Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Any update on the book Sirpoc?

"This is the tightrope that needs to be walked for NSA."

Isn't true of any training plan/system?

Actually agree, but I think NSA is top of the pile when it comes to that.

It's so focused on time constraints, best bang for buck and how sirpoc has designed it (either luck or genius, I'm firmly in the latter) that's there's hardly any margin for error. It really is on the limit of what is sustainable, without the burnout. Most other programs put you on a cycle, which you may or may not break over the course of. We are totally familiar with that.

This puts you close to that limit, but over a much greater period of time. That is both it's strength for those who understand it, but also it's weakness for anyone who just sees 4 easy runs and 3 sub threshold workouts a week and think that's all there is to understand.

Be it not understanding what easy is, how hard the workouts should be, adding stuff in that tips the balance, quickly accumulating too much volume. Whatever the case be, I'm sure there a ton of other user errors for anyone who has been here a while.

I personally think this is the best thing to happen to the amateur running community, but I also think it's probably one want whereby if you want the big success we have seen with others, you do have the least room for error. On other programs you waste only maybe 8-12 weeks, have a bad race and forget about it and buy another rubbish training plan. On this, you could dig a hole over a much longer period.

It's what guys like Magness, Fitzgerald have absolutely no understanding of and missed what this even is, but clearly from reading Bakken on Reddit, he fully understands and sees it within the prism of how he approached his running career and subsequently the post Bakken Scandinavian era, but for hobby jogging and the cycling knowledge brought in.

Vanilla NSM is endless 7 day a week training. Most other training plans tend to build in occasional rest days or down weeks. I still think older runners should take a day off if feeling overly fatigued.

why do different rep durations/paces need different amounts of recovery? if you're building up to the same concentration of lactate in the bloodstream, what differentiates the 1, 3, 6, 10min (etc) reps during recovery?

Metabolical stress is the same (amount of lactate) but the mechanical stress is a notch higher with shorter reps (3min vs 10min...rest 1min vs 90sec-2min).

Whilst HR is a good way of qualifying what is easy, it can't be used in isolation. Living in the northern hemisphere I could, for example, go from running at 5/km at 70% in the summer to 4:30/km in the winter at the same heart rate. Whilst both are "easy" in respect of HR, from a muscular perspective my new found easy pace is not. You'd expect most runners to notice the difference and just maintain their summer pace or RPE but based on the number of questions on Reddit/Strava a lot of people will see the quicker pace as improved fitness and to hell with fatigue!

This is where I completely disagree. If you pitch it right, you should be able to run 7 days no problem.

I'm very much in the older category and have really, really struggled in the past to even do 5 days of most other training plans. Once I pitched the intensity correct, not only are 5-6 days easy, but 7 days is no stress.

Of course if you are old and carrying injuries that will never leave you that's different. If course, when we are talking 7 days, you could easily throw in a Monday or Friday with a swim, spin on the bike etc. But I think actual rest days because you are tired, probably something has gone wrong down the line and you aren't probably pitching workouts correct.

I think that's where it comes back to not being much margin for error, which on the whole I probably agree with.

Old, slow ish and this method and running 7 days made me much less slow, especially in comparison to my peers.

But there is also racing and TTs, and these could be frequent during parts of the year. That is the reason we are training, I have been running for 50 years and know my body well. if I don’t take days off prior to a 1/2 marathon, I will underperform. I also need to drop a couple of S/T sessions to recover after a 1/2.

Paul Lutterel posted his video post his recent marathon, he could hardly walk. That needs recovery.

Sirpoc also went down with an injury that hasn’t been fully explained.

It will be interesting to get some long term feedback, once lots of runners have done this for a few years,

If fatigue is managed properly from all sources (running, life, work), there never needs to be a rest day. And arbitrary down weeks are a waste of unless they are applied to the fatigue management system.

Of course if you are talking rest days after a marathon, or even a half, I agree. Nobody wouldn't.

But day to day, week to week, I don't need rest days. I spent decades of running thinking I did, but that's purely down to running to hard and also not absorbing an appropriate amount session to session. If you are healthy and relatively injury free, I stand by not needing an off day. I didn't think I would ever be someone who says that. The whole idea of down weeks or similar has been busted by this thread.

I think also the thread has been going long enough and wide reaching for people to have been doing this into the years and for the most part the feedback is the same. It's sustainable, it's maybe a little mundane but the results for the majority have been game changing. The absolute huge factor is if you read the posts across the various platforms, people are fitter and as injury free as they have ever been.

As for sirpoc himself, can't speak for him. But he was was off for a bit, could have come back sooner but was enjoying cycling. The fact he went over two years without anything happening is a positive, not a negative. Everyone gets injured running, at some point if they train seriously. The spin off to that which is another subject, was just how much cross training he did to stay fit. He only had a couple of weeks really running normal volume for him, straight into the GSR and runs a 52 and not a million miles away from where he was.

So I think even if you do go down with an injury or just choose to take a break, this style of training can give you a huge base to carry on from, but also a style of training that translates massively to a second, or even third sport to limit your losses.

Yeah, this thread is certainly getting people to think differently. The other issue is the taper, which Sirpoc believes should be much shorter than traditional.

Tapers are highly individualized.

Everyone needs different tapers. There is a way to estimate individual taper needs, which Skiba and Clarke (2013) describe.

Furthermore, this is where nuance is needed.

if you’re managing fatigue at a constant, but very low level, e.g. with NSM, then a taper is very different than if you’re accumulating a ton of acute fatigue with other training methods.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In my mid-50s, fatigue and recovery are a lot less predictable than they were 5 years ago. Every so often, I'll have a nasty fatigue day when I feel like I did trying to run after Covid. Taking one day off gives me some additional margin for error.

And here's a shameful secret: I get injured on NSA fairly often. Several times now, actually. It's hard to tell which calf niggles I can push through and which I can't ahead of time. Other times there's no niggle at all and my calf tweaks in the middle of a workout when I'm feeling great, even with careful warmup.

The problem is that NSA is just very, very effective at building endurance. If I get injured and have to take some days off, my mid-50s body detrains at an abhorrent rate. So when I come back, like a new runner, I can soon go faster for longer than my musculoskeletal system is ready for. I'm still trying to work out the right schedule for increasing easy mileage, introducing workouts, and building workout volume.

This isn't a knock on NSA. It's super effective! But I have to account for what my body will put up with, and there's a lot it's not telling me in advance. In my case, one day off provides a useful buffer.

Sharing my experience of almost 2 full years with hot Norwegian singles in my area. In the month before starting NSM, I ran a 20:2X 5k and a horrendous 1:40:XX HM. Aerobic fitness was horrible, huge dropoff in performance as distance increased, and I got hurt a fair bit on only 30mpw.

Fast forward almost two years of pretty strict vanilla NSM, I ran an 11:0X 2 mile a few weeks back and 1:00:2X 10 mile this morning. Huge aerobic gains, my 10 mile is actually slightly better than my 2 mile on the VDOT charts. I’m up around 50mpw consistently for the first time in my life, with minimal injuries.
Would I have improved this much on a different plan at 50mpw? Probably, but I couldn’t stay healthy on 30mpw of traditional plans so not a chance of doing it on 50.

I was skeptical when starting out, but so glad I stuck to it. It’s been pretty steady incremental gains the whole way; never any one huge breakthrough, just steadily chipping away. I haven’t made much of any modifications to the plan, just sticking to the paces prescribed way back in the early days of this thread. Zero lactate testing, zero HR monitoring. Easy runs have been around 65% MAS, which I know sirpoc no longer endorses. It worked pretty well for me anyway until recently, the past few weeks my legs have been a little more fatigued than previously. I think 65% MAS has just gotten too fast to be truly easy as my VDOT has climbed higher. Didn’t hurt me in my race today, but I think it’s time to back off the easy pace a bit (and maybe bite the bullet on getting an arm HR strap to keep things in check)

If you’re willing to stick with it for the long term, you’ll likely be happy with your results. Don’t get greedy, just stack month after month of doing the work. Many thanks to sirpoc, shirtboy, jiggy, et al. for all their contributions, this has seriously improved my running life and, by extension, my life in general. Can’t wait to support with a book purchase. Happy running!

If we're working by HR our training aims to control internal load (how hard your body is working) rather than external load (pace).

The faster pace at the same HR in the cooler months is actually a sign of improved efficiency, not a reason to slow down artificially.

You may potentially feel mechanical strain from the faster pace, and in that case slow it down a touch but the whole benefit of HR training is you're not generally looking at pace, you're internal load similar.

Now, going from 5:00 to hammering 4:30 for every easy run overnight would have issues but with the slow changes in weather you're probably seeing a natural change over 2 to 3 weeks.

The faster pace in winter isn’t “false.” It’s a sign of better running economy and favorable conditions.

Injury risk can rise if you don’t respect the extra mechanical load that comes with faster running.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with training by heart rate, year round but potentially build in a longer warm and progressive transition

I’ve thought about this as well. The fact he got injured is a bit troubling but my hunch is that it had something to do with not taking enough rest after London and abandoning singles which had been working so well for him. I also wonder whether there might be a way to make NSM even more sustainable. For example, instead of 10 x 3min, 5 x 6 min, and 3 x 10 min sessions every week…what if we ONLY do 3 x 10 min sessions ( 3x week) to reduce the mechanical load?

Being down under, the best conditions for this year are probably behind me. But very similar to my journey, over 18 months training like this. I do find it odd, fellas still drop in and say about needing to see long term results, which is what made me post. I mean compared to other training methods, we have guys having done this for years, what more do we want? Injuries are down, fatigue and burnout is down, results are up.

Of course are aren't talking everyone improves. But you got such a good chance of this being the one for you, fellas reading this would be dumb not to try it.

I've been running since 2009. I'm 39 now and thought I was cooked. About 18 months ago, stumbled across this thread as a 18:20 runner who thought best days were gone. PB was 16:49 about a decade ago. Yesterday, I ran 15:58. Of course where sirpoc is, that fella is at a different level. 15 flat is absolutely miles away, but I still have hope. Even if I don't improve anymore, I've had a run no other training program has even given me a whiff off. PB in every other distance on the whole, but 5k is my bag.

My wife is planning a marathon next year, if I jump in for my first I'll be doing the sirpoc top up method. No brainer. Marathon just never appealed, but never say never when I'm in this shape. But now I'm managing 100km a week injury free for the first time ever, why not? Of course a lot of the magic here is the repeatability and consistency, that gets you to the point you can safely run a higher mileage. But, it's still incredibly well crafted as a plan with a start, middle and a finish wherever you want it to be. Even if I stop improving, I'll probably always train like this now.

I basically kept it vanilla. I don't have a problem with that, I love me a vanilla ice! Have barely had any days off, used to struggle with even 4-5 days. 7 is a breeze now. Some guys say it's boring? Nah mate, it's boring being injured or burned out all the time. What is not to love about being able to enjoy a run and some head space daily? It's awesome! Struggled with the easy pace at first, have some hills around here so means walking sometimes, especially at the start. Now it just comes naturally, I'm probably 64-66% MHR range, somewhere near where sirpoc is. Stick with it, it comes. Workouts I just stuck to the prescribed paces. Again fellas, listen to what is being ssid. If it feels hard, it's too hard. Within 5 weeks my paces had fallen into the normal guidelines.

Someone said it already, but sirpoc and this thread has probably turned into the best thing to happen to guys like me/us in a hell of a long time, especially if you set aside what you think you know and just buy in. With that in mind, a fella I run with despite seeing all my progress refuses to understand or accept this is even a training method, let alone probably the best one for amateurs out there.

I know sirpoc sometimes comes back, to let us know when the book is out and I'll buy a few copies for me and friends and you can get yourself some of your cold tinnies!