Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

This applies for me aswell, easy days I feel more drained always wondering how I am going to be able to run ST next day. ST still feels good everytime.

I have a question, so tommorow I am going for the sirpoc 5x5km marathon session but tweaking it to the reddit 2.44 marathon post in which the redditor did 4x20min.

I usually do 3x3km at around 4.25min/km. I want run my upcoming marathon around this pace, maybe even faster.

Should I do the 4x20min at the same pace as my 3x3k? Sure it will feel way harder but it's a oneoff session 2 weeks out.

For context my last HM race I averaged 4.21min/km with the first 5k averaging 4.32min/km and for the remaining 16k I averaged 4.16min/km. In my training session leading up to this hm race I was doing mostly 3x3k at around 4.35min/km and those session felt way harder than what 3x3k at 4.25min/km does today (3 weeks later)

At 58, almost 59, yes, the easy days typically are pretty rough. But I always seem ready to go on subT day, and I guess that's most of what you can ask for. Sometimes after a couple of miles things feel better, sometimes the whole run is just a grind. But I don't seem to have extended fatigue and/or soreness.

This is an excellent point. But what I think doesn't get enough attention is Sirpoc's Training Stress Balance (TSB). He's mentioned that he never gets below -10. I think this is what people starting out should concentrate on. Sirpoc is squeezing out as much CTL as possible for the amount of time he trains, but he's also not increasing his CTL very much week over week. He's moving it up very slowly and keeping his TSB in a manageable state at all times.

What shoes do people use for the Sub T days? Just your normal training shoes or your super trainers or racing shoes? When thinking about keeping injury free, there is a fare bit of running at "faster paces" in this approach and if you were doing it all in racing flats would this not be quite a stress on the calves/achilles ? Generally in older runners the risk of calf strains/tears does seem to be higher. Maybe the racing shoes today are much better in terms of injury risk compared to the ones I used 20 years ago (Nike streak light etc)?

M58 here, I use Kinvaras for my midweek 7x4' and 4x8' workouts. For Saturday's combo long/2x12' workout I use Endorphin Speeds. I'm not sure anyone actually makes a racing flat anymore.

A.k.a., keeping his ramp rate in check.

I buy last year model's supershoes at deep discounts and just use those. Funny thing is that they seem to last forever compared to when I was running pre-super shoes. I'm almost 400 miles into a pair of adios pro 3s and they still feel great.

It's taken awhile to get here since I started running again last October, but I'm 42, and don't even have niggles anymore despite running every day using this method and these shoes: just tired legs some times... which has been great.

Also meant to add that I do make a regular practice of doing weighted (usually w/ a 50 lb KB) single-leg calf raises weekly. Hopefully a small contribution to injury prevention.

I'm still 90 seconds away from my old 5K PR though, so it's yet to be seen wrt how well I do using this method. 5K times have been: mid 21, mid 20, low 19, high 18, mid 18. Trending in the right direction, but still just regaining lost fitness.

All training load metrics (of which I am aware, anyway) assume so (e.g., see penultimate slide here:

slideshare.net

UK Sport talk on quantifying training load

UK Sport talk on quantifying training load - Download as a PDF or view online for free

Open link

), but that's really only because there isn't a good alternative.

That is, I think most would agree that the imposed stress/experienced strain increases non-linearly as a function of time. However, just how steep is that relationship? How would you determine this?

(BTW, note that this is one reason why those who get all bent out of shape over the non-additivity of TSS are barking up the wrong tree. Additivity may be a mathematically appealing property, but it doesn't really make sense physiologically.)

Was that HM your PB? There is a spreadsheet of the Sirpoc marathon block, or check out his Strava, which may give some guidance on paces compared to his actual marathon pace

Thanks for your reply.

Yes it was my PB, only race I ever did. I will check his Strava, thanks for the tip.

I have this nagging thought to go for a sub 3 marathon if the conditions are good weather. I just feel the improvements are weekly, probably the noob gains. I will see how I feel on tommorows big session.

My idea for the marathon is to go out on like 4.25 first 5k and if I feel good try and work my way towards the sub3 goal.

But a full is quiete the challenge from the HM.

So checking his strava it seems the 5x5k was on MP, around 3.25min/km. But also seeing his nearby 3k reps are pretty much same pace, just a little bit faster.

I will go for 4.25-4.30min/km 4x20min tommorow and see what happens.

Just wanted to offer my experience. I've been doing this since March, so still pretty new to it all. I thought I was in 5K shape around 19:30, but previous posts have mentioned it's better to be too conservative with paces than the other way around. So I went to the lactrace calculator, put in 20:00 5K, and got my paces. Race day came around 6 weeks later and I ran a 19:05 with a massive negative split. I probably could have ducked under 19 if I had paced it better. But I'm still ecstatic with the result given it was ~25s better than I thought and also only on 6 weeks of training.
Anyways, my workouts were not really indicative of running a 19:05. Not a second of my training was close to 6:05/mile. I definitely underestimated my race pace but I think as time goes on I'll get a better hang of it. All this to say - just go out and race and you'll get a better idea for next time.

thankfully the only place I've seen it is here in this obscure forum or reddit, nothing on RW or mainstream media. It's a nice secret. Some runners I talk to, who have run for decades, have never heard of Letsrun.com.

It sounds like, to me, this system works b/c it works multiple systems at once and by going conservative you're avoiding injury but (gently) squeezing more each time. Hence no down weeks either per sirpoc.

Similar situation for me last autumn. I had raced a 5k in the summer at 18:17, used the paces for that when starting NSA, was hoping for a 1:24ish HM, ended up running 1:21 off this method hardly changing paces week to week off the initial 5k race 12 or so weeks prior. To your point of being more conservative with the method, I definitely was running my easy runs too fast during that block. Specifically the long run. I found it pretty easy to run too hard when your body gets accustomed to 3 workouts a week running moderately quick. It made me pretty burnt out towards the end because of it. The last few pages of the thread have inspired me to put a speed limit on my easy runs at current 5k pace + 1:15/km.