Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Not as fast as Paul, but I also ran sub 3 hours following this program at Melbourne, first half (flat) second half (hills) and was over a 10 minute PB for me so another successful story, and only been following the method since March and now in my mid-40’s with multiple marathons under my belt very happy

Also a 13 minute PB in 2:57 for Jimmy Runs, another aussie who subscribes to NSA, though granted his training was a bit more like the sirpoc special block. Also the dude lifts quite a bit which probably holds him back by 10 minutes.

I don’t see the obvious argument anywhere that this NSA is a really hard program. For someone like me who runs 5K in 20 min, I’m supposed to run 10x1K@4:19 or equivalent every other day continuosly. Any other program with such an intense level would give great results, if not injuries.

You are similar.pace to me,you should run by time instead of distance,so 10x 3 mins instead,it is a lot more realistic.

I love how this thread has gone from "it's just some guy running parkuns, what can we learn from this".

Then to, oh actually this is quite good for 5-10ks, if you are a mid packer. Then, oh this actually works for a half as well!

But if you are fast at the mile, it's no good. Oh wait, it actually is! But it'll never work for a marathon!

Yet we have probably now seen the vanilla is the best base you can possibly do 6 months out from a marathon, then just top the whole thing up a bit with a few variations staying sensible, or just copying sirpoc and basically the marathon for hobby joggers is solved.

All you need is the patience and foresight to look ahead 9+ months, rather than thinking in weeks.

I hope sirpoc realises what he has done or how he has actually genuinely impacted people's lives in a good way. I truly mean that.

Should always be the S/T.

If the easy runs are stressing your body, you are doing something greatly wrong!

Honestly, if you have 6+ months of this training and are willing to just od the extra work sirpoc offers, I honestly think the marathon has the most amount of upside for this training method, genuinely.

Some of the times people are running are ridiculous. Not that they are mega fast, but the improvement I have seen people basically 1:1 copying sirpoc with very little adjustment other than a few tweaks here and there, is outrageous.

We aren't talking new marathoners either. We are talking guys who have run a number. In the 2:30-4 hour range, suddenly making significant PBs. I'm really surprised anyone even still comes and asks about the marathon. If I had one coming up in 9-12 months there's absolutely no better way to train for a hobby jogger in my opinion. If your race is in 9 months. 6 months of vanilla, 3 months out gradually build. Special block. Complete. Probably collect your PB.

Agree. The S/T runs should be more taxing overall.

What I don't get is that intervals.icu typically assigns roughly the same "load" for my long run as the S/T runs. It doesn't matter to me though because it doesn't reflect reality, but I find it curious.

Thought I'd add my anecdotal experience to this.

M28. Came into this after 3 Pfitzinger builds to marathons. Two resulted in tendonitis (knee and then hamstring) so both were DNS. Other build resulted in a 3:03:15.

Was a bit fed up of putting in the effort and getting injured when I felt like I was running so well and getting in good shape. I also fell into the trap of chasing mileage, needless doubles and running the Pfitz recovery days too fast. 10k PB from 1 year before I started this of 37:57. I REALLY had to have a rest day every week and invest time in S+C (I haven't done any since June now).

Since May have been doing the following structure to total 8 hours/week:

M: 60' E

T: 10x4' off 60s

W: 60' E

T: 3x12' off 60s

F: 90' E

S: 30' E

S: 6x7' off 60s (90' E here if I do a hard Parkrun on Sat)

First parkrun to set the paces was 18:29. Have slowly chipped away at this.

Bar 5 days off with bad Manflu, I've never felt the need for a rest day and have enjoyed the monotony. Had a 10K race in August, which just felt horrific and felt like I didn't have any sense of the power I used to. Ran something like 38:30, and thought that was the end of trying this. Put it down to a bad day, told myself I'd give it until my half in October.

Kept going with it, and 2 weeks ago I got a Parkrun PB in 17:49.

Going into a half today, I was doubtful of the system as I basically had no idea what running the distance would feel like or whether I could hold on. Mentally felt like I needed that traditional long run.

Conditions in the UK have been pretty perfect for running today so that plays into it, but I just felt.... strong? I never was gasping for air despite everyone around me doing so, I could just keep squeezing the pace and just naturally found my rhythm.

Ran 1:22. The only time I started to feel like it was getting tricky was in the final 2km where I actively tried to push for the line.

Glad I stuck with this and gave it a good shot. I don't doubt some that say I could get to the times training in other ways, but this is the first time in 2 years I've managed to stick a long term block together without a flare up and going to stick with it now. Excited to see how I do in the marathon come April next year.

Glad it's working for you- always surprises me how many people who post following this approach seem to add more volume to the workouts than even sirpoc though (maybe some without realising?)

Pretty sure he basically kept to only 3x 30min of SubT throughout (3x10, 6x5, 10x3- or close enough based on distance, maybe rounded to 96min total) except the last couple of weeks of the marathon build. These listed add to 118min ie almost a whole extra session.

I also did the same without realising, doing 10x4', but if it's enough for him at his much faster times? Or is it needed for the extra distance at a slower pace to do well in a Half etc. Although if you, specifically, have been doing it since May I suppose it's also sustainable!

Yeah I've noticed the load assigned by intervals.icu doesn't correlate very well to perceived effort for me. Like a 45-55 minute sub-t effort gets the same load as 75 minute easy run even though the sub-t run takes it out of me so much more. Their formula seems to over-reward time on the feet.

Tragic day for the Greek Singles Method

I also find the all out 5K efforts are hugely underrated on intervals.icu, the last one forced me to take a day off and turn one ST session into an easy day (worth it for a 30 second PR though). Despite this it only came up as 25 load, the same as a 50 minute easy run for me lol.

Yes it could well be the case that his underwhelming early 10K race is a result of him overtraining at the start, then as his body got used to it his times fell across the board.

I do raise an eyebrow at the 22 minute 5k joggers on strava who run 120+ minutes of subT a week, are they actually absorbing all the training they are doing?

Anyone who says this wouldn't work for any particular distance can't be thinking straight. Because what they'd really be saying is, "long-term, consistent training with a solid dose of threshold work, doesn't make you a better runner." Does anyone really believe that?

If you can follow the approach with more volume at effort, why wouldn't you? The goal is to do more work, repeatedly, and be able to recover in between. And if you can do that with 40 minutes of effort, rather than 30, seems like you should.

This is where TSS converted to running fails. But, having said that, assuming you train in the same spirit of this method (not that you have to), it'll all even out over time and your load score will still probably be reflective of more, or less, in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately we aren't really worried about load as an isolated metric on a single run, just more how it is progressing over time.

At the end of the day, time is the most basic metric of load. If you run more, you'll probably get fitter. Just tracking load in some sort of measured and meaningful way, makes it a bit easier to guage or judge fatigue. That is something I still think Coggan's original model does very well.

Even though tracking load in the way I use has its flaws, it still does perform pretty well if you are doing 3x easy, 3x sub threshold and a long run. But I've mentioned this before, it's way under-represented for the hard stuff and slightly over represented for longer easy runs. But again, if you are keeping to the classic ratios of easy to workout percentages here, it'll still do a nice job for you.

You are spot on here mate. This is where the horse has bolted scenario really, and there's too much misinformation out there.

I saw someone posting virtually this scenario on a Facebook running group yesterday, that I had joined when I started running. They were doing I think 5 hours a week using the "NSM/Sirpoc" method as they put it, but around 120 minutes at least a week of sub threshold. It's too much. You can't be recovering properly, which means you probably aren't getting the work in to the the level you need and it becomes a vicious cycle. No suprise they were saying they felt burned out.

The irony being I replied and tried to help. But got told I don't understand the method and I should go away and read up on it.

That's where it's beyond my control really at this point, maybe a book will fix some of that, I hope.

People who know me will know that I'm certainly not saying this is the only way to train. Far from it. But, if you want the benefits of it, there's not a huge amount of room to play around with in terms of the balance. It's a very boring answer, but most people who are succeeding their training is very boring with something like the 75:25 ratio.

I swear to god that man is a psyop designed specifically to drive me insane. 24k run (2h15) the day before labelled "Shakeout"