Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

That was bad. Really bad. I don't know what he was thinking. Couldn't agree more!

Running journalists are a useful and important part of the running ecosystem, and Matt Fitzgerald is one of the best. Living the Dream is one of the most enjoyable books on running I've read. As a journalist, his job is to make sense of a mass of confusing, sometimes contradictory information, and he does it well. Did Alex Hutchinson do a bunch of original research for Endure? Of course not. Journalism is work and no one here can do it nearly as well as Matt Fitzgerald can. That's just the facts.

Is everything he publishes good? No, some of his books are just okay. Journalists have to publish stuff to earn a living. And his article on NSA was bad. But it was bad in the same way that a lot of the comments people make here are bad. They take one look at NSA and want to immediately add in bits and pieces of other training plans because they don't understand how the system works.

hes not even a good conduit, sorry, 'just okay' is the highest praise, not the lowest.

sure, journalism is work. Regurgitating talking points and slogans and slapping your name on it falls slightly short of that

that last sentence applies as much to Fitz as anyone on any message board, but i wouldnt hold a random idiot and this author to nearly the same standards, obviously

totally agree with you both, a big part of this is identity creation, part masochism, and part narcissism

when you put an inordinate amount of time into something you like to believe that it created great value and that you've 'mastered' something, not that you can be done in by a debutant on half the effort and half the time horizon

there's also just a generation that's slavishly devoted to the 'no pain, no gain' bury yourself every chance you get mentality -- that is not going away anytime soon, but there are definitely some green shoots that ppl are wising up

Have to say, find you one of the best posters around these parts. But got to disagree with this. Some of the cut and paste articles, even books that MF puts out are IMO part of the problem with quick fix mentality in running culture. Maybe it's a bit harsh on him as an individual, but he's definitely caught up in that world of soundbites. Maybe that's overly harsh but that article he put out recently based on this thread was genuinely one of the worst pieces of information I've ever seen put out there. He either doesn't have a clue what he was writing, or unfortunately I suspect more likely he's going to latch on to the method himself and put his own spin on it. That's what guys like this do.

Yeah basically 2:24 rubbed a lot of the trolls here up the wrong way I feel. It's quite funny looking back and how many people was hoping this would all fail. Then you had in the same race guys like bester, felton getting distanced by a debutant, we had a whole few pages of what seemed like Felton and bester fan clubs trolling here.

Then we have had a number of other people since succeeding with the marathon using this. That was actually the point for me when it was too hard to ignore anymore, despite still in my own mind having a problem with a huge shift away from my training over the last 20 years. But I realise that's a me problem, not this methods problem.

100%

Nothing ruins your life or performance like massive stress, and ill give it to the YTers, the pressure was probably building building building when you start to see the advantages over the average Joe, and im sure that impacted their flow and their expectations and mindset. Harder to 'fake it till you make it' in this space

one of the greatest contributions to this whole enterprise has been a certain persons mentality, quite possibly above even the structure of the training.

Consistency in work and mentality -- you can have the most elegant and perfectly scientific approach and still destroy it all in 5 minutes being a moron

the dude knows how to melt it down and focus in a real way, it's a very admirable trait and something i admire quite a bit, especially the older and longer in the tooth we all get here

I really enjoyed How Bad Do You Want It, didn't realise MF was so hated around here. The article was garbage, but that Running the Dream book looks pretty interesting...

Targeting a sub 3 hour marathon, but couldn't imagine running for 180 minutes. Copying Sirpoc's 15 week build, but running everything at 85%, although keeping long and medium long runs the same amount of minutes. This allows for some 25-37ish minute runs here and there. Only on week 2, but so far so good, really slowing down those easy days is helping. Ran a 18:18 5k in April, 38:20 10k during a 1:27:31 half effort the last day of may with 700 ft elevation gain. Hoping for the best, will do a 5k TT coming up here in a few weeks and depating on the 2nd 5k, 10k, and half effort like Sirpoc did. Might just run hard for the amount of minutes he did and not fry myself on 4 races in the build that would of course be a bit longer time wise than his 15, 30, 68 minutes.

For the 3:32 runner, how much did they drop by and were there any adjustments to their NSM, or were they vanilla too? This shows that the method should work with newer runners or non sub-elites!

This method has some of the best parts of Maffetone without the pseudoscience 220-age stuff...at least in terms of the EZ run component and staying consistent w/HR.

that's a no from me dawg!

Your post just brought back Rocky IV vibes....cue the montage

I've read multiple books by Matt Fitzgerald, and 'regurgitating talking points and slogans' is not what he does. He hasn't claimed to be the inventor of 80/20 or anything else. He hasn't 'slapped his name' on anything. (That being said, I don't love the combination of coaching and journalism roles, since it creates a potential conflict of interest when writing about training plans.) Running the Dream and How Bad Do You Want It were excellent. The New Rules of Marathon and Half Marathon Nutrition was good and worth keeping around for reference. Run Like a Pro and How to Run the Perfect Race both felt kind of incomplete.

Point the first: Matt Fitzgerald is as good a journalist for running as you're going to find. He's a runner himself with a ton of experience and knowledge about a lot of aspects of the sport. He can write about running from the inside, as a runner. Also, he can get published in big outlets.

Point the second: If you want sirpoc to get some payoff from all his work, it's going to require the contribution of journalists like Matt Fitzgerald. How many copies of a self-published book could sirpoc sell to people who only know of it from LRC/reddit/Strava? Actually quite a few, enough to get at least a niche fitness publisher interested. Enough for a mainstream publisher with a fitness line? Maybe. But any publisher - especially one who might cut a big check to sirpoc for an advance - is going to have a publicity plan that will aim to get articles published in RW and Men's Health and Outside and any other outlet that will reach a much wider audience than LRC/reddit/Strava. Or if sirpoc self-publishes and keeps all the net sales for himself (after paying off one more more editors, illustrators, and book designers), he'll generate a lot more sales if journalists with the reach and reputation of Matt Fitzgerald are writing about it.

I don't want running journalists to think of NSA as a cult-like group who can't tolerate outsiders invading their fief. I do want sirpoc to get a nice payday out of this to make it worth his effort.

Sure mate,if you want to remain at mediocre 16min 5K level then sure do run your easy days 70%+ MHR..I do not have problem with that approach.

I know I shouldn't engage but have you ever seen the training for Emile Cairess? He is running most of his "easy" at 4:25 per km. This is the equivalent of 6:00 per km for a 3 hour marathoner and 5:00 per km for a 2:30 marathoner!

What is the old saying "2 workouts a week and as much easy mileage as you can handle" - how do you handle more easy mileage? Slow down!

If I'm a 3 hour marathoner, how much extra benefit do I gain from my easy run when running at 5:00 per km vs 6:00 per km? Can you answer that? People moan about "running your easy runs too slow" but is there evidence that it is detrimental? I'd love to see it

At what % of MHR do you think world class level runners run? Idiot.

Conner Mantz just ran a 27:26 10K. Almost all of his easy runs are between 4:00–4:25/km, which is 60–65% of his 10K pace.
His heart rate is between 110–115 bpm, which is 60% of his max HR.
It’s the same trend with all the other elite runners.
I’ve been using NSA for 7 months now, and it wasn’t until I started running my easy runs below 70% of my max HR that I began to see bigger improvements.

Back then Lasse Viren even run 55-60% MHR,so really eeeeeasy easy runs.