Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

One could argue that many runners are very undisciplined at forcing an "established" pace when they shouldn't be.

You're the one who writes a lot of braindead nonsense. How you feel before a race or training session is completely irrelevant. Again you show that you know nothing about real world training. Come back when you have achieved something - in racing or coaching.

This is, in fact, not true. Indeed, quite the opposite, i.e., most folks - even untrained individuals - are reasonably good at judging exercise intensity. (Although some qualify as what one famous sports psychologists once described to me as "perceptual idiots".)

Here's an example of the sorts of research out there:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Oxygen uptake and heart rate responses to 4 weeks of RPE-guided handcycle training - PubMed

Moderate-vigorous intensity handcycling exercise can be prescribed effectively using RPE across a chronic training intervention, suggesting utility for practitioners in a variety of rehabilitation settings.

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Have you guys seen this:

run.outsideonline.com

Finally, a Norwegian Method We Can All Try

Matt Fitzgerald

No two-a-days, no lactate testing, this Norwegian method is approachable for pretty much every runner. A running coach breaks it down.

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Outside magazine has written a whole column raving about the Norwegian singles method as invented on this thread with a lot of help from "Spiroc84." I let them know they got the name wrong - it's sirpoc84.

A great column nonetheless and a great thread. It's weird as I'm obsessed with Jakob and am thinking about getting back into running and was thinking I'd try either Norwegian triples or a threshold ever day (but super low mileage), but I haven't read hardly any of this thread. Time to get on it.

Sirpoc84, Outside wants to speak to you. I sent them your email.

Fitzgerald probably saw all the sh*t talking in this thread a few pages ago and wanted to get some brownie points.

I guess you hit the nail on the head with this, looking at the quality of the garbage article Fitzgerald just published...

As short as 90 second reps on one of the workouts? Only 60 seconds rest on the 9 - 12 minute reps? Varying the long run length to periodize the weekly mileage?

Old Matty just can't help himself, and has to try to change it up to be his own thing.

He also missed that this whole thing was informed by Kristoffer Ingebrigtsen's training, would have been helpful to explain how it still had roots from Norwegian athletes.

Do you have any studies or docs about lactate variability? I'm assuming that's why it's ranked last in your hierarchy.

To continue that thought: post-publication peer review has always been a thing in science. If you apply that ethos to Fitzgerald's article, what other things does he get wrong? What does he get right?

(Note: too lazy/disinterested to attempt such an analysis myself, but am thinking of those who might both read the article and stumble across this thread, and how pointing out discrepancies and agreements could be useful.)

One of many such examples, but very much on point:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Test-Retest Reliability of Running Economy and Other Physiological Parameters During 90 min of Running in Well-Trained Male Endurance Runners - PubMed

Running economy (RE) is highly reliable when measured in an unfatigued state; however, its reproducibility during prolonged exercise has not been investigated. RE is known to worsen during prolonged exercise (referred to as R...

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With a call like that, shoe in for Playa Hater of the Year! Absolutely pegged MF and races to put out an article where he gets the main protagonist misspelled

Oh man, I read it and it's bad. It adds a rest day each week (I mean, I do that because I'm old, but sirpoc doesn't). The recommended paces are too fast. The rests are all shorter than what sirpoc actually does. It recommends adding VO2max workouts. It doesn't talk about sweet spot training or consistent training load at all. It doesn't mention any of sirpoc's races, just an 80 second improvement in his 5K time (reality is more like triple that number). It doesn't grasp the importance of sustainability and doing the same thing, week after week, for years, which is what NSA is all about.

It's bad. 🙁

Thanks, but as always, just calling 'em as I see 'em

Was just looking back at some of the early posts in the thread and saw this in post #45 on page 2...which got me curious.

At 41 years old and a 5k time of 15:01, that gives an age graded score of 90.79% which using the age-grading categories has him at 90+ which equals "World Class".

I guess he was right in that it didn't suddenly turn him world class...but it took less than 2 years!

As someone entering their late 40s, who is just noticing the first jump in performance after following this method for just over a couple of months, I'll be happy with a solid Regional Class age-graded performance myself.

runbundle.com

Age Grading Calculator

@runbundledotcom

What's your performance really worth?

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man, does fitzgerald get the paces and efforts wrong. when has it ever been mentioned to do intervals at 30 minute race pace? that's not sub threshold, that's over threshold. and where does all of this heart rate talk come from?

does anyone doing this do 400m/90sec intervals? i always thought the most common length was 6 minutes...

The runbundle categories are nonsense. 90% age graded is nowhere near actual world class times if you look at it for people in their 20’s.

Its obvious that he wrote Sirpocs name wrong on purpose, to trigger some reactions ...

The most training time we spend in the 'easy' zone. It would be great if sRPE or RPE would work there. Unfortunately this is exactly not the case.

I quote:
Signifcant diferences were observed between the RPE and sRPE perceived by the athletes and those prescribed/intended/observed by the coaches in training sessions classifed as easy,
in which the athletes perceived intensity and internal load greater than that prescribed/intended/observed by the coach

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Internal Training Load Perceived by Athletes and Planned by Coaches: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PubMed

There is an agreement between coaches and athletes about overall RPE and sRPE, and RPE and sRPE into two effort categories (moderate and hard). However, there were disagreements in RPE and sRPE for easy effort category. Thus,...

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On top of that he recommends 30 minute pace, 45 minute pace, and 60 minute pace for those workouts lmao. Can't even copy from others properly but I guess that's par for the course for him.