Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Oh yes, great idea. Let's ruin the Strava group with that moronic nonsense. Might as well invite cogg@n and lexel while you're at it.

I'll pass! How swede it isn't...

I would have to imagine that an offer of a few months of free coaching is pretty hard to turn down.

It’s hard to support claims of “magic” or to know for sure how improvement would differ when you are the one participant and lack a control group, but in spite of that, you could probably at least see if it’s potentially worth it as you hear about the plan and receive a couple of weeks of coaching.

Neither of you have to do it, of course, because you get to decide how you want to proceed, but I know I’d look in to a Jecht/Wizard thread periodically to see updates and would be interested in seeing the amount of progress by the end of a few months. And since I have no need to promote or disparage any one thing or person, I’d just be rooting for a resounding success for the benefit of both participants, coach and athlete.

Jecht has had every opportunity and had plenty of direct replies from most of the smart guys on the Strava group, all who are better coaches probably than Jan. Even then, he's not really followed any of the advice, up to this point. In that sense him and fat Jan are a matched made in heaven. Anything than can go wrong, likely will go wrong. It's the car crash you wouldn't be able to take your eyes off.

Also , keep the fat swede with the washing up bowl haircut out of the Strava group. He's a loser and a fat lying slob and the place is better off without him. He doesn't have the guts to join it anyway, he likes to think he's smart but he would be the dumbest guy on the chat board there out of the 500+.

You may know more about running than either of them, but you don’t sound like a very good person — your distaste for lying notwithstanding.

I wonder who the fat jan account user really is. Whoever he or she is really does not like jecht and the wizard (but I don't blame them).

All the Scandinavian training revolves around building a solid base- the threshold is just a great way to increase your aerobic capacity.

learn more about base training here:

georgelewishealth.com

Aerobic Base Training For Running: Things I Do and Don’t Do As A High Level Running Coach

Lewis Sheward

The Do's and Don'ts of base training from a high level running coach

Link:www.georgelewishealth.com/post/aerobic...

Wow, what a link! We have had 160+ pages of great chat and we have watched a guy go from 18:50 to 15:40 but thank you so much for your link! The thread would be nothing without it!

I'm going to dismiss everything sirpoc has said and all the success with a group of nearly 600 people on Strava who are interested in this have had....... and I'm going to tear all that up, go on long runs (they are really important after all as you say!), hit the gym for some strength sessions and run some strides then I'm sure my improvements from 21 down to 19 will be about down to 15 for myself by the time you are done with me!!!

Thank you for not understanding a single thing about this Norwegian/ cycling inspired method. JS will be here next and I will be running 5k pace reps walking back to 120bpm!

In addition to the temperature induced differences, the difference in Max HR between the TTs suggests to me that you went into the second TT dealing with a bit of fatigue.

Bakken's experience is that the "ideal" performance condition is a low HR during warmup and then high HR (but stable lactate) when stressed, and I've noticed this in my own training as well. It has actually led me to stop using LTHR as a hard cap during sessions, provided I still feel like I'm sub T from an RPE perspective.

I think you're going to be pretty happy with your decision to keep at this in a few months!

I did about ~8 weeks of this program from Feb to March, then ~8 weeks of more "traditional" training (2 workouts /week -mixed hard interval day and threshold/speed combo day).

• April 19: 5km track: 15:18, 2nd place.
• May 28: 12.7km downhill relay leg (Ski to Sea): 36:59, 2nd place, Strava GAP 3:11/km

Week off after the downhill run then return to the original program (mostly, have been somewhat inconsistent with training).

• July 4th: 10km road (Butte to Butte, Eugene, OR): 31:50, 3rd place -course has a massive climb in the first 2.4km but is also net downhill so hard to say exactly what that time is worth. Strava GAP 3:08/km but that seems a little generous imo.

Training has been enjoyable and I've improved fairly quickly, but it's hard to say how truly effective this is as a "method" because this is also the first time since graduating college that I've put together a full 20+ week cycle of any sort of consistent training. Given my talent and running history relative to current fitness just doing pretty much anything with some consistency will make me faster. I would have liked to race a lot more these past few months, including a 1500m/mile and a HM to get a more complete picture of current fitness but life got in the way.

Really need to get another 12+ weeks of similar training and a lot more racing to better assess the methodology itself.

Has anybody thought about applying this to longer distances? I am focusing on trail/ultra running (50k-100k race distance) and am wondering if this could be a valid training method.
Usually I am running ~15h/~150k/~5000m vert a week and training based on a more traditional model of going for more specificity the close the race is (e.g. block of VO2, block of threshold, block of race specific paces).

So now I am asking myself if there could be anything to focusing on sub threshold intervals for the whole training cycle could make any sense, any anecdotal evidence?

Just an experiment of one here, but I’ve incorporated a lot of double T or threshold in the morning and closer to 10k work in the afternoon since April. Im similar to you in mileage but nowhere near the elevation gain. I’ve gotten faster in all distances since and it’s been a few months consistently sticking to it.

i did this method last year for a few months in the summer as well. I’m thinking it’s probably the easiest way to stay really fit year round if you’re never really quite sure when or if you want to race, but you’d want to be able to have a month or so buffer to get specific before one.

Were you doing three sessions a week or just two? What did a typical week of training look like for you during this phase?

Interesting! I think lifetime base helps too with this. You are very gifted...

Two workout days a week. Those days both double workouts. A weekend long run or whatever my friends in run club are doing. As much easy miles as I can do in between.

usually the second workout is 6 x 1k a bit faster than threshold if it’s all I did for the previous workout. No reason why for that specifically. Usually it’s all I can comfortably get through when it’s 90 out with a warmup and cooldown.

its not low mileage by any means, but you were asking about a year round approach with your higher mileage and I can relate.

Jecht - I never really ran much til beginning of 2020 end of 2019. There isn’t much lifetime mileage. I just think the previous poster and I like this approach but with a higher overall weekly volume because it works.

Thank you, great information. I am often struggling with long term planning of races, so staying relatively ready sounds good. I might try this starting in autumn after the current cycle 😊
Do you gauge threshold by heartrate or actually test lactate?

Neither. I run a race and use a calculator and do the same weeks and weeks on end. If it gets easier each couple weeks and I’m not struggling to finish an afternoon, I’m probably at the right pace. If it gets too hard to finish at the end or I’m dragging horribly and can’t perform at my job, I am going too fast and should probably slow down for the next workout day.

i just don’t have the financial means or desire to spend money on a meter and my Garmin is from 2017, so the HR isn’t accurate.

Just did my first sub T session, not sure if I was doing it right
I did a 1360m x 4 round a 680m loop 1 min rest in between, there're some ramps in the loop, normally I can run 8-10s per k faster on a track
I'm doing around 50k per week. Currently I think I can run about 44-45 mins 10k (my pb was 36 mins, but I was 35 lbs+ lighter then (5'6 127-129lbs v.s 165lbs now), and the weather is also pretty bad (80F with 78F dew point right now, and that's a good day), so I'm just trying to get in shape and lose weight
Anyway, the reps went like this
6:50, 6:40, 6:36, 6:35

The first one felt incredibly easy, I could actually sing, yeah I'm serious, and I could definitely hold a conversation. The max HR at the end of it was 172. My max should be around 200-205, I got 201 twice in races and mile repeats, also a 206, but that should be a outlier)

So I turned up a notch. And it still felt pretty easy. In fact It felt even easier, probably because I had warmed myself up, though I did breath a tad quicker and no longer wanted to sing, but could still hold a conversation without too much difficulty. AHR & MHR was 176 and 181 respectively at the end of the last reps.

After that I felt so strong and invigorated. I knew I could repeat the exactly workout all over again right away. Hell I think I could hold the pace for the last reps for 10k if I wanted to. It really made me wonder if I was going too easy.

That said, it felt fantastic and I enjoyed it! Will keep doing it and see what happens.

To translate this a bit for the Americans, you did 4 x 1360 (a bit under 3.5 miles total) while averaging 7:53/mile pace. That's a few seconds slower than your estimated MP, although you were on a slower surface on a hot day. If you do 2 more of these sessions this week while at 50K/31 miles per week, you'll do around 11% of your weekly distance at subthreshold pace.

And that's a perfectly fine place to start. You have lots of time to increase volume and pace. I'd even say that you shouldn't increase either one for now. Something that takes some getting used to is the daily grind and figuring out what pace you can hold, in workouts and on easy runs, day after day. Take a few weeks to see how it goes.

If it felt invigorating, you're doing it right. Keep experimenting with interval lengths, and keep going!