Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Absolutely this many times over. I've had huge success with this method, beyond what I could wish for actually. But almost fell into the idiotic trap myself of thinking I had to do 3*3k etc. As soon as I read through the thread properly and understood the 25% target and all the rest , was a lightbulb moment for me. As I've increased volume (something this method has allowed me to do and stay healthy more than any other) I've stuck to that 25%. The spreadsheet in the Strava group from Hard2find I think who made it , is like gold dust. You can't really go wrong with it.

You have to remember , the paces are fast ish, but if you are roughly following them within the 25% rule, taking the appropriate breaks, it's really not that hard. 5*6 mins around 10 mile/HM pace broken up really isn't that hard. Much like 3*10 at around 30k pace.

Race load is interesting. First, I find load more believable comparing like-for-like (e.g. did I build or decrease over months, given I've been running the same program the entire time), than for comparing completely different workouts. But let's ignore that for a second.

I agree the race wrecks the legs more. But if you calculate the rTSS per hour, someone near Sirpoc's fitness might get ballpark ~116 for 5k pace and ~103-105 for 12-15k pace. Suppose he runs the 5k for 15:low and the reps for 31:mid. That comes out to ~85% more load for just the quality time on the 10x1k vs. the entire race. And if you have more easy running added on to the workout than the race your workout likely gives you more than double the rTSS of your 5k.

Load is presented, at least in intervals.icu, as tracking both the stress on the body and the expected fitness gain. The race beats you up more than rTSS predicts; do you improve more from it as well? Is the inaccuracy in both aspects of rTSS, or does it point to a divergence between the stress and the fitness gain? If the divergence is real it suggests a major design consideration for our workouts should be how we can accumulate more rTSS without increasing recovery demand. That would probably lead us to pack on as much very easy mileage as we have time for, and to use reps to keep our lactate controlled in our quality sessions, and to separate our quality from our long run.

Here's a longer cut of Sirpoc's very slow quote:

> 3 easy runs a week. All under 70% of max HR which is usually about 65% of MAS for those who work in paces as well. This will keep you definitely under LT1. Long run, I tend to just keep the same and by the end I'll be almost at the upper limit of that 70% which is the goal. I think the recent studies which was excellent, on the training characteristics of long distance elite runners (2022) had easy characterised as under 70% Max HR. That seems slow. It is slow. Very slow.

The legs being wrecked more is true in my experience, but doesn't necessarily mean it's a better training load. It's taken me a while to get my head around that. This comes down to what sirpoc was describing at the start, the hard impact and feeling of the body the real speed workouts bring, but in the bigger picture not really leading to much improvement or possibly stopping you hitting the sessions that do make the difference- note his stagnation of a reasonably decent amount of time and the boom and bust cycle others have mentioned here, before he started training like he cycled.

I'm coming well around to the idea that whilst the 5k might feel harder , the 10*3 mins workout is actually banking more overall benefit AND you remain fresher. I guess here for runners around 18-19 mins or under. I think if we are talking guys slower than that, it's a different story.

Also, because I bug sirpoc all the time on Strava I followed up the quote above about how 'easy' he means. The answer I got was easy means easy and is easy, in COMPARISON to other running systems daily/easy/long run days , or what might get called steady runs etc. So it was much easier than what he had been prescribed by running plans before, I wholeheartedly agree with this. In this sense he seemed to mention 80/20 or Daniels that he said were remarkably hard in comparison and would quite quickly lead to problems if he followed the medium to high end of those "easy" day paces or efforts.

At the end of the day there is obviously a huge amount in this and it clearly works for a vast number of people now, just look at the testimonials not just here but all over the internet. I would still ask why from a scientific point of view and also how remarkable it is the balance in general for most people for the original sirpoc lay out of 3 ST-3 EASY- 1 LONG seems to work.

I don't know exactly but the Strava group, here, Reddit, Facebook group I have seen dedicated to it, you have to be looking at 70-80% of people sticking to it improve over a decent amount of time as a conservative estimate. On top of that, some of the jumps from even seasoned or long time runners are almost remarkable. The bit take I can see is we are moving away from the ridiculous boom and bust cycles and allowing people to balance on the cautious side of where freshness lives which then seems to be allowing people to increase load beyond any other plan has ever allowed them before, whilst maintaining the 3 workouts which seeminglly whilst easier, aggregate in more than the equivalent of a 2Q week.

I will add I am incredibly fast twitch, I saw that debate - but I also have absolutely smashed through walls and boundaries in my second life as a runner. I've run 16:33 which is almost my best from college and I'm 37 with a family of 3 to look after and all the stresses that brings. I've totally ditched absolutely everything but the 3 sub Threshold sessions a week and the easy. I was pretty happy with my turkey trot 18:21 in my 30s but absolutely delighted with my 16:33 a year and a bit on. Shout-out again though to sirpoc himself, always happy to help and answer even though I'm sure he's fed up on Strava and pushed me onto the right path when I had some questions. TL;DR of this bit, whilst I maybe took me a few extra weeks to adapt than others have suggest. This is absolutely for older fast twitch hobby joggers like me as well.

Oh and good luck to sirpoc in the London Marathon . I'm also feeling good that at the ripe age of 41 he will break 2:30 at his first attempt. As long as he doesn't do anything stupid , 2:30 is almost a worst case scenario. I also don't know how many non-former elites break 15 in their 40s, but I think he will soon join that very small fraction of a % of runners.

Really enjoy the thread, thanks to all the other top posters as well. From shirtboy, unbelief keeping everyone on their toes, Coggan when he's in good spirits and not wasting time with lexel, big shout-out to Hard2find as well, some amazing resources. I'm sure others should be included, but they are the people I think of.

As others have said, these paces are really tough in the beginning. Error on the conservative side and don’t worry too much about pace in the beginning. It’s mentioned a lot in this thread. I’ve been doing this everyday for about 2.5 months. I’ve mostly run inside. The treadmills at my gym are all over the place as far as calibration goes. I’ve had a lot of success with just going off heart rate using a strap. Some guys don’t recommend it, but I couldn’t find a better way in my situation. I’ll give you an example. My max heart rate is only 171 and my LTHR is 154 (according to Garmin). I usually top out around 146 on my first rep, 148 on the second and 150-152 on the last one. It’s definitely not a walk in the park but it also doesn’t bury me and it keeps me from being stupid and running too hard. Pushing CTL up and gaining fitness with this method is tough work… but not VO2 max laying on the ground afterwards tough.

What is the name of the Facebook group?

To my knowledge, there is no FB group. There is an active group on Strava called Norwegian Singles Approach.

Regarding the mile application, was this in the Strava group? If so, do you know, roughly, when it was posted? I'm in a similar situation, M58, training for masters 800/1500/3000 and am thinking of using this approach. Would like to see their specifics. Thanks.

I'm not the guy who went from 5 to 6, but I am a 40 year old master who switched from more traditional training to this style in the middle of training for a sub 5 mile. For the two months before racing, I did not paces faster than 1:30 400s; no strides or anything. I also stopped doing the long run. Ended up with 4:59 mile.

Now I don't have a good prior and don't know what I would have got had I continued more traditional training, but at the very least I don't think it hurt. I think if I had a 6 month or so timeline to do it again, I would go full this method for 5 months, then substitute one workout per week during the late month with some 200s-400s at race pace or faster. But I have very low certainty that would help.

What I'm surprised at is that reddit's advanced running club doesn't really mention Sub-T except for 1 dude who had tons of success (not sirpoc) and then others just say "run more" and don't do Sub-T to get faster.

r/artc doesn't have much either.

Don't knock the 'Poc! He knows his stuff and will respond to your questions here. He's also on reddit too sometimes. It's not made up, his Strava is legit.

I think that was the reddit guy!

Do you know what date the spreadsheet was posted on by chance?

2 October 2023

For those thinking about the mile. Here's just my experience. I had always wanted to break 5:30. I was always on the cusp of it and then it just never worked out. Followed quite a few classic mile programs , all resulted in around that.

Decided to focus on other things. Found this thread around 14 months ago now, to train mostly for 5k, 10k. Before this, was training in the classic cycles, 5-6 hours a week for probably a good decade. Limited success, knew my place in the hierarchy of hobby joggers. You get the drift! Didn't really think about the mile. Anyway, pretty much went down the 1:1 route as seems to be the next success of copying the sirpoc method. I call it that, as there are other ways to dial this up but I think mostly 1:1 is the best option rather than the more catchy NSM which is broader.

So no hills, no strides, no 200m track repeats, just get into the meat of the routine and tick off the 3 sessions a week and otherwise just easy running.

Summary, low 17 5k, mid 35 for a 10 and ran a low 1:18 HM. All absolutely blew apart my PBs. Scroll ahead to January this year, jumped in a local mile with no other thought than being annoyed it would break up my winning weekly schedule, ran 4:57.

OK maybe you could make an argument for dialling in something short like the mile to really tease out a few more seconds? By what's the point. It's neglible probably compared to the absolutely huge jump I've made due to the nature of the aerobic gains across the board. And hey, it's a whole lot of fun suddenly beating people comfortably who have beaten you in all distances in the past!

Also note, couldn't imagine running any other training method, where for the most part you can go day in, day out and no breaks between the seasons of cycles.

Another thing to keep in mind for those who say the paces are too fast/hard. Consider the shoes you’re wearing. If you race in supershoes, your training paces have to be adjusted (unless you train with the same shoes you race in)

The coefficient of variation in determining fiber type based on a single biopsy is ~10%. You would therefore have to submit to multiple biopsies to get a reasonably precise estimate. Simply measuring function (e.g., vertical jump) is therefore a better way to go.

Not much more to say, really. It is just that the question hasn't been studied scientifically - in fact, I am not sure how you would really do that. Instead, it seems like it is just one of those well-known "facts" for which there really isn't any good evidence.

For the average trained runner, maximal metabolic steady state would be about 80% of VO2max. 76-79% of that would therefore be about 60-65% of VO2max. That's easy-to-moderate, but perhaps not as easy as runners think of as "easy".

r/advancedrunning folks seem fairly inflexible in their regimens. r/artc is basically on life support as a sub.