Norwegian Training Approach - Threshold Focused

Well there is a difference in muscle usage between running and xc skiing, but if it‘s not possible to do two running thresholds a day because of past injury or something like that, a second threshold workout on skis is still going to be beneficial for you. Although doing both running will definitely get you bigger running specific gains.

You might read up on the training of Ingrid Kristiansen. She was a very good XC skier in her youth, and did a fair amount of it even after switching to running.

Really impressive. Thank you for that. She was doing 15-17 hours of training during the winter combining running and xc skiing. 110-120 miles with 3 sessions in the summer. 2:21 marathon PR in 1985 and 1:06 for the half in 87.

My goal with this is mostly to do more quality work during my winter base training instead of slogging a bunch of slow miles in the snow which I don't enjoy so much anymore. If I can do shorter reps in PM at my 10k/half pace or hills reps that would be great.

Thank you everyone for your input.

Nova Biomedical if you’re in the US

A better option is running on a treadmill. And before someone experiment with double thresholds really give singles a fair amount of time to see how it improves you. Remember other top runners like e.g Kipchoge, Kamworor, Kelvin Kimutai and so on succeeds on just singles. 🇸🇪🧙‍♂️🎅

Who cares what some guy called Kelvin Kimutai does in training?

Don't you know his Marathon debut ended in a Valencia win and 2:01:53??? )))

Near impossible to keep the right intensity level as the terrain varies so much. You would have to be at a quite high level to be able to keep the intensity low enough up most hills (and high enough on flats or going down if so). But I think lot can be gained doing skiing, and if you have a place without to much gradients you can atleast use it as good training.

Don't you know his name is Kelvin Kiptum and not Kelvin Kimutai, doper coach? )))

Stensson is ignorant.

Interesting experience. Without doubles I also could not imagine that ever would run 180km per week...

Lets talk about fast twitch...

What would you change in existing training model to suit for these type of runners?:

1) easy pace even more easy and slower, ok one is have;

2) 2 easy days between doubles?

3) x-element, more harder and start kicking hard at early base oh how?

4) a lot of strides during the week?

5) one double substitute with Tinman (CV) workout every week/other week/cycle 10 days, etc...

Bump

I I can't answer for fast twitch, but, here's what I learned when I first tried this:

1. Easy pace is "easy". Not a pace, heart rate or anything else. It's just that. It was also fairly neccessary for me to run them by time. If my plan said "40 minutes", I'd stop running at 40.

2. Marius Bakken touches upon this in his interview on "I det lange løp" podcast, where he found that one day between was optimal for him, relating to maintaining the proper level of muscle tone.

3. The way the Ingebrigtsens appear to do their training is that this is base, and outside of sharpening for competition, they do very little above their threshold intensity. Jakob has touched on this in the same podcast - while they do a harder workout per week with higher lactate, it is on a fairly steep hill minimizing mechanical strain/injury risk.

4. I have no idea what the Ingebritsens do, and won't even attempt to speak for the science, but to me, they've always been beneficial to me.

5. This one I can't answer, but it seems to run contrary to what both Marius and Jakob/Filip/Henrik do: The reason they do their controlled intensity training is that they find that it's what maximizes their training volume (where volume is defined by "effort x intensity", not by "mileage")

As for fast vs. slow twitch, and take this with "gut feel" as a reaction: I'm not entirely sure it applies to runners competing in distances of 1500 and above. It might matter in sit/kick situations with slow finishing times, but I think the composition of runners performing at a similarly high level is always going to be more similar than it is different.

From my small experience, I have noticed that once you start to do a harder sessions with high lactate level earlier than is necessary, your base stop growing, and you get earlier for the peak and this peak usually low and last not to much compare if you would make a longer base and you stagnate and for the next peak you need to start again everything with base and spend a lot of time. Something is triggering once you start to inject lactate hardly in your blood. Now I understand why Ingebrigtsen very precise control intensity during base and try not to pull early a trigger... Maybe I am wrong in my conclusions, but I noticed this phenomen too many times on myself... maybe also it depends on fast/low twitch proportion, and for fast twitch can be opposite that you must time to time pull the trigger in early base to inject high lactate in the blood 🤔

I definitely recommend a mix of skiing and running. Skiing is usually delivering more pleasure and you can exercise longer. Just my own experience (M64 age group): I ran 5k at 18:53 in Oct. '21, then was only skiing for 4.5 months (no running until early April at all) and in 3 weeks after return to running ran the same 5k at 19:01. Not really a difference, but got all my injuries healed thru the winter and became hungry for run again. Following the same strategy now :-)

That's good to hear! Thanks. And by the way, I hope I'll be as fast as you in my 60s. Congrats!

I'm sure it's possible to perform well by mixing the two especially training for a half early this spring. I'll try to focus more on my "speed" which I kind of lost in my preparation for CIM. I have access to an indoor track for that. I did a lot of easy tempo and hills in my base and it didn't do it at all. I was literally falling apart in my reps at half and 10k pace during my specific marathon block.

I'll be back to high mileage after this for my fall marathon (Berlin).

Even Dathan (coach for OAC) has stated multiple times that Ollie Hoare (1500m Australian) Trains a lot with Joe Klecker (5k/10k guy) to get stronger and then closer to races Ollie will begin to do more specific speed workouts to 1500m racing.

Here it is, here it is. Earlier I talked about paradoxes in this type of training. Today I had another paradox: last week I just took and did an aerobic overdose: 125 miles total volume, medium long run and long run all in one week, 14 hours of running, an absolute record for me and besides, after 10km of the race. And what do you think, this morning, starting the second day of the second training week, I didn't even want to get up, the volume of last week is felt in my legs, heaviness and load, but I went to the morning treshhold, warm-up, legs are heavy, pulse is a little high, well, I think I need to run very slowly, I'm going to overdose, sailed... I start the first repeat 6min, yes my legs are heavy, but they keep pace and You have all 5 repetitions @03:35min/km 10 seconds faster than last week where I felt fresh, but kept 03:45 pace with difficulties! And the lactate is the same 2.0 after the fifth repetition, that's the paradox for You.

Keep grinding.... 👏👐🏃

I think this is the best and brilliant explanation of the hole system how it should work. Nailed.

Many joggers will fail to use this system with low miles... If open youtube, how many runners who tried this system and now is still keep it? Answer is simple: almost non-of them... all failed... Ben Felton, Ben Parkes, Tracksta, the FOD, Matt Rees, and so on... all failed...