Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Nonsense.

Who's the expert here? ;)

"You don't have the refs (you don't have the refs)
Aha-ha-ha ha
You're gonna need scientific approval and you don't have the refs
Such a blunder sometimes it makes me wonder why I even bring the thunder"

Here's the classic reference (from my PhD mentor's post-doc days). In this case the earliest measurement was at 12 days, but there are plenty of other data out there also demonstrating just how quickly both the central and peripheral adaptations to training regress when you stop. Again, no need to invoke loss of unspecified/unknown/undiscovered neural adaptations to training to explain a reduction in exercise performance after a week off (coincidentally, I just missed 6 d of exercise due to a conference, and I'm down ~4%).

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Time course of loss of adaptations after stopping prolonged intense endurance training - PubMed

Seven endurance exercise-trained subjects were studied 12, 21, 56, and 84 days after cessation of training. Maximal O2 uptake (VO2 max) declined 7% (P less than 0.05) during the first 21 days of inactivity and stabilized afte...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6511559/

That example makes me think of an article Andy Jones and colleagues wrote on critical speed where they pulled ~10 elite athletes data from IAAF and found that, on average they maintained 96% of CS for the marathon.

Caveat though, they used race times up to 15km in the calculation, which will (and I know you know this) significantly alter the CS from its “true” value. The reality is more like ~92% CS for the marathon and ~96% CS for a half marathon, based on a dataset of elite athletes. So, a SIGNIFICANT time difference.

I’m still a bit unsure why they did this since there was no pre-defined data set they had to use and, presumably, they would know taking times from outside the “optimal” time range on the longer end (i.e. 10km and 15km race times) would lead to a slower CS? I’ve since read this figure cited in a few mainstream articles on CS and resilience/durability, such as one from Alex Hutchinson. Which of course makes me wonder if these types of misrepresentations appear in other areas which we draw from to "inform" our training?

Since we are on this topic and I can see this becoming the new lactate meter of the training world… how is it you would describe (and/or quantify) resilience/durability?

There is no "true" value for CS. It will always depend upon the duration of the tests and mathematical equation used to determine it.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Over 55 years of critical power: Fact or artifact? - PubMed

This report aims to generate an evidence-based debate of the Critical Power (CP), or its analogous Critical Speed (CS), concept. Race times of top Spanish runners were utilized to calculate CS based on three (1500-m to 5000-m...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34618981/

I'm not lexel, but this came up at the Integrative Physiology of Exercise meetings last week. Somebody presented on "durability" in triathletes, which left a number of experienced scientists in the audience scratching their heads, wondering why a novel term was needed for "endurance".

Anyway, I don't know how the proponents of the concept define it, but I would do so as "resistance to fatigue during prolonged exercise at an intensity below maximal metabolic steady state".

Of course, for any true scientific progress to be made, first the field needs to agree upon a precise definition, then it is has to be established that "durability" is, in fact, real (i.e., a unique aspect of fitness/ability not already captured by other concepts/parameters). Unfortunately, that's not what's happening - instead, sports scientists/coaches/media types/influencers are falling all over themselves to jump on board this bandwagon, just because it seems shiny and new (to mix metaphors).

I should have specified what I meant by “true” but I thought you’d know what I was driving at, which seems to be the concept laid out by the paper you linked.

My point was if the "true" CS was intended to be the value you'd get by using the standard 2 parameter model, and race durations in the 2-15 minute range, not only did Jones and Vanhatalo not follow their defined protocol, they seemed to present the calculated CS figures as one and the same. That was perplexing to me as I thought they would recognize you end up with a significantly slower CS and a speed-duration curve that doesn’t fit the actual race data well at all.

Having said that, if one adheres to the 2-15 minute protocol, using the 2-parameter model, do you find that to be an accurate enough estimate of an individual's metabolic steady-state? And by accurate enough, I mean would the running world be cured of its confused nomenclature and ambiguously defined thresholds, as lexel claims, if CS were adopted as the universal intensity descriptor haha

I figured you weren’t lexel… it’d be kind of weird if I’d actually been emailing you on and off for a year… even weirder if you asked me to make you an excel spreadsheet to analyze your lactate data, given your background : )

Two physiologists I’ve seen make the case for resilience/durability being included as a fourth parameter, are Andy Jones and John Davis (runnningwritings.com). They both seem to be working off the Joyner model, vLT = %LT * VO2max / CR.

Davis in particular had more running specific studies, along with some nice graphical representations of the data from the studies. One of which modeled the decay in running economy over the course of a marathon. What I found curious about this was that he modeled it linearly, so decay is occurring from the start of the race.

Seeing how one can observe a VO2 steady state in loads of MLSS test data, and those carry on for 30 minutes, I thought it curious that at marathon pace, you’d expect a decline in running economy so soon (assuming an even race pace)? Would it be more accurate to expect a delayed decay over the course of a marathon, where the decay doesn’t start until later in the race and then rises steadily to the end?

Either way, he is advocating for the resilience/durability variable to represent the variation in decay that leads to different race results between individuals with the same starting VO2max, %LT, and CR, as predicted by the Joyner model.

@Hard2find

Wait a minute, lexel posts all this nonsense and then gets you to make sense of his lactate data? For real?

The guy has posted here many times claiming he was testing lactate since we are all in short trousers. That he knows more about lactate than the rest of us combined. Or have I just stumbled across you poking fun at lexel?

The guy is a clown. But this would further put his absolutely shredded credibility in the toilet.

I can almost imagine lexel taking a lactate same and then saying 'damn, now what?!'. Guy is an absolute moron.

lexel has been studying durability since the Paleolithic era

He first observed the durability of caveman to avoid sabretooth tigers by doing their quality clubbing at Critical Velocity

I will follow up on this later:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Physiological responses to prolonged exercise in ultramarathon athletes - PubMed

The physiological responses of 10 ultramarathon athletes to prolonged exercise at the highest intensity level they could sustain for 4 h have been examined. Energy expenditure for the 4 h of exercise was 14,146 +/- 1,789 kJ,...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3745051/

Sorry, missed this earlier.

Using tests of shorter duration will result in CP (CS) overestimating maximal metabolic steady state. Monod himself recognized this very early on:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Critical power as an endurance index - PubMed

The relationship between exhaustion time (t(lim)) and the work performed at the end of constant-power exercises can be described by a linear relationship (Wlim = a + b t(lim)) for work involving the whole body (eg cycling) or...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15677008/

Ironically, current proponents of the CP paradigm (e g., Poole, Jones) still favor tests that are too short in duration, even though this tends to result in an intensity greater than maximal lactate steady state, which by definition is the highest intensity at which 100% of energy is derived aerobically.

Note that this isn't the first time that Jones has contradicted himself. In particular, in this study he argued that CP and MLSS are one and the same (which they are, at least conceptually):

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Maximal lactate steady state, critical power and EMG during cycling - PubMed

We hypothesised that: (1) the maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), critical power (CP) and electromyographic fatigue threshold (EMG(FT)) occur at the same power output in cycling exercise, and (2) exercise above the power out...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12458364/

However, in this review he argued that CP and MLSS are different and that the former is superior:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The maximal metabolic steady state: redefining the 'gold standard' - PubMed

The maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) and the critical power (CP) are two widely used indices of the highest oxidative metabolic rate that can be sustained during continuous exercise and are often considered to be synonymou...

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31124324/

What's saddest of all is that he doesn't even acknowledge the discrepancy, apparently hoping that no one will notice the earlier publication.

Theory and praxis.
Most detraining papers start after 2 weeks, like yours, likely because there is not too much to see before that. I was talking about 7 days. The 1st day doing nothing changes zero. The 2nd day, is likely the day with the supercompensation effect taking place, if you miss that day, performance decreases from a higher level to the 3rd day were you go back to starting level. So we have 4 effective days of detraining in reality.

That is a good question. I am not aware of any official definition.

However, what all papers I know have in common is, they measure parameters like e.g. CV or LT1 or whatever, in a fresh state and then apply a fatiguing protocol, and measure again those parameters and compare the results fresh/fatigues. CV as well as LT1 gets lower after applying a fatiguing protocol (therefore those parameters can’t be considered as a constant). And this fatigue effect is individual. It’s the individuality which makes it a 4th parameter.

You knowledge about CV seems to be quite lacking.

MLSS is arbitrary defined. (MLSS is determined as the highest PO at which variation in [La] is ≤1.0mmolL-1, between the 10th and 30th min, during a 30-min ride). So it is very obvious that values like 1mmol , 10min and 30min are arbitrary values. :)

It was very well mentioned in a paper you listed, if you define MLSS different, CV and MLSS is not distinguishable. Other papers also show a close relation between CV and MLSS and i often mentioned that relationship.

If you estimate CV, you have to use TTs faster than CV, because the hyperbolic function is above and not below CV. So any scientist who uses TTs slower than CV, to estimate CV, does it very wrong and has no idea about it. Btw, i had to explain that also to hard2find, don't Email him, he is not a trustful person. Now he asks you the same.

I’m glad that I stumbled across this thread about 9 months
ago in my transition from cycling to running. Seems like I am not the only one
in that. Roads out there are too dangerous these days! Anyway, like others I seem
to have had great success in sticking to what the thread seems to just be referring
to as the sirpoc™ method.

I started running around this time 3 years ago post lockdown
and my first run was a 24 flat 5k TT. I quickly got to around 20, progressed to
a mid 19 and that was that – or so I thought. Was running I guess half structured,
some Daniels I and R pace combined with the usual straight tempo, long run etc.
Then found this thread about 9 months ago and things have really clicked into
place after a couple of years of frustration. Things with the method laid out
here just make so much sense for my lifestyle, my age, my ability and the
realistic number of hours I have available. I have tried to follow the method
via sirpoc strava logs as close as possible, which seems to be paying off. I
just ran 17:22 at my latest parkrun 2 weeks ago. I don’t know why it seems to
be working. I’m just here to report that I am delighted it has! So just a huge thanks for him for decided to post in the first place. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way!

Its strange, as an ex UK ‘tester’ on the old timetrial forum
years ago, it seems odd to see sirpoc and Coggan here, two of the main
characters of the past. One of the reasons I was so sold on this method (I can
only assume it’s the same sirpoc!) is that the guy was way ahead of the curve
and someone lots of guys I know looked to when it came to aerodynamics. For the
geeks here his CDA numbers are almost unbelievable. So, I figured although
training physiology is a totally different thing, he’s probably still someone
to latch onto something that works.

I actually know the Hard2find , Coggan stuff is probably
found overkill for most people. But I actually don’t mind it and enjoy picking
up on the few snippets I do understand! The thread can be whatever it wants to
be. As simple as sirpoc has made things
or we can debate the ‘why’ with the guys who really want to get into the weeds.
Coggan in the past can be a good poster, as he has shown, I just hope he doesn’t
get fixated in debating Lexels nonsense as he did TrevTheRev.

Obviously lexel talks pure nonsense, but giving him air time
is the only real thing that derails the thread in my opinion. Also, I very much
enjoy Unbelief and his quips. Very funny when he pops up. I do think a thread
as long as this needs a bit of humour inserted, can be a bit dry on the throat
otherwise!

Also, to whoever posted that chart in the Strava group
yesterday, that is one of the most useful things I have seen in a long time!