Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Hello! I finally began reading this thread after seeing it on the front page for a year. Very informative stuff. I wonder how much I am missing between pages 30 and 257, but I think I have the gist of it down.

As an injury prone runner, I am going to implement this training to see if it helps. Can somebody please review my approach and advise if I am off?

I suspect my max HR is about 200. That's what my Garmin watch read during a hot and humid summer 5K last year. That would put my 70% limit at 140~. So, I have been running easy runs (now with a Chest strap) at 145 or lower. It's boring, but way less stressful on my body.

For the Sub-T Sessions, I have been targeting 170 - 178 as a HR zone. This works out to about 6:50-7:10 per mile depending on how I'm feeling.

Seem reasonable? Recent races include a flat 10 miles at 6:56 pace and a hilly 5K at 6:15 pace. I don't want to bother getting a lactate meter, so I hope this is close enough. Thank you all🙏

Here's a couple of useful links:

The first one boils down everything you might've missed between pages 30 and 257, and the second one provides a pace calculator that should give you a pace range for each of the Sub-T workouts. Just put that recent 5k result in there, and voila. Adjust for hills if you want, but it probably won't make a lot of difference - better to be below than even slightly over.

Thank you! :)

I can do 5k in around 18:00 right now. According to this chart that puts me around 6:40 min/mile for sub threshold. Is it too slow or is it correct?

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subthreshold pace — Postimages

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No such thing as a single "sub threshold pace". It depends on the length of interval you're doing. Use this calculator for a decent picture of the required pace in relation to each of the prescribed interval lengths/distances: Here...

Based on a relatively recent 5K my short interval pace is around 4:10/Km. 166bpm is around 90% HRM, which unless I'm mistaken, is theoretically the most upper threshold limit.

So what about when the last ~ 20% of the interval gets above 90%HRM? Is there a recommendation to slow down the rep to accommodate the desired HR range or just carry on with the described paces since the average HR will still be well within threshold range?

The general advice is that's been posted here many times is that it's better to go slightly too easy than too hard. The fitness benefit of going slightly harder is relatively small, whereas the fatigue cost is high.

I find the longer intervals harder than the shorter ones, it is probably more mental than physical. Would I be missing out on some adaptation, by just doing the 3 minute intervals all the time? Some say the different interval lengths break up the boredom, but that is not a an issue for me. I am more interested in the physiological issues between the different lengths.

Been following this thread and was wondering how people use this when coming from low or even no mileage:

I've been off running for a while and getting back into it now, currently up to about 40km a week of mainly easy with 1 long run per week. My goal is a half at the end of August (about 13 weeks away). I ran a parkrun 2 weeks ago off 20k a week at 19:46 (my PB is 16:50 from 4 years ago when I was running 80k a week)

Anyway, my question is, if I want to get up to about 80k a week for the half, should I focus on doing that with all easy running before starting subT workouts, or is it reasonable to add mileage as well as 2 workouts per week?

It's not recommended to increase volume and intensity at the same time. I'd recommend getting your weekly volume up first and then adding in some sub-t sessions once you feel comfortable. A good rule of thumb is to start this method once you're over 5 hrs of weekly running and keep workouts at 20-25% of weekly volume.

Is 10 miles a week too much on 35 MPW? I very recently ran 18 flat and I've been doing mile or 2 mile reps at 6:20-6:25 pace.

If you find that you're recovering fine between sessions then I'd say you're ok. On lower weekly volume you can get away with a higher % of sub-t work since the overall load for the week is lower, making recovery easier. I think most of us would agree however that there are many potential gains to be had from just increasing total weekly volume in general.

I've just spent 4 days reading this thread on and off.

I'm convinced enough to give it a go, but I'm not sure how to implement this as I return to run from injury.

I was pretty fit by my standards in winter (3:01 FM, 1:28 HM) but had to take some time off as I had a bad quad niggle. I spent last Autumn doung 60-75km/week and was very happy at that volume, I'd like to get back there asap and if running sub threshold helps me get there then great. All my PBs came the year before when I was only running 3 times a week; two sub threshold sessions and a long run.

I've come back to training over the last 4 weeks but what I've found is that my fatigue ramps up very quickly. One of the things that intrigued me most about this thread is the various casual mentions of training with very low accumulated fatigue, which it seems like posters are measuring in various ways but mainly via TrainingPeaks.

I have worked out a sample schedule to start back with, based on what I've read here. I have some questions though, hopefully someone here who is more familiar with the 257 pages of comments can help me out with?

Mon: rest

Tues: 3x5mins (35-40mins total)

Weds: easy 35

Thurs: 3x5mins (35-40mins total)

Fri: easy 35

Sat: easy 70

Sun: easy 35

Q1: The above is only 30mins of quality from the two sessions, much less than 20% of the total training time. Is that too little or do I need to think of the long run as quality? How do I account for that, considering that I will run that easy?

Q2: I use intervals.icu to track my training. Someone mentioned having a near constant fatigue rating of 10. That sounds like a very low level of fatigue, do other intervals.icu users who follow this methodology think that's appropriate?

Q3: What concrete indicators are people using to judge when to extend their training? I would love to say that I'll just add some mileage when I feel ready but I tend to misjudge that because I love to train.

Q4: What do people recommend to do if my fatigue ramps up? Take a day off? Do easy instead of quality? Reduce the long run?

Q5: Feel free to comment on the above plan if you think it needs revision in some way

Thanks in advance! And thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread being so exciting.

Cheers, yeah I think I'll mainly focus on getting up to around 60-70k per week before adding in sessions. One of the things I'm taking away already is running very very easy, I feel like I could basically run as much as I like at 5:30-5:45 per/km and it's making it much easier to add mileage.

Nah, that should be fine. It depends on your paces, but if you’re measuring volume by time that should come in under 25% because you’re running the 10 ST miles faster than the other 25mi. Averaging 6:25/mi. puts you ~1.07hrs for those 10, and guessing you’re at 8:20/mi. for the remaining 25 comes to a touch under 3.5hrs. So around 23-24% of a little more than 4.5 hours, which is great as long as you’re feeling good. Ideally you’d build up both easy and ST volume over time, though.

Hey guys I've recently had a lot of success with this method, going from a 22:50 5k off of just base mileage to a 18:45 after 20 weeks. I tend to do my sub-t reps on the slower end of what lactrace gives me but always seem to over perform in races. One weird thing I've found is that my easy runs are incredibly slow, in the realm of 10+min miles despite various calculators recommending I go faster than 9min/mile. Where I live it's always over 80F when I go out for a run, maybe this could be the reason? I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with their easy runs being so atrociously slow? For context I do about 7.5 hrs of weekly volume with 90min of sub-t work.

One issue I have is my pace is basically the same for my subT workouts; Whether it's 3x10min, 5x6min, or 8x4min, the pace is all the same. What am I doing wrong?

You're running basically the same pace for your subT workouts; Whether it's 3x10min, 5x6min, or 8x4min, the pace is all the same.

the 10 min effort is supposed to be around 30k pace, 6 minutes around Half Marathon pace and the 4 minutes around 15k pace. You need to manipulate the intensity if you want to achieve the same state with different rep length.