Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

OK wow, thanks for this! I think I probably had a few of these things wrong so thanks for laying out and idiots guide!

Thanks again for everything you have done to aid training here, the forum and just the wider running community to make the 'sirpoc' method available to so many people. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying it's better than virtually anything I've paid for, including not only the results but the information given not just to make us faster, but to educate to help us make our own decisions.

Bro, stop over complicating it. Just go out, run fast and hard the results will come. Nerds and losers trying to take the fun out of a simple sport.

Nice troll attempt, I almost know what you are saying. But yeah I had great fun getting crushed by my age group peers in races. So much less fun now I'm way faster and crushing them. All the fun is gone!?

Sure training sessions for me now following this method are pretty mundane, routine etc. but it more than gets the job done and then some.

If running is training sub optimal but fun to put cool looking sessions on Strava, than good luck to you. But presumably if we are all training a fair amount, the majority of us are training for something, or some race, with some goal in mind and understanding this thread will likely give the majority of guys and gals in this thread the best chance of getting to where they want to be. Maybe beyond their expectations, which is where I am at.

I just hope you're wearing Lynx Voodoo or Java with all that hard running you're doing.

The specifics of the method (specific sessions, training distribution, etc) emerge from the application of some general principles to a specific context. Scaling the plan beyond the context it is designed for means you are fundamentally changing some of the parameters that produced the plan to begin with, so something will probably break.

Look at sirpoc's explanations of how he crafted his training plan, then apply that process to your situation. Don't try to convert the pattern of the plan itself.

If someone is running 10+ hours /week:

• The proportion of quality work can't be as high -no hobbyjogger is sustaining 2.5-3+ hours worth of hard running /week.
• They might benefit more from a wider range of intensities.
• They're probably going to need a lot of easy doubles to get all the running done.
• The LR might be a differ % of weekly volume or have an entirely different purpose altogether.

Why not just keep all the extra running a really easy pace whilst keeping the sub threshold? Just do it easy enough you don’t t break down

If you are running 10+ hours a week. You don't need my help.

People like John etc are much smarter and experienced than me in this running gmae. He's hit the nail on the head. I did very carefully design this for the specifics of my situation (applying what I was sure what transfer over from cycling). But it was in the parameters of maybe having around 5 hours available, with a long term plan of maybe building up to 8. In a couple of years, which is exactly what has happened.

That's basically where the 5-8 hour range comes from. I would argue though, that fits a lot of people, especially nearer the 5 hours end. Most people could train that much, if they wanted to.

But if you fit outside of this (again, listen to John he's very smart) don't try and force or shoe horn in all of what I've applied, just for the sake of it. There's probably better ways guys can structure 4 hours and there's definitely better and more sensible ways to structure 10 hours.

Thanks John (and Sirpoc).

I am focused less on the 30% at sub-t and more on getting in 3 sub-t sessions a week. That's my takeaway from this thread. As mileage increases beyond 7 hours a week, for me, this translates more to an 80/20 plan, but with the 20% all at sub-t effort.

Thanks for your help and for telling us to err on the slower side.

However, sometimes when I try to hold a given pace, my watch just simply slows down and instead of running at a 7:15 effort based on a sub-T chart/calculator, it'll say I'm running at 8:05 pace and my Strava will just look liked jagged mountains. Is the endgame if you do it right your sub-T intervals will look like perfect peaks, with no drops in between? It's annoying looking at the watch constantly to ensure I'm not slowing down by accident.

You really should not be relying on tech that much. if you slow down a couple of seconds, who cares. if you are slowing down a lot then you were going to fast.
Remember a GPS watch, though a remarkable piece of tech, is not accurate to that level of detail

Thanks sirpoc for the method, i implemented it a few weeks ago and already see some nice results.

I have 2 questions,

I do strength training 3x week with lower body focus on 2 days and my idea is to do 2 indoor bike sessions instead of 2 easy runs. Would that be time on bike = time easy run ? (in same HR zone)

and would it be bad for 5k-10k training to only use 1k intervals ?

I found that my gps is just guessing when I run my workout route. There are just enough turns and trees for the gps to be useless. I bought a $30 measuring wheel from amazon and marked off a 2k course in 200m increments. This has been super helpful for pacing! I’ll do reps where 46 or 47 per 200 is my goal pace and if I’m feeling good and not paying attention it’s easy to go out in 42-45(5k-10k pace) and the RPE feels sub threshold! I’ve come around to the idea that rpe is garbage and that objective measures of your output are really important. Now when I’m running reps I try to disassociate my rpe(which will slowly rise within each rep and through the workout) from how quickly I’m moving down the road. This has taught me to run a constant speed regardless of rpe and if I’m paying attention I can predict my 200m splits pretty well. If I space out and just keep the same rpe the pace drops. Rpe will rise over time, and at different rates, depending on where you are between LT1 and 2, but it will rise. if you keep rpe constant that’s a sign that the pace may be dropping (by a little if early in the workout and by more at the end).

Agree with a lot of this. I was very much of the old breed in the sense I felt like my body and RPE tells the best story. I'm big enough to accept I was wrong now I've implemented this method. Not only am I in crazy shape, the shape of my life, I have learned that when I feel good I'm running way too fast and that actually when I don't feel great, I can still hit sub threshold paces X3 a week.

I could never have imagined being a metrics focused runner, but my view now is I'm jumping on that bad wagon before everyone else catches up. This thread keeps things simple, but in my opinion it's way ahead of the running curve as it brings objectivity into the mix , which is really what creates the balance between manageable and progres in the long term. If I was left to my own devices with feel, RPE I can guarantee I would have messed all this up.

For those of us that live in regions like Gulf Coast Texas, where heat and humidity rule much of the year, how do you think you would feel about adherence to pace vs RPE?

I live in North Carolina and it’s pretty insufferable in the summer, though not as bad as Texas. My plan is to workout in the mornings, slow down a bit and extend the rest period to keep body temperature controlled. This is a great question though and I don’t think there’s a perfect answer except control what you can control. However, I don’t think I’m better off going by rpe in the summer. If I standardize the time of day I run and how to adjust paces, I think that would be good enough to get the work in consistently.

I currently live in east Asia due to work. RPE was probably one of the reasons I was massively detraining. Stuff felt hard, but actually the reality was it wasn't as hard as I thought. Chillruns idea of early as you can in the day, certainly worked for my easy runs where I could control HR to under 70% of max. I used that as my upper limit, as even in the morning that comes before 65% of MAS in sirpoc guide.

For the workouts, investing in a lactate meter massively helped, as I could do a step test in good conditions then translate the paces outside. Again though, RPE is without doubt the worst marker here. The best solution is the workouts on the treadmill. I have managed to make this system work. I think ultimately, if you want to you could? But I accept , it requires a level of extra effort.
xemptyzI don't think though many people would have much success with sirpoc's method, unless you have some way to keeo things consistent and measurable.

Ultimately this is what creates the understanding of what you are doing, keeps you from going to hard but helps you understand how to quantify and build loads. There's no magic pill here, but I've learned that I can build all these things in, even despite my poor running environment and I set my HM PB after years of trying to break 1:15 just recently. Massively thankful to this thread and obviously sirpoc specifically.

Best of running everyone.

Nice posts guys. I will add in good conditions it's the opposite effect. RPE had me going too hard. 7-8 is where my workouts would sit and there's something that sirpoc said that set off alarm bells for me. That his workouts were 5-6 normally. I had read the thread thinking there's no way I can do 3 workouts a week at what I was doing, mostly by feel.

On hindsight, just running on feel was stupid. You often feel a million dollars until you don't. The paces are only a fraction slower than what I was doing, but the RPE and ability to workout 3 days a week is there. The structure is there for a reason to what sirpoc84 does, but took me a while to see it.

Using a pace 10 seconds slower than your threshold can save you a day of recovery. I can maintain three races a week at my threshold because I recover quite quickly taking advantage of the easy races, but you have to be smart with the intensity. But it is noticeable when one day you reach supra threshold and when one day, however, you run at sub threshold. I believe that the key is more than always running at sub-threshold, but rather that the easy runs really are easy.

I'm digging into this approach a bit, sorry if this has been asked.

-What is the purpose of the variation in rep schemes and paces, in the context of this program?

I am looking at some recommendations (I don't remember if I saw them here, reddit, or the strava group) that say to alternate 12x3min, 9x4min, 6x6min, 4x9min reps between 15k, HM, and 30k pace, all with 1-minute jog, as a starting point.

It seems to me like:

-The pace variations there are so tight as to not make much of a difference, or even be possible to dial in that precisely (presuming road training).

-Physiologically, what's the difference between 3/6/9 minute intervals, all with 1 minute jog rest? The goal of all of these workouts is to give an overall threshold stimulus, with rest for lactate to come down. It's not like they're really giving any different stimuli.

I understand the point of a wide range of paces and rep schemes in a system like daniels or 5-pace, but this is a very simple and focused program without a wide range of paces and rep schemes, we're just splitting hairs on a tight range.

If a runner were to run all of their workouts at 8x4min30sec, roughly between T and M pace, what would be the downside? Just getting bored?