Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

I think guy who is getting slower is onto something. Sirpoopy getting slower. Can barely break 16 now today for 5km? Depiste more training?

Lexel, is possible maybe you can help the guy break through stagnation? I think sirpoopy maybe should consider this humble offer from lexel. Very kind of him to ask.

Assuming you're properly following everything to a tee, you would be the first case I've ever seen of this method making someone slower, so I'm inclined to believe somehow somewhere you failed to adhere to the core principles of this thread.

Weekly mileage/by time volume? sub-threshold workouts per week - at what paces, how much volume in miles and time? any long run? how easy easy days? too many days off?

Is this more or less volume compared to what you were running before?

slow down!

you’re typing too fast and it’s hurting your troll game

and if you’re going to consistently troll, embrace the definite article for God’s sake

Well well, after finding this gem of a thread a couple weeks ago I've been trying to catch up and got to about page 40 but I decided to skip the rest.

First of all thanks to all the topguys like Sirpoc, shirtboy, hard2find, jiggy and maybe others I'm forgetting or didn't get to know yet since I skipped 75% of the thread. It's been a blast reading all the stuff thats in here and I'm looking forward to see how this type of training fits my personal needs.

For now since I'm not that fast and run sub-t at 5:00-5:45/km and run about 6h total I'm starting with 6-8k in sub-t to have enough time easy running to compensate.

This thread is fascinating reading. Having ran consistently for the past 2-years and seen little progress I may have come across this thread at the right time. I have a couple of HM and a 10k booked in this year but would like to get my 5k/Park Run down to the sub 18 level (pb 18:36) but idling around the 19:30 at present.

I won't be able to copy your schedule on a 1:1 basis so have laid out my plan below.

I can run 6 days a week, possibly 7. Given the importance of consistency of rTSS/load on a week to week basis I'll opt for 6 to avoid too much fluctuation on a weekly basis.

I plan to a schedule my week as follows (time in parenthesis).

E (40) - W (60) - E (40) - W (90) - E (40) - R - W (90)

Workouts initially will be 8x3, 4x6 and 3x12. The last two sessions will be in W (90). If I run a 5k on the Saturday I'll likely make the first W (90) an E (90 or 60) as a mini taper.

With the exception of the two W (90) sessions the other runs have to be juggled around lunchtime at work. If I'm in the office for optics I can really only commit 45 minutes at most for a run so the W (60) session would have to be cut short albeit it is only the non-workout element that is reduced. In such a scenario I would add the lost 15 minutes of easy running to one of the E (40) runs (when I'm not in the office). From a rTSS perspective the forecasted difference between E (40) + W (60) vs. E (55) + W (45) is only 2 points, so feels like it's within an acceptable range of tolerance.

The only pitfall I see is the potential for the W (90) sessions to generate fatigue which over time may require dropping a session as a refresh or cutting it back to just an hour. At the end of the day it is just running and trying to stay as consistent as possible is the most important thing and replacing a W with E run every now and then won't see my “legs fall off” or too dramatic a drop in CTL.

How often do you race? The original premise was a parkrun every 3 weeks but most seem to ignore that.

I think some people may need the occasional all out efforts than others. Personally I've found that if I do just a 2 week peaking block (eg sessions like 5-6*1mile at 10k pace, or even 2k reps) leading into race week then I get much better results than going into a race solely on sub T. It's almost like my heart needs a few extended efforts at properly high heart rates to be able to sustain it for an entire race, same for the legs and muscular endurance. When I go in solely after a long sub T block without either having done several parkruns or a couple of weeks of efforts I fade badly, almost like it's a shock to the system.

Everybody is different so what works best for others may not work best for you. I'm convinced the sub-t method is a super efficient approach to improve your aerobic engine for most people, it just may be that you need to tweak the edges to get the best out of yourself on race day.

I have experienced exactly the same issues in races especially over half marathon.

Before my major time off I used to do a lot of steady and 10k effort, I’ll incorporate some 10k work back in just before keys races, that’s for the heads up

Does this method work better for a predominately slow twitch fiber type vs a fast twitch?

I don't think it matters. I have had huge success following this and even using sirpoc methods to coach youngsters, seems to work, for the most past, across the board. The people without discipline and stray way outside the carefully constructed parameters, are more likely to fail than y'all looking at who is fast and slow twitch.

I'm old like sirpoc and I am now running close to my best. I'm so fast twitch it's not even funny, it took a little longer to adapt, but I got there. Polar opposite and rightly the non lactate testing godfather of this is sirpoc and that dude couldn't be more slow twitch if you tried.

Not wanting to pour salt into anyone's coffee, but the most important thing is you understand what you are trying to do in the short, medium and long term here and how you will account for that. It seems simple on the face, but is actually one of the harder systems in the fact that there is no end point. So, you have to understand to how build and so on. It's more or less done for you in a Daniel's block, or a 18/55 plan. I think that's been lost a little bit. Hey it's not sirpoc job to do that, he's done enough. But if you follow him closely enough and the small changes he drips in every so often, you'll understand what I mean.

The good news is a significant majority of people who buy into this have seen remarkable progress.

Thank you. Great reply.

Do you do any regular hill reps (”X” sessions)?

I was wondering if fast twitch runners are having success without doing “X” sessions like 200m hill reps or a frequent 5K or 2 mile time trial race say every 3 weeks?

My 10K times have improved and feel much more comfortable during the race with this method. For the 5K, I initially had about a one minute improvement that was close but not better than my old PR. But, for my last 5K, it felt almost impossible to run faster than 10K pace. I had zero kick. Looking back at my logs, it had been two months since I did a “X” session.

I was wondering If other individuals were experiencing similar issues when not doing anything faster or equal to 5K race pace for more than two months.

I know sirpoc was only here a matter of a less than a week ago but I am here to inform you all that he has recently started with some slightly new interesting additions to his training, including a 3*5km sub-t session yesterday (just under 17' per rep, can't work out the rest time), as well as very gradually ramping up the duration of his long runs. I think we can all deduce what this means... It will be very interesting to see how his training adapts to the marathon - he's clearly identified some areas of specificity that can be worked on. Anyone else care to speculate

He doesn't know what he's doing. If he wants to success in the marathon he needs to get a good coach who understands tunning. He's getting SLOWER over 5k and now he's throwing in clueless workouts in the hope he will not fail to even break 2:30. I predict 2:37 and he will probably walk the last 3 miles.

Trolling has declined. This is a poor effort.

To answer the question in hand, despite having never run a marathon , I suspect he knows what he's doing, more than most. I expect a pretty darn solid first marathon, although we of course know all sorts can still go wrong on the day. But considering I've followed this thread from the start and many people have said you must do this, or that, or you won't improve any further - shout-out to lexel here, sirpoc has proven time and time again he usually has a plan in place. I'm sure he doesn't need me or anyone to tell him this, but obviously the big M is the perhaps the biggest challenge to dish up a good performance on the day.

He's not getting slower over 5km? Within the past few days he's broken the course record of the parkrun he's attended for the past 4 years, quite an achievement. I personally really think you should reassess this bizarre fascination with bringing this man down who has been nothing but generous and humble with his own experiences, and if anything, mildly bemused at peoples' fascination with his training.

By all means, remain sceptical of his marathon abilities, but try at least to expand on what you think exactly is lacking in his training before acting like an insecure child, perhaps?

I think he will do just fine in the marathon, but I don't know that his training will translate well to the average Joe Marathoner. He is covering so much more distance in his runs than even a 3:00 marathoner that he can get away with a 75 min MLR and a 2:15 LR, since his marathon time will probably be 2:30 at worst. But if people try to copy his training based on time, like has been done with great success for shorter races, they will probably lack the strength and endurance to hold MP to the finish.

Love this post. How do you scale it down for youngsters, who might not run 40-50 mpw? I know you need a base to support the framework of 3 single sessions/week. Also, can you scale it for slower runners (even 4:30-5:00 marathoners or 30-min 5kers?). I know there are various calculators and have seen them, etc. but wondered if anyone coached slower runners w/the NSM.

Big fan of sirpoc and the thread. Honestly, legendary. This isn't a criticism, but I'm just not sure this will end up in line with his other times. He's likely left it too late to train good for a marathon this close. 2:30 for a guy in their 40s in their first marathon is a huge ask, it could definitely end up worse than that. But I hope I am wrong. I'll be keeping an eye on not only Kiplimo but sirpoc. I imagine he is in the championship field that starts directly behind the 20-30 elites on start line?

I think he is in the championship field based on his HM time of 1:10:02 in November. I remember a comment somewhere that he'd consider London if he got in that way.

VDOT says his HM time would be about 2:27:00 for a FM but you could be right. I will give him credit for having tons of race experience and for pacing very thoughtfully. I could see him going out in 75 and trying to negative split if he can.