got from this test where exactly the same as those I had already been using based on a combination of VDOT and breathing guesstimates. The lactate testing is a fun exercise and good confirmation, but by itself is probably not going to revolutionize anybody's training. We shouldn't put too much expectation on it.

I'll add to this and say the same. I've also stuck to a mixture of the spreadsheet and the paces Hard2find posted in this thread. Both of which pretty much get you to the same point and based off sirpoc's original posts.

I will say this, for the first 4-6 weeks I had varying trouble of reaching the paces shared. It was very up and down. I even got a lactate meter to check things. After around the end of the 6 weeks, everything settled into place as I guess my body became familiar with the system and I got fitter. I've tested ad-hoc since, the paces have always kept me almost exactly spot on where you would want to be having established a lactate baseline. I guess everyone is different, but for anyone not sure or doesn't have a lactate meter, I believe truly in general it's an amazing starting point.

Ultimately this thread and the amazing Strava group has changed my running life. I almost feel like I have stumbled on some old school cheat codes. I have been doing this since January and have absolutely crushed a PB at 5k and a half the other week, both of which go back almost a decade and a half. I'm well into masters category now. I absolutely wish this thread existed 15 years ago. Yes, these ideas are not totally new. But there's never been anything laid out like this, as accessible as this , as successful as this or without anyone trying to sell something for profit, in LRC history.

I see this thread has now had its anniversary. I suspect it will pop up and continue to pop up as long as LetsRun exists in whatever format.

Now that the great coach JS has his own thread with only long time proven success using lower mileage methods, I think we all agree that should be focus of attention and now we end this thread. It was nice thread until it was shown now our main character sirpoc starting to get slower at 5k...clearly for runners this isn't ideal. The great but ever youthful swede I hear will be taking on free advice. That is the kind guy he is. No wonder the women of Eastern Europe crave his attention he he 🪄🧙‍♂️ if it wasn't for the Swedish maestro, I would still be slow like the heroes of this thread KI and sirpoc! He always says it is not real magic of course.......but I disagree 😏😱

Good, then I hope we don't have to read his nonsensical ramblings here or anywhere else on letsrun from now on.

Without a spiroergometry, a lactate step test is not even half of the story. You do not know VO2max and CR (cost of running) and the changes of these parameters during a training intervention...

A spiroergometry remains the gold standard. Lactate step testing can be done additional to that.

Are you sure? 😏

I didn't do that post.And you know I don't write English like that. Just telling you.🇸🇪🧙🏼‍♂️🇸🇪

If? Pathetic. Like your new hair style.

Hi Jan!

You can tell it's Jan, based on several tells.

Spaces before periods, like this .

The language is broken and uses European English (favour versus favor), instead of American. To be fair that's not a 100% confident indicator.

Emojis at the end of sentences and the SE flag emoji.

The posters advocating for Jan use the same writing style as well overall.