Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

summer runna wrote:

You are going or produce less load than a marathon block. There's a reason a lot of people hit their PBs in a marathon block. If you can make it through them, it's usually people's peak fitness. No matter how they trained.

Have been at this method for over a year now. Started out last summer and ran into a lot of the same problems. Took me 6 months really to see the gains from the summer efforts and then fall for the speeds to pick up and result in actual results.

That might be too long for some people to find acceptable. But I'll caveat that with this fact: I was roughly about the same level for 7 straight seasons. Since around November last year when I finally improved and now I've taken over 70 seconds off my 5k PB after close to a decade of feeling like that was my ultimate peak. Fwiw, I also came into this training from a marathon in April 2024, so I definitely think that's a bit factor.

We have seen people try this method to get best bang for their buck as they can't run 10-12 hour weeks anymore. Some seem to have held fitness for a while, but ultimately I don't think there's any way you can replicate 12 hours running with 6, even if you train like this very efficiently. That's an extreme example, but I'm sure you get the point.

utvftb wrote:

summer runna wrote:

You are going or produce less load than a marathon block. There's a reason a lot of people hit their PBs in a marathon block. If you can make it through them, it's usually people's peak fitness. No matter how they trained.

Have been at this method for over a year now. Started out last summer and ran into a lot of the same problems. Took me 6 months really to see the gains from the summer efforts and then fall for the speeds to pick up and result in actual results.

That might be too long for some people to find acceptable. But I'll caveat that with this fact: I was roughly about the same level for 7 straight seasons. Since around November last year when I finally improved and now I've taken over 70 seconds off my 5k PB after close to a decade of feeling like that was my ultimate peak. Fwiw, I also came into this training from a marathon in April 2024, so I definitely think that's a bit factor.

We have seen people try this method to get best bang for their buck as they can't run 10-12 hour weeks anymore. Some seem to have held fitness for a while, but ultimately I don't think there's any way you can replicate 12 hours running with 6, even if you train like this very efficiently. That's an extreme example, but I'm sure you get the point.

Yeah took me ages to see a breakthrough as well. I almost gave up to be honest. But it's really about the discipline if sticking to the consistency. I see that and the repeatability to stay healthy and not have to periodize, that in the end the hard work paid off. Halfway through a marathon block.

A bit like cheetodust, I was fast when I was younger, PB of a mid 14. I am now almost 50, pound for pound I'm better now having ran a 15:52 recently, on about half the mileage I did when I ran 14:33 and over double the age.

Appreciate Magness etc but what he is saying is missing the point. The sustainability and repeatability of this. Sure, you might leave something on the table, but it's not really much in my opinion. It's far outweighed by the fact you minimise the risk and can just race when you want.

I've got a small group of runners I am helping for a track club. About 9 out of 11 are showing excellent signs of improvement. Two aren't. All have been around the same level as masters runners for a long time. So that strike rate is pretty damn good. Of course it does highlight you won't all improve on vanilla. In fact, there are some clear cases of what Steve has suggested probably is worth trying for some people.

But the absolute worst thing I could do with 9 of these 11 runners is starting to change things up now. To me that's madness. The other 2? Sure, maybe we need to do something else. But I think it's been shown commit to the basics and you probably will just continue to keep improving. Worry about the rest if you don't. I would say the 9 out of 11 strike rate seems to be representative of the thread as a whole. Or around that. To me that's the remarkable aspect of that. I've never seen another philosophy really improve already seasoned runners like this has and I've been in this game a long, long time.

My biggest wish is I hadn't fallen into the trap of killing myself with track workouts and the like when I was in my peak athletic years. It's obviously impossible to tell, but if I had my time again I would probably have maxed this system out and then moved onto doubles with the X factor if I had gotten to 9+ hours a week.

That's just my view. But I have been coached by some of the best of the best, yet pound for pound even the most basic version of this training has provided the best value for money I've ever had. I think people fall into the trap of wanting to put their own spin on things. Which can be great, but you can absolutely lose focus on what you set out to achieve in the first place.

Anyway, thanks to all but as a long time reader that's my views.

Oh and great to see sirpoc back running and thanks for everything he's done. If nothing else we can all be greatful that for whatever reason he made the initial posts and got us to this point.

Happy running all.

utvftb wrote:

Yeah took me ages to see a breakthrough as well. I almost gave up to be honest. But it's really about the discipline if sticking to the consistency. I see that and the repeatability to stay healthy and not have to periodize, that in the end the hard work paid off. Halfway through a marathon block.

A bit like cheetodust, I was fast when I was younger, PB of a mid 14. I am now almost 50, pound for pound I'm better now having ran a 15:52 recently, on about half the mileage I did when I ran 14:33 and over double the age.

Appreciate Magness etc but what he is saying is missing the point. The sustainability and repeatability of this. Sure, you might leave something on the table, but it's not really much in my opinion. It's far outweighed by the fact you minimise the risk and can just race when you want.

I've got a small group of runners I am helping for a track club. About 9 out of 11 are showing excellent signs of improvement. Two aren't. All have been around the same level as masters runners for a long time. So that strike rate is pretty damn good. Of course it does highlight you won't all improve on vanilla. In fact, there are some clear cases of what Steve has suggested probably is worth trying for some people.

But the absolute worst thing I could do with 9 of these 11 runners is starting to change things up now. To me that's madness. The other 2? Sure, maybe we need to do something else. But I think it's been shown commit to the basics and you probably will just continue to keep improving. Worry about the rest if you don't. I would say the 9 out of 11 strike rate seems to be representative of the thread as a whole. Or around that. To me that's the remarkable aspect of that. I've never seen another philosophy really improve already seasoned runners like this has and I've been in this game a long, long time.

My biggest wish is I hadn't fallen into the trap of killing myself with track workouts and the like when I was in my peak athletic years. It's obviously impossible to tell, but if I had my time again I would probably have maxed this system out and then moved onto doubles with the X factor if I had gotten to 9+ hours a week.

That's just my view. But I have been coached by some of the best of the best, yet pound for pound even the most basic version of this training has provided the best value for money I've ever had. I think people fall into the trap of wanting to put their own spin on things. Which can be great, but you can absolutely lose focus on what you set out to achieve in the first place.

Anyway, thanks to all but as a long time reader that's my views.

Oh and great to see sirpoc back running and thanks for everything he's done. If nothing else we can all be greatful that for whatever reason he made the initial posts and got us to this point.

Happy running all.

Halftights wrote:

Jimmy Beamish wrote:

With the usual caveat that I’m sure this has been discussed at some point in this thread, anyone have success with this method who was mainly already focused on purely aerobic work?

I fall into that camp; started running inspired by, and mostly doing, Ultramarathons where the primary metric I aimed for was just running as much as I could every week (not worrying about paces or structure at all). I have all the same life stresses as many in the thread and got pretty “good” at Ultras.

Anyway, motivation shifted and I got more interested in 5k-Marathon, and ran some decent times in hindsight off of zero specific training.

I then thought “I should probably get specific” and dove headfirst into running training literature for the first time in my life. If you’re here, you can guess the story: I got slower + more injury prone + burnt out.

I’ve basically had to eat humble pie and tear down my fitness to start again with this Sirpoc method for the last year. The better approach would clearly have been to maintain my training load and incrementally shift towards it but that’s a high-wire act to the extreme IMO.
Long story short; I’m still not there, but am very close to where I was (especially as I’ve gotten back to within -20% of my previous comfortable volume while balancing the whole thing I’m making insane gains, where every 2-3 weeks I’m racing and my VDOT is going up by almost half a point every time). It’s taken a lot of patience and humility.

More importantly, I feel like I’ve got loads of runway beyond what I thought my previous ceiling was, and the risks feel as mitigated as they can be in running. I’m racing really well, and have no doubt that within the next 12-18 months I’ll absolutely smash my PRs.

As a side note: the one thing I’ve found is that I don’t need to be that strict on the ~25% of SubT per week particularly as I’m building volume I find the 3x30mins more than enough for now. Once I hit my sustainable weekly volume I’ll start tweaking and inching that % share up.

utvftb wrote:

summer runna wrote:

You are going or produce less load than a marathon block. There's a reason a lot of people hit their PBs in a marathon block. If you can make it through them, it's usually people's peak fitness. No matter how they trained.

Have been at this method for over a year now. Started out last summer and ran into a lot of the same problems. Took me 6 months really to see the gains from the summer efforts and then fall for the speeds to pick up and result in actual results.

That might be too long for some people to find acceptable. But I'll caveat that with this fact: I was roughly about the same level for 7 straight seasons. Since around November last year when I finally improved and now I've taken over 70 seconds off my 5k PB after close to a decade of feeling like that was my ultimate peak. Fwiw, I also came into this training from a marathon in April 2024, so I definitely think that's a bit factor.

We have seen people try this method to get best bang for their buck as they can't run 10-12 hour weeks anymore. Some seem to have held fitness for a while, but ultimately I don't think there's any way you can replicate 12 hours running with 6, even if you train like this very efficiently. That's an extreme example, but I'm sure you get the point.

Yeah took me ages to see a breakthrough as well. I almost gave up to be honest. But it's really about the discipline if sticking to the consistency. I see that and the repeatability to stay healthy and not have to periodize, that in the end the hard work paid off. Halfway through a marathon block.

A bit like cheetodust, I was fast when I was younger, PB of a mid 14. I am now almost 50, pound for pound I'm better now having ran a 15:52 recently, on about half the mileage I did when I ran 14:33 and over double the age.

Appreciate Magness etc but what he is saying is missing the point. The sustainability and repeatability of this. Sure, you might leave something on the table, but it's not really much in my opinion. It's far outweighed by the fact you minimise the risk and can just race when you want.

I've got a small group of runners I am helping for a track club. About 9 out of 11 are showing excellent signs of improvement. Two aren't. All have been around the same level as masters runners for a long time. So that strike rate is pretty damn good. Of course it does highlight you won't all improve on vanilla. In fact, there are some clear cases of what Steve has suggested probably is worth trying for some people.

But the absolute worst thing I could do with 9 of these 11 runners is starting to change things up now. To me that's madness. The other 2? Sure, maybe we need to do something else. But I think it's been shown commit to the basics and you probably will just continue to keep improving. Worry about the rest if you don't. I would say the 9 out of 11 strike rate seems to be representative of the thread as a whole. Or around that. To me that's the remarkable aspect of that. I've never seen another philosophy really improve already seasoned runners like this has and I've been in this game a long, long time.

My biggest wish is I hadn't fallen into the trap of killing myself with track workouts and the like when I was in my peak athletic years. It's obviously impossible to tell, but if I had my time again I would probably have maxed this system out and then moved onto doubles with the X factor if I had gotten to 9+ hours a week.

That's just my view. But I have been coached by some of the best of the best, yet pound for pound even the most basic version of this training has provided the best value for money I've ever had. I think people fall into the trap of wanting to put their own spin on things. Which can be great, but you can absolutely lose focus on what you set out to achieve in the first place.

Anyway, thanks to all but as a long time reader that's my views.

Oh and great to see sirpoc back running and thanks for everything he's done. If nothing else we can all be greatful that for whatever reason he made the initial posts and got us to this point.

Happy running all.

Jimmy Beamish wrote:

With the usual caveat that I’m sure this has been discussed at some point in this thread, anyone have success with this method who was mainly already focused on purely aerobic work?

As context, I’m a late to life hobbyjogger who found pretty good success with mainly Daniel’s 2Q marathon training, doing big threshold work on Wednesday and big M pace work on Saturday. I found myself getting banged up with 5k work so I’d always just replaced that with threshold work instead. Sometimes I’d touch on CV pace. Went from 1:30HM to 1:19Hm.

Then I stagnated. I think it’s most likely the 2 workouts, although only twice a week, left me drained and in a hole, even though I convinced myself otherwise. Also, I really surprised myself with the 1:19 HM. I’d gotten there thru pretty manageable threshold paces. It was only after my PB that I told myself I now had to train with faster threshold paces because i was now a “faster” runner. Ironically I got the 1:19 paces running 1:21 paces but then stagnated when training at 1:19 pace.

Back to the original question, if you’ve had success, would you says it’s because of the increased frequency (3x per week vs 2x) or more manageable paces or both?

colder and wiser wrote:

So, I'm going to point out something that people may not want to hear.

Marius Bakken was a highly successful runner (an Olympian and Norwegian national champion) and is now one of the most influential scientific voices on how to train for distance running. He looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw, and added: "From there, there will always be ways to optimize further, including 45/15 type sessions, clearer periodization, periods of 4-6 weeks of loading up volume, and of course the occasional double threshold session."

Steve Magness was a highly successful HS runner (he ran in the pro race at Pre), has an encyclopedic knowledge of training, and has worked with HS, college and pro athletes for something like 2 decades. No disrespect, but Palladino isn't anywhere close to Steve's league as a coach. Magness looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw...and mentioned a lot of the same things Bakken did: periodization, 6-8 week blocks of focused training before a race, and touching on faster paces.

It won't do to dismiss Steve Magness as some out-of-touch influencer in search of cheap content, especially when he and Bakken are responding in similar ways. You don't have to agree with them, but they're making points worth thinking about. They're not the typical drive-by commenter who wants to do NSA, except with 3 days of cross training and one CV/vO2max workout a week.

I think Magness actually offered more cogent suggestions than Bakken did. I'm still persuaded by the NSA argument against periodization, and a full 45/15 session or double threshold workout would wipe me out. But adding in minor amounts of 5K-specifc pace in a NSA workout when I have an important 5K race coming up seems like something worth trying - instead of 5 x 1 mile at 15K pace with 90 seconds rest, 4 x 1 mile with 90 seconds rest followed by 4 x 400 at 5K pace with 30 seconds rest seems doable, and might still fit the NSA parameters for lactate and fatigue.

I really like the NSA minimalist approach. There are all these things we were told were essential to race preparation, but it turns out that a lot of us hobby joggers really don't need them, or not all that much of them. But it also leaves some areas worth exploring by adding small amounts of specificity back in. (I'll try it myself, if the weather holds until the local Turkey Trot. Otherwise my next chance to race is in 6 months.)

colder and wiser wrote:

So, I'm going to point out something that people may not want to hear.

Marius Bakken was a highly successful runner (an Olympian and Norwegian national champion) and is now one of the most influential scientific voices on how to train for distance running. He looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw, and added: "From there, there will always be ways to optimize further, including 45/15 type sessions, clearer periodization, periods of 4-6 weeks of loading up volume, and of course the occasional double threshold session."

Steve Magness was a highly successful HS runner (he ran in the pro race at Pre), has an encyclopedic knowledge of training, and has worked with HS, college and pro athletes for something like 2 decades. No disrespect, but Palladino isn't anywhere close to Steve's league as a coach. Magness looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw...and mentioned a lot of the same things Bakken did: periodization, 6-8 week blocks of focused training before a race, and touching on faster paces.

It won't do to dismiss Steve Magness as some out-of-touch influencer in search of cheap content, especially when he and Bakken are responding in similar ways. You don't have to agree with them, but they're making points worth thinking about. They're not the typical drive-by commenter who wants to do NSA, except with 3 days of cross training and one CV/vO2max workout a week.

I think Magness actually offered more cogent suggestions than Bakken did. I'm still persuaded by the NSA argument against periodization, and a full 45/15 session or double threshold workout would wipe me out. But adding in minor amounts of 5K-specifc pace in a NSA workout when I have an important 5K race coming up seems like something worth trying - instead of 5 x 1 mile at 15K pace with 90 seconds rest, 4 x 1 mile with 90 seconds rest followed by 4 x 400 at 5K pace with 30 seconds rest seems doable, and might still fit the NSA parameters for lactate and fatigue.

I really like the NSA minimalist approach. There are all these things we were told were essential to race preparation, but it turns out that a lot of us hobby joggers really don't need them, or not all that much of them. But it also leaves some areas worth exploring by adding small amounts of specificity back in. (I'll try it myself, if the weather holds until the local Turkey Trot. Otherwise my next chance to race is in 6 months.)