Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

So go run hills then. No one is stopping you.

What most people don't recognize is the fact that you still train your VO2max by doing subT workouts. It's the same principle of pushing a threshold from below. It may not be as effective as pure VO2max workouts but it works. Or does anyone think that as your fitness raises and your T pace goes up, your VO2max stays the same?

To be fair, sirpoc did some parkruns and a 10k (or more?). So that counts for me as VO2max workouts. I even remember him doing k reps around and faster than his 10k pace. So there is also VO2max. I think it was in his last weeks prior to London.

I guess the troll won't read your reply. He is probably too busy playing with his own toes.

You guys are acting like you can prove 2:24 is not medirocre.

"A 2:24 marathon time is considered an excellent performance, not mediocre, and places a runner among the top performers in the sport. This time is significantly faster than the average marathon time for both men and women." - Gemini

I'll probably be downvoted for this but a similar approach even better fitting to "just run bro" than this one is how Ron Clarke, Derek Clayton, Mike Musyoki, Norm Green, et al ran. They all did some variation of MP-ish pace runs very regularly (i.e. many times a week and often even daily) with no intervals (there was a no intervals thread covering some of this from many years ago).

In fact, Lydiard had a plan (marathon conditioning I believe) which is simply alternating MP pace runs with long (or longish) runs.

This is just a more tightly controlled, interval version of the same idea with presumably similar training load.

I think those guys embodied the just run bro attitude at the highest level.

I remember reading somewhere that sirpoc was trying to convice Hard2Find to run MP every day for a while as an experiment. I'm curious what the idea behind it is and how it would be implemented - what percent of total weekly time, etc.

Pretty sure the theory he wanted to test is that 'load is load' and it doesn't matter how it's accumulated. Doing MP daily if you can handle it could test this theory by maxing out load.

I'll make this post short as I can so it doesn't get lost in my long dialogues. There is still nothing special inherently still about sub threshold. Other than it provides the biggest opportunity to impact load on the body in a way you can do regularly, but still be meaningful.

The accumulation and aggregate of what I do, is probably more than most training systems, but without the high tariff of the peaks and troughs and the really hard days or weeks, that then need the recovery I don't really need. Essentially that's it. You can get a lot out of it with just understanding that. There's a ton more I could write two books on let alone one, if you wanted to get into the weeds of finding the extra I worry about.

The "Norwegian Singles method" aspect the internet has coined it, has probably created a lot of the confusion of what it isn't, rather than what it is. I guess that just stuck as this is the original thread I happened to choose to post in.

I genuinely think still most of the picture , maybe 90%+ of the benefits of any training, is made up from the impact of load itself. The composition of training has very little effect in the grand scheme, especially if you still have headroom to get fitter without having reached dimishined returns. That's where training might be different for full time athletes or pros as the low hanging fruit starts to dry up and you need other ways to eek out some improvement.

Hopefully Coggan is reading this and I think I'm roughly quoting him and coming around to this way of thinking - put the work in and let the physiology sort out itself.

Re: MP stuff idea.

I've done 5+ sessions sweetspot in a week cycling, when coming back from winters off before settling back into a normal 3 sessions a week on the bike. Whether one could genuinely actually manage MP slightly broken for 20-30 a day as their base rather than what I do, who knows. As far as I know, nobody has tried it over a long period of time - which is what you need if you are assessing the impact of load. Hard2find wouldn't even try it and he's a human guinea pig, so that alone tells you it's probably not a good idea other than on paper. But if someone ever does for 6+ months, report back.

Yeah I've been considering doing this if I have to switch to a 5 day/week schedule. If I only have 50ish minutes a day except for a 90 minute long run on the weekend, I could do 3x10 around M pace plus warmup/down 4 times a week plus a 90 minute long easy run. It works out to be almost the same CTL as 3xsubT, 50E, 90E if I calculated correctly, maybe like 1 point more (I may have screwed up how to calculate though idk). I assume it's getting too greedy to incorporate a fifth M pace workout in the long run. I do wonder though, if it gives pretty much the same CTL is it still better to do the three sub T workouts instead because you can figure out your race pace targets better? Or does it work the same for M pace workouts only, just figure out the VDOT equivalent race targets for your desired distance.

Oops didn't see this whilst writing my post. If you had 5 days a week and 50 minutes per run except for a longer slot on the weekend, would you try 4xMP workouts and the standard long easy run for this experiment? Is even that too greedy? How do you think I should approach it with the long run time slot.

How about you give it a go for 12 weeks and report back for us - kind of you to volunteer for this experiment!

That's the plan lol. I was just wondering if the long run approach was obviously stupid and I was doomed for failure. I'm finding myself more and more having to skip a second easy day though so come Monday I'll full commit to 4xMP (3s/km slower maybe?) + long run and check back in a bit. One caveat though, I've only been doing NSA for 5 months now, coming from a relatively untrained base so I'm still progressing quite a bit. I won't be able to compare to some baseline but I can let you know if I keep progressing or get injured.

Looking up the latest World Masters Athletics age grading tables.

2:24 is equivalent to 2:21 for a male senior. That is incredible for a first timer, someone who hasn’t been running for years, and someone only training 7 hours per week.

Doing it for the odd week here and there 5 times a week cycling (relatively risk free) is one thing.....actually not having your body fall apart running is another altogether. Again, the whole reason what I do works, is likely because it takes out the high tariff of all the stress that builds up and builds up until it overflows and you blow up.

But as i said, on paper it's probably even better if you are extra time crunched or just don't want to run everyday. But there is a big difference to what works on paper and what works in the real world. In fact what looks like a good idea on paper actually ends up having it's flaws in the only thing that actually makes running special, the impact on the body.

And he was faster than the leading uk female elite, Olympian, and Commonwealth Gold, Eilish McColgan.

Checkout Trueheart Brown on Strava. Previous Black Canyon 100k winner (2022 I think), still quite fit. He typically runs what looks to be 40-50k effort 3-4 times a week including his long run all on semi-tech rolling singletrack and dirt roads. His legs clearly have the ultrarunning chops to take the pounding. Doesn't look like he does any intervals, just runs semi-hard a few days per week. Somewhat on this MP line of thinking.

That's fair, I'm gonna give it a shot at least and just try to be honest with myself about residual fatigue/niggles. Fwiw I think I'm fairly durable? Watch that backfire spectacularly xD. But I think there's a chance of it working so why not. Can always revert back to the usual if I cook it anyway.

If you guys need inspiration for the MP runs, you can check this out:

Sirpoc, there were many who did this kind of thing way more than 6 months. Ron Clarke ran about an hour progression runs typically finishing over what we now call LT2 (probably even approaching his 10k pace) day in day out. He held over dozen world records, but could not peak (hence his lack of success in olympics).

Another example is Derek Clayton, though he often overdid and cooked himself in.

Anyway, there are others like Jack Foster who has done similar things. HRE who posts here and has a marathon time of 2:35, long time ago, no offense HRE :) He did daily MP pace runs without paying much attention to pace.

I'm sure there are many more examples I'm forgetting, but lots of guys did this kind of training in the 60s through 80s and did fairly well.