Also, why the use of cycling terminology (CTL etc)? This cyclist-talk provides a false veil of calculability and controllability to the load that really isnt true in the case of running. Cyclists have power, a real world measure of actual effort. Running has no equivalent. Bad guesstimates of a theoretical CTL provides nothing of value that good old self assessment cant do better.
If you want to use session RPE (SRPE), go for it. NSM doesn't dictate that you use TSS. Running power is a thing though. Stryd has been around for nearly a decade and is working for thousands of runners. Even elites are using it. Watch manufacturers have also putting running power into their watches.
I can advice you to read the whole tread. And I really mean that as good advice since it is really interesting and its just a different way of thinking about training. The idea is load = load and its doenst matter how this is created so the idea of hitting different systems isnt that relevant anymore. This system of 3 subt and the easy running is just a way of maximizing load while still recovering to do the same next week/month/year. You do this till it doesnt work anymore and then you start being cute with Vo2max, hill training, etc. This is were the elites are, therefor they are training different then us hobby joggers. All the explanations are in the tread and it is really a great read. If your interested about learning different ways of training at least read page 1 tm 60. Full of useful information.
About your question: we dont. But how do you know he wouldnt be worst of training with the additions you recommend? We do know the traditional way of training didnt work as well for him, thats why he started training like this. Thats just a given fact. We also know he came very far in both biking and running. He is very good at finding the optimum way of training, that seem to be his biggest talent I would say. Everything else is just speculation and guessing.
Please, stop with the cult. The idea of load is not new at all. Jack Daniels, to name one reputable running source, is very clear with that every run (or any cross training workout) provides a stimulus for adaptation and for the adaptation to take place the body needs to be well enough recovered for the intensity of the stimulus. In other words, the ATL cannot be too high in comparison to the CTL (load management) to put it in terms that I think you NSA people use. As to training the different systems (aerobic, anaerobic), its all targeted fairly good by (sub) threshold work so yeah, it is relevant but you just dont see it because all you do is the subT stuff which is all kind of similar (and I dont mean that in a bad way at all).
Also, why the use of cycling terminology (CTL etc)? This cyclist-talk provides a false veil of calculability and controllability to the load that really isnt true in the case of running. Cyclists have power, a real world measure of actual effort. Running has no equivalent. Bad guesstimates of a theoretical CTL provides nothing of value that good old self assessment cant do better.
So again, stop with the cult mentality. Its just good old training theory with a time-budget constraint, NOT GOSPEL.
So you need to train and adequately recover to see progress. Yeah no sh1t Sherlock.
Just to be clear; to me it’s a completely new way of thinking about raining. And I have read most books, including Jack Daniels. And I assumed the same thing about the person I was replying to.
You seem to miss what I mean tho. I meant that it doesn’t matter how you train to create your load since the result will be the same. Some ways of training just take more time than others. There was the example of riding a bike something like 3 hours a day every day. So a lot of very easy biking which would get a certain CTL. But you can also do more intense work for 1 hour a day and get the same CTL. If you follow with a race after each block the result would be the same. So it doesn’t matter how the load was created. So you don’t need to train Vo2max, threshold, do strides or whatever. You just maximize your load and continue doing this until it doesn’t work anymore. More is better until it isn’t. And then you will start doing a lot of different things.
Your comment about cyclist using power and this being unmatched as a metric, is well discussed early in the tread tho. Also which metrics are good for running and what are the pluses and minuses of each. Interesting to read I you would want.
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You are a very strange poster. You have posted with the same structure and argument a number of times. I'm really not sure why you are so insistent on gaslighting everyone to think they are in a cult, because they have stumbled across a running system that works for the everyman. Very strange behaviour. Classic Letsrun behaviour, but very odd for this thread which is quite grown up by LRC standards. To compare this to hack Daniels is fine, if you accept then every single structured training is the same. In which case, nobody offers anything new. I don't know how anyone can read a Jack Daniels book, as much of a legend he is and think anything this thread has said is really relevant to his idea of training. Again, unless you just accept all training is literally the same.
Clearly parachuting this idea over from cycling and how it's been laid out has had huge success for thousands of people at this point. I don't really know why people being enthusiastic, excited or wanting to share that is cult like.
Read the thread. Read Reddit, read Strava. This has turned the lives around of seasoned runners. This isn't just noob progress. There are guys like myself, hundreds of others who ard kicking themselves as we fell into the trap of an elite down approach at looking at our training.
There's a reason this thread is celebrated. However you view this training, it's a game changer. Who cares if it's built on ideas that might not be unique. What training is? It's about a approach or philosophy. Nobody has laid out training like this to help the average guy for a long time. This is almost certainly the philosophy for hobby joggers. I've been around LRC long enough to know flash in the pan threads and all time game changers.
Im all for people training nn a sustainable manner. That is good. In so for NSM/NSA provides people with the knowlwdge to do that, it is good. If you where serious and not actually read what I wrote, you would find that my ceitique is against the cult mentality. Just read your own post and tell me its is not full of a cultish vibe. The talk about "testimonies" and "changing lifes" and "sirpoc this" amd "sirpoc that" is extremely cultish.
Ps. I have not posted in this thread prior to the post you replied to.
Yeah some of the replies on here have definite cult vibes. There was some talk early on about doing some 5km pace 1km intervals to peak for a 5km race and some replies were all like 'you can't do that' etc etc, implying that somehow these efforts would wreck the training you were doing.
If you are aiming to peak, why not add some faster work on top closer to the A race?
It's basically just the inverse of the marathon 'special block' NSA adapted approach.
Just throwing it out there that when I do my Sub T workouts I have about an 11 minute warmup jog that incorporates a few strides into the last 3-4 minutes. My first rep feels maybe a bit sluggish but not bad. And then number 2 feels great.
I don't full-on do this method because coaching gets in the way. But I love doing 11 minute warmup including strides straight into 3x8 minutes with 90s rest and cooldown with however much time I have left. It's just so efficient to pack 4 miles of threshold with 2-3 easy miles into literally 45-50 minutes before school.
I will probably do 3 rep workouts all the way up to 12 minute reps because there is so little time wasted on rest!
Not random guessing, self assessment. It develops the faculty of knowing ones body and is fairly accurate, while the CTL calcualtions from whatches etc are not.
So yeah, random guessing. Cool!
There's formulas for pace CTL. Spreadsheets in this thread. Idk what the watches use. Is it perfect? No, wind matters, etc. But, eh, it's directionally reasonable if you're running about the same places regularly and it does beat vibes.
Yeah some of the replies on here have definite cult vibes. There was some talk early on about doing some 5km pace 1km intervals to peak for a 5km race and some replies were all like 'you can't do that' etc etc, implying that somehow these efforts would wreck the training you were doing.
If you are aiming to peak, why not add some faster work on top closer to the A race?
It's basically just the inverse of the marathon 'special block' NSA adapted approach.
The recipe calls for 1/2 tsp salt. Everyone knows salt makes food taste better. Surely then 1 tbsp salt will make things even better.
For many hobby joggers, the biggest barrier to progress is inconsistency - oscillating between programs, too hard of workouts leading to burnout, overuse injuries, etc. Without long blocks of something, people aren't going to achieve the consistent (very small) gains that yield real breakthroughs over time and will generally bounce around some talent determined baseline with an occasional decent race but mostly frustration at hard work not seeming to yield improvement.
I can't speak for the rest of the NSM cult. Personally, the reason I'm anti-VO2 max when discussing NSM isn't because I've never done it or don't understand it. It's because it's easy to overdo it, isn't important for most, and can destroy the laser focus on consistency that can take a runner from 17+ to 15. Very few runners here have reached the asymptote for NSM where they will no longer improve. Given that, it's just not really necessary, is a tiny fraction of any good training program, and can only complicate matters, the fairly anti-VO2 max take makes sense to me.
Yeah some of the replies on here have definite cult vibes. There was some talk early on about doing some 5km pace 1km intervals to peak for a 5km race and some replies were all like 'you can't do that' etc etc, implying that somehow these efforts would wreck the training you were doing.
If you are aiming to peak, why not add some faster work on top closer to the A race?
It's basically just the inverse of the marathon 'special block' NSA adapted approach.
The recipe calls for 1/2 tsp salt. Everyone knows salt makes food taste better. Surely then 1 tbsp salt will make things even better.
For many hobby joggers, the biggest barrier to progress is inconsistency - oscillating between programs, too hard of workouts leading to burnout, overuse injuries, etc. Without long blocks of something, people aren't going to achieve the consistent (very small) gains that yield real breakthroughs over time and will generally bounce around some talent determined baseline with an occasional decent race but mostly frustration at hard work not seeming to yield improvement.
I can't speak for the rest of the NSM cult. Personally, the reason I'm anti-VO2 max when discussing NSM isn't because I've never done it or don't understand it. It's because it's easy to overdo it, isn't important for most, and can destroy the laser focus on consistency that can take a runner from 17+ to 15. Very few runners here have reached the asymptote for NSM where they will no longer improve. Given that, it's just not really necessary, is a tiny fraction of any good training program, and can only complicate matters, the fairly anti-VO2 max take makes sense to me.
Too true relative return consistently is more important that speed to improve performance and the NSM is just a method to attempt to achieve that. This is why the collegiate system has some many burnt out athletes which are injured or drop completely due to their focus/cult of Daniels where the younger athletes are not ready
Im all for people training nn a sustainable manner. That is good. In so for NSM/NSA provides people with the knowlwdge to do that, it is good. If you where serious and not actually read what I wrote, you would find that my ceitique is against the cult mentality. Just read your own post and tell me its is not full of a cultish vibe. The talk about "testimonies" and "changing lifes" and "sirpoc this" amd "sirpoc that" is extremely cultish.
Ps. I have not posted in this thread prior to the post you replied to.
Yeah some of the replies on here have definite cult vibes. There was some talk early on about doing some 5km pace 1km intervals to peak for a 5km race and some replies were all like 'you can't do that' etc etc, implying that somehow these efforts would wreck the training you were doing.
If you are aiming to peak, why not add some faster work on top closer to the A race?
It's basically just the inverse of the marathon 'special block' NSA adapted approach.
Gonna repeat something again: these matters have been discussed a lot in the tread. If you have an A race coming up; go for specific work and a taper. You want to peak at the exact moment, just go for it.
For most of us tho, there are no A races per se. If not an A race it better to follow the normal structure -with minimal taper for 10k HM- and do your race, focusing on the race after the next race.
You can do whatever you want, but there is a certain philosophy behind this way of training. Up to you to follow it but if you decide not to its normal people will point this out. Its like changing the 2Q form Daniels and start adding extra vo2max sessions. People will tell you not to do it since it will break the balance of the training system.
What is the problem with people that has to bash different training systems? I dont think there is one training system that is the absolute best for everyone. Every person is different, and different persons will benefit a bit different from different training systems.
NSA is one (of many) system that will suit quite many people in a very good way. Will it be the best for everyone? I doubt that. But it is the one that has given me the best results so far of every system I have tested.
And what about all those people who is saying they have tested, but they changed this, and changed that and that and that. But it was not working for them... Guess what.. You have not tested it. You have tested something that was resembling that system, because you made so many changes to it.
What is the problem with people that has to bash different training systems? I dont think there is one training system that is the absolute best for everyone. Every person is different, and different persons will benefit a bit different from different training systems.
NSA is one (of many) system that will suit quite many people in a very good way. Will it be the best for everyone? I doubt that. But it is the one that has given me the best results so far of every system I have tested.
And what about all those people who is saying they have tested, but they changed this, and changed that and that and that. But it was not working for them... Guess what.. You have not tested it. You have tested something that was resembling that system, because you made so many changes to it.
I generally agree with what you said there. But you also could have added: "what about all these people who have carbon copied whatever Sirpoc was doig to a tee and are insisting any deviation will lead to failure? Guess what, they have not tested what they say doesn't work".
Somehow, I also agree with part of what that guy making a fixation about cultism says. I don't care if you want to elevate Sirpoc or anyone to cult semi-god status. He certainly found something that works for him and for a lot of enthousiasts running 6 days a week and targeting 5K-HM and is sustainable. He even seems to have found some adaptation that seem to work for a marathon (sustainability still debatable though, although I don't remember a lot of people claiming any sort of marathon prep can be sustainable).
Guess what, he and this thread even enlightenned me on usefull things for me, even if I'm not running 6 days a week, and am targeting more 1h30 to 3h trail races currently (might try to move up to 4-5h at some point, but not just yet). Ideas like sub-T actually is anaerobic enough at the muscular level so you can still make progresses in speed with essentially just easy, sub-T and a handfull of strides in your training (I know I come from very slow, so any training should sort of work). Also an idea from this thread, even if more Bakken than Sirpoc: you can run pretty fast on short reps if the rests are well designed and still not build up blood lactate. This probably is partially anaerobic at muscle fiber level, but is recoverable from. Also - and there I differ from the anti cult guy - TSS, CTL and ATL have been sort of a revelation to me. I calculate them with my own spreadsheet. It might be wrong, but I do know how it's calculated, understand it's a mathematical model and not the absolute truth, and also track carefully long runs length and intensities for some reasons that differ to what is preached here). I do believe it helps me with generally chosing upon the types of session depending on my fatigue level, and how rested I want to be in the next few days.
Of course if I fail I won't charge NSM as I'm not doing NSM. I still use some of the underlying concepts and am interested in this thread and the experience of people using it... or not using NSM but doing their own adaptation and having various success with it.
One thing I haven't seen discussed much is post-marathon recovery. With this method you're overreaching a bit, but not as much as most other marathon plans. Sirpoc returned to training and racing very quickly post-marathon and immediately started racing well at shorter distances, but then got injured. It's unclear if his injury was a function of a lack of post-marathon recovery, his increase in mileage/doubles, or some combination.
For others who have attempted the marathon special block, how has your post-race recovery compared to previous marathon plans?
Running power is a thing though. Stryd has been around for nearly a decade and is working for thousands of runners. Even elites are using it. Watch manufacturers have also putting running power into their watches.
Stryd is absolute garbage. Subscription BS and loaded with bugs. Nowhere near as reliable as a GPS watch. Zero chance pros are relying on Stryd for anything important. It's a sponsorship deal for marketing content. Stryd is not even good enough for a hobby jogger, much less a pro.
Stryd is absolute garbage. Subscription BS and loaded with bugs. Nowhere near as reliable as a GPS watch. Zero chance pros are relying on Stryd for anything important. It's a sponsorship deal for marketing content. Stryd is not even good enough for a hobby jogger, much less a pro.
How much have you used Stryd?
I’ve owned several of them. Stryd power correlates >0.9 with VO2 in my personal testing and corroborates their white paper.
Sure, there are limitations, but anyone with a brain can understand how to use the thing.
One thing I haven't seen discussed much is post-marathon recovery. With this method you're overreaching a bit, but not as much as most other marathon plans. Sirpoc returned to training and racing very quickly post-marathon and immediately started racing well at shorter distances, but then got injured. It's unclear if his injury was a function of a lack of post-marathon recovery, his increase in mileage/doubles, or some combination.
For others who have attempted the marathon special block, how has your post-race recovery compared to previous marathon plans?
I'm not sure sirpoc marathon had much to do with the injury. He ran for months after. Sometimes you just get injured. It's running. Even this system will get you injured. Again, that's running there's no way to get around everyone will probably have some sort of injury, at some point, no matter how you train. You are only limiting your possibility to get injured training like this.
Also, from how I understand the bits and pieces he has said, he could have started running properly a while ago but simply has chosen not to. Don't blame him, with the numbers and improvement he is putting in on the bike he's probably just moved on from running. Or as others have said, used it as a nice opportunity to see what cross training can bring. Maybe he will come back to it at some point.
I did London as well, copying sirpoc build in real time. Came back pretty soon as well, also got a few PBs in short space of time after and then cooled a bit since. Mixture of the summer and coming back down to a normal training load. I certainly didn't need the kind of recovery I have especially as I have from a Hanson or Piftz plan which genuinely required months recovery, that's truly how burned out I felt after. NSM marathon I had one full week off, one 70% week, next week was normal after that and also raced at the end of that week. After the last Piftz plan I couldn't even face running for a good month or so, let alone thinking about still being in top shape.
Stryd is absolute garbage. Subscription BS and loaded with bugs. Nowhere near as reliable as a GPS watch. Zero chance pros are relying on Stryd for anything important. It's a sponsorship deal for marketing content. Stryd is not even good enough for a hobby jogger, much less a pro.
How much have you used Stryd?
I’ve owned several of them. Stryd power correlates >0.9 with VO2 in my personal testing and corroborates their white paper.
Sure, there are limitations, but anyone with a brain can understand how to use the thing.
Stryd is terrible, and sirpoc implies the same, as from interviews he’s said the tech just isn’t there compared to the reliable bike power meters.
Anyone itching to spend a few hundred bucks on a running gizmo to do NSA (plus another subscription!) would be better served by a lactate meter (I'm not recommending that either). Stick to the watch + gps over stryd. You can only use one or the other. Watch+gps is a more reliable and versatile tool to consistently capture and analyze your data.
Why people dont just add 20 minutes of strides and dynamic warmups to their 40 min sessions? Let me think about that.
Plyo/strides before or after a workout is so simple. just do it for 10 minutes or so and if you are moving the whole time then the load is going to be the same as your easy running. So instead of running a two mile warmup of easy jogging do a mile of strides and plyo and then an easy mile.
Anyone itching to spend a few hundred bucks on a running gizmo to do NSA (plus another subscription!) would be better served by a lactate meter (I'm not recommending that either). Stick to the watch + gps over stryd. You can only use one or the other. Watch+gps is a more reliable and versatile tool to consistently capture and analyze your data.
lol, these people are clueless on stryd. They certainly won’t understand the nuance of lactate testing.
Know what a really good combo is? Stryd and a lactate meter. Works beautifully for me.