Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Yes, so finished that even after 2 months out based on his data the last few weeks he could obviously still run comfortably under 16. So finished that he's enjoying two sports and his cycling FTP must be nearly 300w? I would love to be that finished that I could run that fast and have a w/kg north of 5 for my FTP. Such problems. Dude is so finished it's unreal!

He is running and cycling in the same day.

I know this isn't very NSA specific but since that's what I'm doing I guess I'll ask: how can a moderate difference in altitude affect paces for ST work?

Back in August I was vacationing at sea level and I set a 5k PR which I used to set new paces for ST days. The following ~2 weeks I had no problem hitting them, even going faster for some reps, all while having my HR tightly under control, at least 5bpm lower than LTHR.

Now, back home at ~450m/1500 feet I'm having trouble getting inside the pace range without my HR touching LTHR very fast, even in the first rep, where it will stay occasionally tiping 1 or 2 bpm above. Every other factor I can think of I have under control or is the same as back when I set my PR, although I will admit that stress/mild forms of anxiety could be at play here. Is the altitude the main issue here or should I be looking elsewhere?

I have another TT in a couple days, this time at my current altitude, which might shed some light. Bracing myself for not PRing for the first time since starting NSA. I'll run a HM in 3 weeks at sea level to redeem myself, at least.

I don't think altitude is your problem. For 450m, you'd be talking about a few seconds per km of difference over 5k (this calculator puts it at 12 seconds total difference if running a 5k in the 19 mins range,

finalsurge.com

Final Surge | Running Altitude Adjustment Calculator

Convert your distance race times run at altitude to the sea level equivalent time.

Open link

), so this is barely going to be noticeable in the overall pace of your workout intervals.

Maybe you are or were very mildly sick, potentially even without symptoms? Even a super mild illness can have a lasting effect on HR.

Because, for many of us, we do not need/want to be at fully optimal all of the time. Sometimes, good enough is...good enough. For most of us a few seconds isn't the difference in anything. When it becomes so - if it ever does - then we can look to optimize. But day-in-and-day-out consistency and less injury-prone running is a major goal. The progress that comes with it is a nice benefit.

I moved to altitude (7200 ft) three months ago and am trying to figure it out. My HR is similar to sea level on easy workouts. On Sub-T workouts, it's all messed up. My LT2 at sea level was 162; here, it's almost impossible for me to reach that level, both because RPE becomes impossibly difficult before then, and because my HR is lower here at the same paces. I've recently started doing lactate readings, and my lactate is much higher at the same HR level; essentially lactate has been consistent with RPE, while HR and RPR have diverged.

This is not what I was expecting before moving here; I thought HR would be significantly higher at the same paces, similar to heat training. This is unfortunate because it was much easier to use HR as a gauge at sea level, but now I'll have to use RPE and more lactate testing. I'm curious about others' experiences.

I don't even view the speedwork variants as optimal. As someone with a probability/statistics background I see NSA as the more optimal way to build fitness from an expected value lens.

Suppose over a 6 month period you're trying to build fitness, and we can quantify that with a number (call it load or VDOT gained or whatever you like). And suppose the absolute best possible number you can reach is 100.

Let's say doing NSA allows you to reach 90% of your potential in this period, i.e. 90 points

Now let's say a hybrid approach with speedwork, rhythm 200s, hills and x-factor workouts lets you reach 100% of your potential, i.e. 100 points

If the chance that you get injured with NSA in this period is 5%, then your expected points is 90*0.95 (the points you gain in the 95% of scenarios you don't get injured) + 0*0.05 (you gain no points in the 5% of scenarios where you get injured) = 85.5

For the hybrid approach to beat this it would need to have less than a 14.5% chance of injury/setback over a six month period, which drops as low as 10% as you decrease the injury risk of NSA to 0%. I find this extremely unlikely for your average hobbyjogger just based on the strava feed of the ~300 people I follow in my local area. So many people take a down week or pick up an injury that I can count on one hand the number of people who have consistently logged big mileage weeks over the last 6 months.

Even then, this assumes that the hybrid approach is better than NSA at all, which is already debatable. If it's worse, and poses a greater injury risk then it's simply busted by all accounts.

Apologies if this is too stalkerish, but does anyone recall Sirpocs max heart rate?

I believe he mentioned it earlier this year when writing about HR % with pacing, but I can't locate the post. Quick glance at a 5k he did showed a 211 HR, but that seems high for someone in their 40s.

Thanks for the answer. I thought it couldn't be a factor but had to make sure because my recent performance tracked so well with being at sea level vs at home. Obviously it also means being on vacation vs daily life, so lots of cofactors there. Something weird is going on because sometimes, on easy days, I reach 70% MHR a minute after starting.

Funny that you mention being sick, some of those great workouts were while actually being mildly sick with symptoms, which I don't have now. I have a 1 year old though so I'll keep an eye on that.

In any case, the eternal question: would you go by pace or stick to HR in a case like this? Yesterday I ran (4x8 min) only slightly slower than the slower pace recommended at lactrace and I was really close or at LTHR very soon, staying there but dipping above occasionally. It feels like playing with fire, but going back to the "controlled" range I was running at before requires me to slow down a lot.

Any indication yet of when the book will be released? Sorry, impatient 😜 and am training for a marathon end of March! :)

I don’t think it is 211, I recall it was in the mid 190s.

Same, fed up of all the annoying literal spam posts trying to find ways to add to improve this method but won't provide hard proven results like sirpoc!

Give us the book!

Johnson again, ole ole

did you see Kristoffer Ingebrigtsen's last week of training on Strava?
What's the purpose of doing 15x1km at 3:31/km with 60 seconds of passive recovery? Sirpoc used to do much less... The rest of the week, though, is very similar to the Sirpoc System: 6x6 minutes at 3:25–3:20/km, 4x5km progressing from 3:45 to 3:35/km, and an easy 25km on Sunday.

Has anyone recently seen Friel’s updated page about LTHR and zones? He calls it Functional Threshold HR now. And from looking at the tabe for setting zones, it is above LT2. Its a bit confusing to me, and I am not sure if this FTHR is what he used to call LTHR or is his test finding a different HR now.

joefrieltraining.com

A Quick Guide to Setting Zones - Joe Friel

Joe Friel

This Quick Guide will help set your heart rate, power, and pace zones for running, cycling, triathlon, and swimming.

Open link

He's training for a marathon. Seems like it's just a very similar way sirpoc trained for a marathon. It's remarkable how sirpoc ground zero seems to be the best hobby jogger way for a marathon. Despite if gou remember in the build up how many people said "it won't work, you need hard long runs".

I asked him this on Strava. He said around 194.

What is his strava

At the end of the day, it's for fun--we're not putting food on the table with this. A great hobby, like bird-watching, stamps, etc. And staying injury-free is a reward unto itself--no sunk cost/time spent at the doc or taking time off from work.