Luis Del Aguila methodolody

I always understood that the easy days were meant to be easy under this method. Up to 75% is a cap on days that you feel good but I never took it as the requirement that you *should* run all the easy days in the 70-75% range. More that you *can* if you feel good. From what I’ve seen on Strava, most people following this method are definitely not running at 75% for their easy days.

You were definitely doing your easy runs too fast. Luis says they should be 1 minute 15 seconds slower than your 10K pace as a limit, but normally they're 1 minute 30 seconds slower than your 10K pace or slower. He doesn't mention a percentage of your heart rate. My experience is that running below 70% of your heart rate often leaves my legs feeling heavy because the time under stress is high due to the increased contact time, perhaps due to more isometric loading. The 75% limit isn't metabolically exhausting and allows my legs to feel fresher.

Luis talks about one threshold workout per week and one long run. He recently gave an example of someone who went from 50 minutes to sub-40 minutes in a 10K over 5 years. In my opinion, this is the smart way to start, with the next step being to increase your easy run time to the maximum you can manage in every way. After that, it will be time to try a second threshold day. It's simply a matter of respecting the basic principle of progressive overload training and applying common sense. In Sirpoc's defense, I must say that he has never suggested switching to full NSA training overnight; quite the opposite.

You're absolutely right. Easy pace of 10k pace+1'15/km is the upper limit when everything is ok (conditions, energy level, RPE...)but you can go much slower if you need. After a field test Luis gives also HR limit for easy runs (usually ~85% of LTHR) and threshold workouts but again this is a limit you'll reach at the end of the run and not a target.

Update:

The good: 1) threshold efforts reduced by about 10s/km at a lower heart rate than at the start of the 10 week block. 2) Loved having the freedom to do whatever I fancied on all the other days, lots of exploring and no staring at HR/pace, fell back in love with trail running. 3) 2 days off a week felt incredibly lavish, went for a walk with a coffee, cake and magazine read as a treat on one of the days each week.

The bad: 1) the threshold effort is mentally challenging, had to gee myself up a bit each week, especially in the winter winds. I find it mentally harder than vo2 work/intervals, I think I'm naturally much better at short and hard efforts than long grindy efforts. 2) last week, 3 weeks out from my goal HM I did a very hilly parkrun as a tune up race despite having done no hill training and got insertional achilles tendinopathy (for like the 3rd time in 3 years) - can't blame Luis for that, my own idiotic training error and flimsy achilles. 3) I missed doing proper top end and speed work.

Additional notes: didn't follow it exactly as specified, going into the final 6 weeks before the HM I started adding some tempo and sub T work into the long run to help prepare for the demands of the HM. The 3 easy runs I just did going on how I felt on the day, sometimes very very slow, sometimes a bit quicker if fresh especially with a rest day the next day.

Conclusion: Once I'm over this achilles I think I'll give it another block, at the start of it I thought 1.20 HM would be a good target especially as I struggle at longer races, by the parkrun when I got injured I was then hoping for 1.18. Might add a bit more variety into the sessions though as I get bored easily. In the meantime, back to the calf raises.