Always weird when a site like Runnersworld is gatekeeping, completely lacking the selfawareness that 90% of their readers are overweight, postmenopausal, yoga pants wearing housewives.
The framework should work for everyone who is running at least 5-6x a week for roughly an hour, no matter their 5k pace.
Yesterday at the Italian Half Marathon Championships, I finally achieved a goal I had been chasing for five years: I set a new personal best, finishing in 1:10:53 (real time), and managed to go under 1:11. I'm really happy, especially because, to be honest, I was quite skeptical at first about this type of training. I was used to a different approach, with fewer quality sessions but more volume in each run. However, despite barely tapering this week, apart from the two days before the race, the result came. I did some training weeks as suggested here, with sessions like 3x10, 5x6, and 8x3 minutes with 1’30”/1’ recovery, and a long easy run of 2 hours, about 28 km.
It says it applies to runners from 18-23 5k range but if the framework is the same it could apply to those in the 24-30 5k range as well, just adjusted...unless there is a parameter I am missing?!
This isn't for hobby joggers. Sirpoc84 is sub elite. Hobby runners expecting the same results are foolish. That is the problem people aren't understanding and why this thread is so bad.
This isn't for hobby joggers. Sirpoc84 is sub elite. Hobby runners expecting the same results are foolish. That is the problem people aren't understanding and why this thread is so bad.
Have you even read the thread? The vast majority of people are totally hobby joggers. Hundreds if not thousands of testimonials all across the internet, depicting how it has helped even experienced runners push onto the next level. From slow guys like me, to sub 15 runners and sub 2:30 marathoners.
How do you think sirpoc got from being a 18+ minute 5k hobby jogger to where he is now? That's right, investing in this over a long period of time to finally overcome fatigue, reducing the impact of his training and something that is sustainable.
Hi all, first post here on LR. I've been following this thread for about a month now. The ongoing discussions are very interesting to follow. I haven't read everything yet but that's a matter of time. The proposed training method caught my attention for two reasons:
1. Simple
2. There seems to be a relatively low risk of injury
What I find very interesting is the amount of people who f'd around and found out. The tendency to look for 'something extra' when a training method seems too simple/good to be true/lacks VO2m is quite interesting to see, and a thing I recognize for sure in how I approach my own training. This leads me to ask a question in the context of cross-training, and whether/how this system is adaptable to a cross-context.
When it comes to running, I run into a new injury about every other month. Rarely running completely pain-free. Needless to say: a method with a lower risk of injury sounds tempting. In the previous years I'd run intervals once a week, one z2 run and a tempo/long run. Usually ending up around 30-40k. With at least three times a year a month completely off due to some random injury. My average weekly volume over the last two years was 18km. Most of my fitness comes from cycling (4-6h a week), and I swim a bit as well (3h a week) plus some strength training.
I'm not looking for a quick fix. I'm very aware that the 'go hard or go home' on the weekly track workout is something that's gotten me injured many times over. I'm looking for a way to use the very basis of the NSM method in agreement with a steady basis of cycling and swimming. I've done the following for the last 2 months:
run 4 times a week: easy run 8-10k @ 65-70% of max HR sub-t workout with 8km of interval long run @ 65-70% of max HR sub-t workout with 8km of interval
Do not have a lactate meter, I use tinman's calculator on my most recent race result to provide me with paces. I'm relatively fast on 5k-10k compared to HM-Marathon.
Have repeated the above for 2 months and run about 40-50k a week. No injury, feels very dureable. Plus I enjoy it A lot. Plus ran some PB's over the last two weeks. However - a confounding factor is that I ran consistently for 3 months, which is pretty unique. In other words: I'm very enthousiastic, and looking to use this method the 'right' way. For me this implies: sticking to the very basics and don't overdo it.
I'm thinking about building this into 10km of sub-t intervals, on the two practices during the week. And potentially into 3 sub-t workouts, if I want to do more than 20k of intervals a week. I cycle for 4-6h, swim for 3-4h and do some strenght training.
Question(s):
(i) How can I increase mileage at sub-t in a safe and durable manner, building on these first two months? (ii) Is it sensible to run a 3rd sub-t sessions IF I want to go beyond 10km of sub-t work, while maintaining 4 running sessions in total? Or should the focus be on more mileage (read: easy runs), rather than more sub-treshold work, or maybe try do both?
Very curious to hear your opinions,
Kind regards
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
spelling
(i) How can I increase mileage at sub-t in a safe and durable manner, building on these first two months? (ii) Is it sensible to run a 3rd sub-t sessions IF I want to go beyond 10km of sub-t work, while maintaining 4 running sessions in total? Or should the focus be on more mileage (read: easy runs), rather than more sub-treshold work, or maybe try do both?
You need more volume, but look first to achieve it through more frequency. Step up to running 5 days a week. Do it by cutting out the long run (you don't need a "long" run at this volume - you just need more volume) and replace it with 2 easy days first (couple weeks maybe?).
When you feel comfortable with that, replace one of those days with a 3rd sub-T session, and at first keep each sub-T around 6k of "work" each. You will have 3 quality days, 2 easy days, 2 rest days.
Next step from there would be a 6th day (additional easy day) but that could be some time late when you have settled into the above schedule.
I couldn't do this method. I started out with a 17:53 5k and the workouts burnt me out. Was doing 10x3 at 6:10 and 3x10 at 6:25, for example. I was doing approx 40 miles a week with 10 miles at sub t.
I couldn't do this method. I started out with a 17:53 5k and the workouts burnt me out. Was doing 10x3 at 6:10 and 3x10 at 6:25, for example. I was doing approx 40 miles a week with 10 miles at sub t.
You weren’t doing sub threshold.
if you are 18:00 5k, you were running your intervals way over threshold at 6:25 even.
I couldn't do this method. I started out with a 17:53 5k and the workouts burnt me out. Was doing 10x3 at 6:10 and 3x10 at 6:25, for example. I was doing approx 40 miles a week with 10 miles at sub t.
You weren’t doing sub threshold.
if you are 18:00 5k, you were running your intervals way over threshold at 6:25 even.
His paces line up fine with H2F's calculator. If anything they're a couple of seconds per mile slower. And his sub-T % per week is obviously below 25%, so it looks fine on paper.
test789 - how recent was that 5K time, what pace were you running easy days at, and what was your long run like? Also what were your total hours a week - under 6?
if you are 18:00 5k, you were running your intervals way over threshold at 6:25 even.
His paces line up fine with H2F's calculator. If anything they're a couple of seconds per mile slower. And his sub-T % per week is obviously below 25%, so it looks fine on paper.
test789 - how recent was that 5K time, what pace were you running easy days at, and what was your long run like? Also what were your total hours a week - under 6?
Just because he ran some generic paces doesn’t mean those paces are correct.
His paces line up fine with H2F's calculator. If anything they're a couple of seconds per mile slower. And his sub-T % per week is obviously below 25%, so it looks fine on paper.
test789 - how recent was that 5K time, what pace were you running easy days at, and what was your long run like? Also what were your total hours a week - under 6?
Just because he ran some generic paces doesn’t mean those paces are correct.
No, but if he's getting burn out there's a reason for it which could be any of those things. Doesn't have to be the ST paces are too fast.
if you are 18:00 5k, you were running your intervals way over threshold at 6:25 even.
His paces line up fine with H2F's calculator. If anything they're a couple of seconds per mile slower. And his sub-T % per week is obviously below 25%, so it looks fine on paper.
test789 - how recent was that 5K time, what pace were you running easy days at, and what was your long run like? Also what were your total hours a week - under 6?
I did the method up until May 2025 when I ran a half. I did the 17:53 a few weeks before. My easy days were and always have been 8 minutes per mile and total hours were around 5. I did 40 miles for 3-4 weeks before the half. Ran the half at 6:15 average pace but it was a horrible experience - didn't feel good early on and ran a positive split, finishing with a last mile around 6:30. My longest runs were around 90 minutes.
Maybe I was running the workouts too fast. I am happy to go back to this method and do the workouts slower if that will work, but I lost faith because I was very consistent for months and months and I just got more and more tired without improvement.
Just dropping this in here, would welcome any feedback but am going to give it a shot and see how it goes. I've had good success using this method beginning last August. During that time ran lifetime PRs in 5k (16:56), 10k (34:52), HM (1:18:48), before getting sick and blowing up at Boston 2025. Had settled into a good rhythm the past 6 weeks or so right around 45 mpw on 6 days a week, recently ran a solo 17:06 5k on the track.
Because of some life stressors, will be dropping down to 4-5 days a week for the foreseeable future. The days I will most likely be able to run are Tu/Th/Fri/Sat. Will try to squeeze a 5th day in there when possible.
What would you recommend in terms of allocating workouts throughout the week?
Is there a world where doing 3 Sub T days a week still makes sense? Last week before the writing was fully on the wall of needing to reduce training volume I actually went M-Su easy/ST/off/ST/off/ST/off and my legs didn't fall off, but assuming that's not sustainable.
Anyway, will be running a 10k Turkey Trot, hoping to maintain fitness enough to break 36 minutes.
It is hilarious that Europeans and New Zealanders are calling Trump a dictator.
Dictators don't allow free speech.
Trump, in the grand tradition of American democracy, allowed free speech this weekend.
Meanwhile in Britain and other places in Europe (where there are actual kings) people are being jailed for internet posts or possessing fotbidden books.
His paces line up fine with H2F's calculator. If anything they're a couple of seconds per mile slower. And his sub-T % per week is obviously below 25%, so it looks fine on paper.
test789 - how recent was that 5K time, what pace were you running easy days at, and what was your long run like? Also what were your total hours a week - under 6?
I did the method up until May 2025 when I ran a half. I did the 17:53 a few weeks before. My easy days were and always have been 8 minutes per mile and total hours were around 5. I did 40 miles for 3-4 weeks before the half. Ran the half at 6:15 average pace but it was a horrible experience - didn't feel good early on and ran a positive split, finishing with a last mile around 6:30. My longest runs were around 90 minutes.
Maybe I was running the workouts too fast. I am happy to go back to this method and do the workouts slower if that will work, but I lost faith because I was very consistent for months and months and I just got more and more tired without improvement.
It could be that the easy days were too fast. I know for me, my easy pace tends to be about 2:30-3:15 minutes per mile slower than 5K pace. If you use 70% of MHR as your limit for easy days, you may find yourself considerably slower than 8 minute pace.
Your workout paces don't seem too fast at first glance, but perhaps you'd feel better if you dialed them back a bit too.
It could be that the easy days were too fast. I know for me, my easy pace tends to be about 2:30-3:15 minutes per mile slower than 5K pace. If you use 70% of MHR as your limit for easy days, you may find yourself considerably slower than 8 minute pace.
Your workout paces don't seem too fast at first glance, but perhaps you'd feel better if you dialed them back a bit too.
Sounds sensible. Also 5hrs/40miles is fairly low. Can you increase that over a few months?
My easy days were and always have been 8 minutes per mile
If your easy runs are anchored to an arbitrary value you will inevitably run them too fast. I’m 90 seconds faster over 5k and 20-40 seconds slower on easy runs using this method. Do you run with a HR monitor? Being under 70% MHR as a hard cap, not an average, means running very slow, even uncomfortably slow at first, but it is what allows you to do 3 high volume quality sessions per week. If you’re using the same easy pace you were prior to increasing your % of quality volume then you are almost certainly carrying too much fatigue into each workout which will always snowball.
I had mixed results using this method for a long time because I simply did not like the number that 70% of maxHR spat out. I would make good progress for 3-4 weeks and then miss a workout, aggravate a niggle etc.
Being anchored to 8 min mile/5 min ks is probably the most common hobbyjogger pitfall I see on my strava feed. Almost a perfect correlation between 3:30-3:00 guys running all their mileage clustered around that mark and “not my day” blog posts
My easy days were and always have been 8 minutes per mile
If your easy runs are anchored to an arbitrary value you will inevitably run them too fast. I’m 90 seconds faster over 5k and 20-40 seconds slower on easy runs using this method. Do you run with a HR monitor? Being under 70% MHR as a hard cap, not an average, means running very slow, even uncomfortably slow at first, but it is what allows you to do 3 high volume quality sessions per week. If you’re using the same easy pace you were prior to increasing your % of quality volume then you are almost certainly carrying too much fatigue into each workout which will always snowball.
I had mixed results using this method for a long time because I simply did not like the number that 70% of maxHR spat out. I would make good progress for 3-4 weeks and then miss a workout, aggravate a niggle etc.
Being anchored to 8 min mile/5 min ks is probably the most common hobbyjogger pitfall I see on my strava feed. Almost a perfect correlation between 3:30-3:00 guys running all their mileage clustered around that mark and “not my day” blog posts
I think a lot of people get hung up on their session paces and completely dismiss about the paces their running on easy days.
I just TT 17:46 for 5k. To AVG around 65% Max HR (Err on the side of caution) I have to run 9:15/mi. Just under 70% I'm around 8:45. Your easy runs are WAY too fast.