Ripping through his Strava, I took his Jan. 12th 10km as a key race and end of a "block" and started with the Marathon training block analysis from Jan. 13th through April 27th (London). Maybe that's wrong, but oh well.
105 days in a row of running, Ave. 70mpw, Max 78, min, 57
~4 Phases, with overlaps:
1. Sub T Base - Weeks 1 - 6 - Standard Norwegian singles approach, with an increase in long runs from 15.7mi to 18.6 miles. 3 SubT workouts per week, volume rock steady near 70mpw.
2. Interval Length Increase - Weeks 7-11 - Here, we see more 5k reps, max work goes up to 15km in a session vs. ~10km in a session in the previous weeks. Peak week was week 11 with a 20.5mi LR.
3. Race Specific / Special - Weeks 12-14. Largest session here came ~12 days before the race with a 3x8km (24km) session. "Special" Workouts Last workouts ~12, 7 days before marathon
4. Taper / Race - Weeks 14-15. EZ volume taper starts week 14. Week 14 still has two "special" workouts (largest vol. workout on Tuesday, and a medium LR of 15 miles with 3x3k in it). The overall volume of the taper is a lot smaller than other programs. Workouts shift to line up more recovery before the marathon. The final week (MP week) includes small workouts of 6mi total with 5km.
Notes:
Max LR: 20.5miles, hit twice in weeks 9 and 11. LR: Not nearly the focus many rec. runners make it, not many MP filled LR runs which beat you down (13@mp etc.)
Specific ("special" or gMP) workouts come much later in the block than other programs. Key sessions in last two weeks: 5x5km (25km volume) and 3x8km (24km vol) and a half marathon as a stimulus (See Matthew Richtman and his training).
Average length of reps increases, but 1k reps are the steady base over time and carry through the whole build. Every week has 3 workouts or 2 workouts and a race, this never deviates even if the volume is modulated.
Not Shy about Racing - Races two 5ks, a 10k and a Half in the build up.
Some questions to Sirpoc:
1. How did you feel the last three weeks of your marathon build, from the half onwards? Did you feel you were pushing more than your typical week(s)? How about the timing of this specific work coming much later in your marathon plan?
2. Was there anything you would change in a future marathon build?
I'll answer as I can. This will probably be easier than a write up anyway.
Last 3 weeks I found important. The 5x5k was the key workout. I knew if I could do that a fraction faster than goal pace , five days after the half, whilst the marathon wouldn't be easy I was almost certain I would hit my goal. I set 2:25 in January and figured as long as I didn't get injured, I had laid out a plan in place that would probably get me there. I figured I would probably run 31 flat in the 10k in late march and that would be the gateway to 2:25. When I ran 30:41, that again made me realise we were ahead of pace and goal peak load. Whilst it might not have looked fast, the 5k where I broke the course record at my local parkrun was probably my best performance along the way, it's a shocker of a course to run a good time and that made me realise on a good day breaking 15 is in play and again was a good sign.
The last special block or whatever we want to call it, was getting the last ounch out on tired legs and trying to add a fraction of specifity into the mix, but mainly to actually test what marathon pace should feel like. It was definitely pushing more than usual and the only time I probably felt training was harder. I think I marked a couple of workouts 7/10 which is unheard of. You probably absorb training load within 7-10 days. So that period was short, sharp and a touch of the specificity I usually hate, but not too late that the training wouldn't stick and not so hard a short nose dive taper wouldn't fix. The taper was about perfect, could even have made it shorter, I felt terrible for 3 days but the last mini workout on the Thursday I felt so ridiculously good. In fact I almost wish I had run the marathon that day, that's the best I've probably ever felt in two years.
I did a really long taper once on the bike as an experiment, it was a total mess. You can only exchange CTL for TSB and a performance boost for so long, the lower your overall load in my experience (and others I've shared data with), the less TSS you can cash in before you just actually feel like you've turned to stone. If I was doing 15+ hour weeks and my training had already reached dimishined returns, I would do a slower and more gradual taper. I could write so much more about this, I think it's part art part science and took me years in cycling to understand and get right.
Answer the second part. Yes I have maybe 1-2 things I would change. But that's pretty complicated and it's looking back in retrospect. I'll definitely so a full write up in time as well. I actually need to really analyse it in detail myself before I would 100% commit to putting my flag in the sand and nailing my colours to something.
From the January 10k, yes that was my cut off point - and I planned every single session up to the taper week,on January 1st this year, which is when I decided to do the marathon for definite. I think carried out every single run as intended. So I'm quite pleased with myself that first, I managed to stick to it no matter what anyone else thought, and secondly, it worked out probably a minute better than what I hoped.
I will say this, I looked at other marathon plans over Christmas time and thought "I just don't think this will work for me". I think I ran the best marathon I possibly could have run for my first attempt, on the hours I was willing to put in. The whole phrase that seems to follow me around is the original "best bang for buck" phrase I made a while back - well I think I got my money's worth out of this one. My main issue with the other plans I looked at, is I think too much emphasis was put into the long run. In my eyes, the best plan was to just run it super easy and replicate time on feet to goal time but not sacrifice the 3 workouts a week. Even at 2:25 long run , it's easy enough you can still workout 3 days, even with the stretching of the workouts and not feel beat up. This on hobby hours I think even for the marathon gives you the best of both worlds. Again it comes down to this, I just don't think scaling down what the absolute best pros do is the best approach.
I read the fantastic article John Davis wrote about Emile Cairess' training was for London last year and I honestly think something like that would put me in a body bag, even scaled down. In fact scaling it down, probably makes it not only worse, but harder.
I think the worst part was maybe doubting myself in the build up. I think when you see guys you know beating themselves up for London doing insane workouts or these crazy steady long runs, you think you just be doing something wrong. Especially when your goal is a good 10-15 mins faster and they do more mileage. But I kept thinking to myself I knew I would be fresh on race day, I knew I could handle the time on feet and all I had to do was put it all together and pace it which I know I can do. Again, there is so much more to this. Like so much more I could go on all day about pacing etc. but again it's part art, part science and takes a hell of a lot of understanding and skill to put into practice. Confidence as well to just ignore the madness going on around you in a marathon.
The mental side I don't think can be overlooked also in the days, weeks in the build up. One person who pulled me head out this was Hard2find who when I said I was worried I wouldn't break 2:25, as I had decided on by race week breaking 2:24 should be the target (missed by 8 seconds) as I would regret just playing it safe as things were ahead of where I thought , who said "I fail to understand how 2:25 would be a bad outcome here". That was probably the point I stopped worrying. I'm lucky to have made what I consider a few close friends from the mess that is this thread, in the end the only thing I was massively worried about was beating my own goal and not letting them down. The best advice I had day before was shirtboy telling me to go to the pub. In fact, as I was walking down the mall, jiggy from the thread messaged me telling me my time before I even realised what it was officially it was nice to have that support genuinely, as well from just people in general, including a guy from the thread/ Strava group within about 30 seconds of the finish who was a volunteer, shout-out to Matt for distracting me for a nice chat on the finish line who is a fan of the thread and in the Strava group, who at least distracted me for a minute or so from the fact I have no toenails left.
Anyway, that's a wrap. I haven't ran for a couple of days. If I don't run tomorrow I'll probably get out of the habit and you'll never hear from sirpoc again 😂
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
Pre race. Woke up early , probably max 3 hours sleep. Golden Syrup porridge with a coffee. Then ate like every 15-20 mins up until about half hour before start. Banana X2, another coffee, a giant cookie, doughnut, a Mars Bar duo and a gel in the starting pen.
I'd be diabetic before the race even started, lol.
That's good for me, you should see my regular diet 😅 if nothing else, one thing I have learned is the advantage of having a terrible diet in regular life , means you can eat what you want in a lead up to a marathon and that gels don't make you sh*t your pants because you have the stomach of an ox.
I read the fantastic article John Davis wrote about Emile Cairess' training was for London last year and I honestly think something like that would put me in a body bag, even scaled down. In fact scaling it down, probably makes it not only worse, but harder.
I actually did this last summer and autumn. I had consistently been running 85 to 90 mile weeks for about a year at the time, so I scaled the plan down to about 90 miles a week and followed it pretty much to the letter. The result was that I improved dramatically...for a few days about two thirds of the way through the training. On race day I felt flat and tired and ran 5+ minutes off my PR.
My main point is that I'm not sure I want the 70 mile weeks of Pfitz and would like something else but if I cut down to 60 and did this method is there a possibility of not seeing results? Is there a way of calculating the training load of a planned "SirPoc" block and comparing against JD or Pfitz?
I have a unique insight into this because I did this last year, pfitz 18/70 starting Jan 1st, into a May marathon and then did NSA for the rest of the year. 5k progression for the year:
So I continued to chip time off, but obviously made huge gains doing pfitz 70mpw. At the end of december I decided to pull the plug and try Daniels 5-10k 92-110km plan. And ran 16:52 at the start of April.
Part of me is considering doing NSA for the rest of the year because I still made some progress on a much lower time commitment, and just felt good all the time. But for me personally I can't definitively say its the best training approach.
I also don't hit Daniel's paces in workouts (struggle to hit 3:30/km, let alone 3:20 on "I" paced work) so I kind of self-manage to a manage-able training load by virtue of not ever forcing myself to hit certain paces and always leaving a workout with reps in the tank. I also run a lot of workouts on reasonably hilly terrain and mixed surface trails, so paces just become irrelevant anyways.
Anyways hope this helps inform your decision.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Seconded, very keen to hear more. This whole journey has made my so psyched about running and I love the sense of community NSA'ers have developed. Cheers sirpoc. May you continue to run fast!
Sirpoc, I wonder we could trouble you with a clearly sketched outline of the block? While the workouts have been spoken about here and there, it would be great to get a week-by-week of the actual changes from just running NS normally.
Just wondering, how closely are you still following the "original" Norwegian Singles formula that's usually being prescribed?
I don't have access to your Strava but from what I've seen, you're probably spending less than 25-30% of time at sub-LT, your interval paces seem faster and your rests longer. Those 3-5x5km runs, for example, seem to be at a pace that's usually recommended for 1K intervals at best, close to LT?
Just wondering, how closely are you still following the "original" Norwegian Singles formula that's usually being prescribed?
I don't have access to your Strava but from what I've seen, you're probably spending less than 25-30% of time at sub-LT, your interval paces seem faster and your rests longer. Those 3-5x5km runs, for example, seem to be at a pace that's usually recommended for 1K intervals at best, close to LT?
Not really. Nearly all his workouts were HM to 15K pace with prescribed rests, with a few at MP and a few 10x1K sessions that touch on 10K. The 3-5x5K workouts were at MP or a bit faster.
What I take from the couple of sirpoc was kind enough to share is this. He's still got mentality of a cyclist. The planning of training load to get from A to B. It's sort of thing as an ex cyclist you used to hear. What guys need to do to be race ready, sessions that need to do with purpose a bit nearer the end.
Then you look at marathon plans. Maybe they focus way to much of the demands of the event, without simply thinking 'how fit can I get in in time for the race?'
You take sirpoc week at 70 miles. 3x workouts, a long run as well and 3x easy runs. But then he can just go again keep going. Take a Piftz 70 week. He is having you do 6*1km, a 2 of medium long runs way faster than sirpoc is doing and then 15 miles MP. This is 5 weeks out. That is lot and the more I read this thread I can't help but think in the following weeks you are going to be really struggling to get any useful training stimuli. I have experience here and then it feels like you can't hit paces and need more recovery than plans give you. In the Piftz plans versus sirpoc, yes sure you are training the specific demands of marathon, but actually, how fit is it making you versus the actual ability to train as much the next week and get fitter and repeat?
My question would be to sirpoc, did you ever have to dial back the paces on workouts? How hard did all feel? Was this easier than you expected to deliver? Sorry English is not my first language I hope you understand. Marathon plan is usually hell from generic plan or even ones coach put me through.
Just wondering, how closely are you still following the "original" Norwegian Singles formula that's usually being prescribed?
I don't have access to your Strava but from what I've seen, you're probably spending less than 25-30% of time at sub-LT, your interval paces seem faster and your rests longer. Those 3-5x5km runs, for example, seem to be at a pace that's usually recommended for 1K intervals at best, close to LT?
I'm not quite sure what you mean? I certainly wouldn't be competing 5x5km at LT . I think for those they were around 3:22/km. 1km reps are probably around 15s at least faster at this point. The difference of 15s per km is absolutely vast. As for the sub threshold time, as I have said before , the more you train, probably the closer to 80/20 you will get. To the point where on pro hours even that is unreasonable and you are probably more like 85/15. I haven't really ran a full look at everything in detail yet. But it's probably something more like 78-22 I guess? My training is out there bar a few warm ups for races than I haven't bothered with spamming everyone's feed with, so someone can work this out themselves if they want.
Pre race. Woke up early , probably max 3 hours sleep. Golden Syrup porridge with a coffee. Then ate like every 15-20 mins up until about half hour before start. Banana X2, another coffee, a giant cookie, doughnut, a Mars Bar duo and a gel in the starting pen.
What I take from the couple of sirpoc was kind enough to share is this. He's still got mentality of a cyclist. The planning of training load to get from A to B. It's sort of thing as an ex cyclist you used to hear. What guys need to do to be race ready, sessions that need to do with purpose a bit nearer the end.
Then you look at marathon plans. Maybe they focus way to much of the demands of the event, without simply thinking 'how fit can I get in in time for the race?'
You take sirpoc week at 70 miles. 3x workouts, a long run as well and 3x easy runs. But then he can just go again keep going. Take a Piftz 70 week. He is having you do 6*1km, a 2 of medium long runs way faster than sirpoc is doing and then 15 miles MP. This is 5 weeks out. That is lot and the more I read this thread I can't help but think in the following weeks you are going to be really struggling to get any useful training stimuli. I have experience here and then it feels like you can't hit paces and need more recovery than plans give you. In the Piftz plans versus sirpoc, yes sure you are training the specific demands of marathon, but actually, how fit is it making you versus the actual ability to train as much the next week and get fitter and repeat?
My question would be to sirpoc, did you ever have to dial back the paces on workouts? How hard did all feel? Was this easier than you expected to deliver? Sorry English is not my first language I hope you understand. Marathon plan is usually hell from generic plan or even ones coach put me through.
Your English is fine. Better than my understanding of any other language anyway.
No, I never had to dial the paces back in workouts. If you have to do this you probably aren't recovered from previous sessions or your current fitness is all wrong. Knowing both those things are important.
It felt harder than normal around the "special block" time. But nothing outrageous and the rest just felt like any other week. Mentally, it was tough and I don't enjoy running at the best of times. But my body felt pretty good, certainly not terrible or worse than normal.
I was speaking to a couple of guys I know pre London who were almost buried, which I questioned but they assured me that's how you should feel in a marathon build and taper off. But that never sounded right to me. Mentally, yes it should be a challenge but I don't believe any training should over cook you or put you in a hole. Despite this, two separate people with two separate coaches assured me that you dig yourself into the ground and the taper off will make it all OK. Again, to me that just doesn't sound right or normal and looking at training plans suggested for 70 ish miles a week, I feared just about any of them would do this to me. It's more the unbroken MP runs, vo2 work and the unusually fast aerobic/daily or long run paces combined, rather than anything in isolation in some plans I looked at (I say unusually, more just in the sense of what I am used to with my own training).
Maybe I didn't train hard enough. Maybe that is how you should feel, smashed to bits. I have no idea. But I didn't have any of that feeling physically , it was just the mental grind I struggle with, but as I say, I struggle to enjoy running at the best of times. The only exception I will make is the 5x5k workout on tired legs was pretty rough. But that was almost a one off test/confidence boost and still early enough before the race that i knew I could recover from it and the training load would be absorbed. I knew from scaling up tired workouts in HM builds on tired legs that if I could complete it, I was 90% sure I would break 2:25
My bad then, I'd seen those 3-5x5k posted with a pace of 3:17 which surprised me.
As for total sub threshold time, yeah, my only other true point of reference is Kristoffer Ingebrigtsen, who spends about 2 hours out of 7:30 hours at sub-LT in an average week. Then again, he often seems to run 10x1k at almost the same pace as 3x3k, so maybe that's the trade off he's making.
I recently discovered this thread and the strava group whilst coming to an end of a marathon training block. One of the reasons this training approach appeals is during my training block I just felt cooked all the time, around weeks 12/13/14 out of 16 were just over loaded and I ended up tapering a bit early and doing 3 weeks and trying out some of these work outs.
So far I've been enjoying the paces of the subT work - its an enjoyable pace to run at rather than feeling ruined halfway through a session
Thanks for sharing your training journey, and big respect for the pre-race mars bar duo.
That is the point: as he is not special it makes what he does relatable and at the end, even more impressive.
But he is special. He was an extremely high level cyclist who converted to running and brought his huge talent and aerobic engine with him. A couple of training methodologies didn't work for him and he cleverly worked out one that did. If Bradley Wiggins had done the same you wouldn't claim he was a regular bloke like you and me who turned himself into an incredible runner from nothing would you? I'm not knocking sirpoc or NSA at all, far from it, this has been an incredible journey and I use it myself. But at 40 requires rare talent and very much is "special".