Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

If Palladinos plans are anything like his stryd plans then I'd give them a miss.

I've achieved more since May using NSA including dipping under 20 in the 5k for the first time than I did following a number of the Palladino stryd plans.

The latest training plans are quite different — they’re much closer to the Sirpoc approach, especially with a more manageable quality workout in the middle of the week.
It's something like what I posted before: sessions such as 8–12 x 3’ near threshold pace, or 5 x 5–6’ at around half-marathon race pace, and so on. Very, very close to that idea.
The earlier plans I was following were too demanding — almost all workouts were at 60’ race pace, with long intervals of 9–10 minutes. They were simply too stressful and hard to recover from.
These new ones, on the other hand, are much more sustainable and easier to absorb. The only real difference remains in the weekend sessions, which are still the toughest part of the plan.

Given the simplisticy of this plan, and the repeatability each week, why pay for something, that has simply been tweaked to make it different?

To be fair to Steve, the folks at Stryd made tweaks to the plans he handed over, without consulting with him. I think the plans suffer from weird timings in respect of W/U and C/D and overly generous recoveries. I suppose when creating plans for the general population he's focusing on what will get most of them to the start line workout injury and it's up to the individual to make their own adjustments.

Based on a few comments and replies Steve Magness might do a video on this method in the near future.

Any thoughts on simply alternating easy and sub-T each day without the long run? So weeks would alternate between 3 and 4 sub-T sessions. EQEQEQEQEQEQ... forever.

I prefer Palladino's general approach of bumping an easy day up against a long run with quality work, but I disagree with the details of the quality. Steve structures his long runs as 10 minutes easy, 60-95 minutes steady, 30-60 minutes MP, 10 minutes easy (times increase as the plan progresses).

For a marathon plan, I don't think this is enough MP work. I would rather see something like 30 minutes easy, 60-90 minutes MP, 30 minutes easy. The middle MP tempo could go longer depending on the fitness of the runner.

Also, I'm critical of Palladino's plan leveling system. I purchased his level 6 plan (8 runs in 6 days) from Final Surge, because I was already doing that level of volume and quality work with a coach. Any other level would have been a drop in volume and quality work.

As an observation, the targets Palladino prescribes for the level 6 plan as a percentage of CP align almost identically with the Jack Daniels' VDOT paces (as a percentage of "T" threshold pace). All the lesser level plans, the percentages of CP get significantly weaker compared to the VDOT framework.

Blasphemy incoming: think this would work very well - especially for 5k. Would still be good for 10k and probably less good for HM and Marathon.

I have zero proof to back this up, but I've always thought that doing Sub T on M-W-F-Su (with Sundays being baked into a Long Run) and then week 2 being Tu-Th-Sat before starting the 2 week cycle over again, would be a great schedule, if keeping things at the correct level each day.

FOD Runner with an absolutely amazing PB in HM on the back of his NSM marathon block

Rooting for Andy to go sub-2:30 in his goal marathon later this year

I guess you never know until you try it, but I think “the correct level” will mean the subt work is closer to LT1 than LT2 and you’re not getting as much bang for your buck.

A long run that’s anything but all easy should generally require 2-3 easy days after it, unless it’s part of “peak” training that’ll be followed by a down week or a taper, then you can temporarily overreach. But for an infinitely repeatable plan, to only schedule 1 easy day to recover without accumulating any fatigue, the subt work that’s integrated into a long run has to be so light.

The subt intervals done closer to LT2 are clearly the sweeter sweet spot than closer to LT1. And if you want to train marathon-specific resilience with some killer long runs, you have to take the extra recovery days.

So I still like the two more obvious choices on the table to include “marathon-specific workouts”: temporarily overreach once or twice for a marathon build followed by a down week and/or a taper. Or for perpetual training, include a harder long run once every 2-3 weeks, after which you take an extra 1-2 easy days.

This is why I stopped buying Steve's plans, but I still follow his Facebook group and read his articles regularly. The insights are excellent, but the repetitiveness of the workouts and long runs eventually becomes quite tiring.
I really enjoy doing long runs where the first 20 km are at a steady easy pace, followed by 4x10 minutes at marathon pace with 5 minutes steady recovery. After 1 hour and 30 minutes of brisk easy running, you burn a lot of glycogen, and when you shift to marathon pace in the final part, you're really training fat utilization , it's a true race simulation.
That said, you can’t do the same workout every single weekend. There are no hill runs, no progression runs, no long intervals, no steady-state or medium-long continuous runs in the weekend , it’s always the same old reheated soup.
For these reasons, I'm interested in studying different training methods. I've read a lot from Canova and Arcelli,including their book, as well as Jack Daniels, Pfitzinger, Hudson, and many others. Massini, Gigliotti, too.
What we amateurs often fail to understand compared to professionals is that we have fewer training sessions available each week, so we need to focus above all on addressing our weaknesses. Each of us has different weak points. For example, I can run 20x400m in 1'11'' with 1-minute passive recovery, but I still can’t break 15:30 in the 5K. It may sound like a contradiction, but it’s the truth...
For this reason, by first using Steve’s latest workouts from Facebook and then switching to Sirpoc’s sessions, I saw a clear improvement. Running sub-threshold intervals for 6 to 12 minutes at varying intensities helped me gain fitness in just a few weeks.

Any update on the book? Anyone with inside scoop if it's going to happen? Just hadn't seen an update in a while.

Btw good job FOD runner, great to see him embracing NSM.

He said late September, early October.

I posted around a year ago, saying I would come back in a year and report back. 38 years old. Running 15 years had a coach a lot of that time. Mainly run 5k up to HM, so this method was appealing. 17:33 and 1:23 PBs. I am nothing special, just a keen hobby jogger.

Been running through basic method. Have gone from 5 hours a week to 7. First time I have ever managed to run each day and feel fresh. Easy runs are so easy, compared to what i was used to. Have been using paces, rather than HR. Seems to have worked out well. I would say easy days slightly slower than prescribed, workouts almost nailed on the original paces from this thread!

It's so good to be able to just plan week to week, month to month out without worrying about anything else. I started noticing around week 6, everything felt easier. It didn't translate into race performance unfortunately. That was until around week 10. Then, I really put in 2 seconds off my 5k PB set from 2017. Then after that, I beat my PB by around 30 seconds. Then up to date, but another minute to have me now as a 15:58 guy. Absolutely blown away to break 17, let alone 16!

The big kicker for me is I've always seen myself as a fast twitch guy, but have basically stuck to the basics routine and cut all speedwork out. Not even maintenance. I'm so much better at the longer reps now. This weekend I just ran a 1:12:12 half, not only is the symmetry of the time satisfying, being usually better at shorter distances, I actually a year on have found my best performance is over a longer distance!

Stoked to try this out for a full in the new year. Will obviously be sticking to the basics sirpoc plan and his London adaptation. Small note here, I sometimes have cross trained on Mondays as I cannot always get out to run, but have access to a spin bike that day. I would estimate every week I have done this. I doubt in the grand scheme this makes a huge amount of difference. But should be noted.

If I'm doubt with this method, try it out! Thank you sirpoc , will be eternally grateful. 🍻🍻 P.s bring out the book, can't wait!

I purchased his "Gen 3" level 6 marathon plan (not his new NSM plans). The lack of hill repeats was surprising to me, so I replaced his 4×10" accelerations with 6×15" hill sprints. His argument against hill sprints is that it focuses too much on your W' and not on your CP. That's the only change I've made to his plan.

His long runs are progressive though. I don't know which generation plan you have, but I'm not running reps in my long run. Last Saturday, I ran 10' WU, 95' @ 80-83% CP, 50' @ 90-93% CP, 10' CD. As the plan progresses, the steady and MP segments get longer.

I also have long intervals every 4th Thursday. On the calendar for this Thursday, it's 3×15' @ 95-98% CP. This is in addition to a double of 20' @ 95-98% CP every Tuesday and Thursday.

Great race FOD runner!

I think it’s okay to share that I’ve had the opportunity to read Sirpoc’s book draft. I don’t know what that means for release date, but his book is excellent. It’s the most valuable and practical running book I’ve read.

Even if someone doesn’t subscribe to spamming sub T, the racing sections, tapering, adjusting for conditions, plus technical dives are world class. He has an incredible story to tell while also providing a really practical reference book. I will look it over before my 5k this weekend to estimate 5k fitness and create a pacing plan given conditions (elevation,wind,heat, etc).

This was a super cool part of the book. A few very clean guidelines on how to adjust pacing in certain conditions. Tables depicting how much to expect to slow down per M elevation gain/ loss, temps, and wind etc given real world data. This is super valuable for workouts and racing!!

As an early reader of this thread, there were aspects of the book that I hadn’t seen before. It’s going to be nice when there’s a defining document that lays everything out so we don’t have to spam eachother with questions 🤣

Ha ha! Of all the threads you could have chosen to post this to ...

It's good to hear positive things about the book.

Do we have any news on how it's going to be available to buy? Is there a way to pre-order?

Yeah I'm kind of fed of scammers coming to this thread and trying to sell their crappy knock off plans.

Bring us the book!