Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Sorry, thought you were referring to the one on cardiac drift.

There is another research: Esteve-Lanao (2007) study. So their is a secret in running truly easy.

"A randomized, controlled trial comparing two training methods with similar volume but different intensity distribution in recreational runners"
Published: Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2007)
Lead author: Jonathan Esteve-Lanao

18 recreational runners (male, ~35 years old)
Baseline: All ran ~60–70 km/week, 10K time ~38–42 min
Fit but not elite - like most serious club runners

The outcome was:
10K Time Improvement−3.1% (≈70 sec faster)−1.2% (≈27 sec faster)
VO₂max↑ 4.3%↑ 2.1%
Running Economy↑ 3.8%↑ 1.5%

The weekly schedule look like this:
Mon: Easy run8–12 km ONLY difference: POL <70% HR / THR ~75% HR
Tue: Interval workout 8–10 km totale.g., 5 × 1,000m @ 95–100% vVO₂max, 2 min jog recovery
Wed: Easy run10–14 km Same HR rule as Monday
Thu: Tempo / Threshold 10–12 km totale.g., 3 × 2 km @ 85–90% vVO₂max (marathon pace), 3 min recovery
Fri: Rest or Easy shakeout 0–6 kmOptional, <70% HR
Sat Easy run10–16 km Same HR rule
SunLong run (easy)16–22 km POL: <70% HR / THR: ~74–78% HR

So its really interesting cause the 2nd group has more load, but didn't improve as the first group. The link is here:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Impact of training intensity distribution on performance in endurance athletes - PubMed

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of 2 training programs differing in the relative contribution of training volume, clearly below vs. within the lactate threshold/maximal lactate steady state region on perfo...

Open link

. The groups did exactly the same, only the one group was running the easy runs truly easy.

Cross-sectional training studies are hot garbage.

Did you mean to post a different link? The linked study doesn't match most of your summary. It had 12 participants included in final results, not 18; around 27 years old, not 35; with 10k times between 30'30" and 35 minutes in the 10k, not ~38-42'; and the two groups were load matched: "As designed, no significant differences were found in total TRIMP score or in mean weekly TRIMP score between groups, indicating that the total training load (intensity x volume) of both groups was similar over the intervention period." Also, I didn't see that weekly schedule given in the link, but it doesn't match the described training, which describes some more tempo sessions at the expense of easy sessions for threshold group, not an increase in the intensity of the easy sessions (and I think the HR percentages you give would not match the groups in the study, where I think the POL group would be ~74%Max for easy sessions).

Also one of the conclusions the paper gives is: "our data suggest that an older coaching concept of ‘‘junk miles’’ applies not to relatively low-intensity training but to moderately high-intensity training. Large volumes of zone 2 or threshold training in already well-trained athletes may be inadequate to stimulate further cardiorespiratory adaptation but may contribute to fatigue, potentially via down-regulation of the sympathetic nervous system." This goes against the whole push of this thread for sub-threshold training (not saying I agree with the study, only pointing this out).

How are people fuelling to maximise recovery? Anyone using gels with the S/T sessions, or long run?

Sirpoc was training during lunchtime, so presumably eating immediately after? Is timing important for this method?

For my S/T sessions, I like to eat 1 or 2 chocolate bars after dinner the night before (the chocolate bars have 28grams of carbs) since I run in the morning.

I then like to have 4 pieces of haribo fangtastics before I run. Technically I should be having 8 pieces for 31grams of carbs, but my stomach can only handle 4 pieces before I go running in such a short time.

I use 8 pieces of Haribo for my long runs!

Ive pretty much eliminated simple carbs and have felt great recovery wise. I’ll eat bananas/fruit though which I think may have some simple carbs in them but also complex carbs.

Basically eat lots of meat, potatoes, whole grain bread, eggs. Snack on nuts, toast, cheese, crackers etc.

What do we think for KI in Valencia? Just watched his latest vid. Dude is looking good. Maybe they are playing it down. Can he reclaim the king of hobby joggers crown from sirpoc? Can see him beating 2:24 as he is building for a marathon correctly.

No disrespect to KI, but he's not running 2:24 even at Valencia versus a hot London. I don't think people quite realise sometimes how good sirpocs debut was or how much better he got than KI. It'll be interesting to see how he does though, considering it's a very standard marathon build compared to the huge success and spin off guys have had with this sirpoc marathon variation, which is much different from the textbook.

Sirpoc went for a "classic" marathon build in many ways. Not classic NSA, but traditional marathon build. Long aerobic base period followed by 8/9 weeks of marathon specific work.

Personally, the big problem with Pfitz, JD and many other plans is that they're just too long. If you're working that aerobic base week in week out then you really only need a shortish marathon block. The "traditional" big plans out there are all to long and frazzle runners before race day

Really enjoying KI's youtube output - pretty fascinating to see and there's some great bits of wisdom scatted throughout. Very dry approach which I like and is opposite most YT videos.

I think he'll hit 2:34.

KI is doing what you need and is the only way to prepare properly for a marathon, long Canova style tempo runs. He can easily beat 2:24. Look at his workouts, far stronger than sirpoc marathon build and Valencia is nice course.

Doing 3x sub threshold runs a week faster than marathon pace and just a long slow run is very bad marathon prep

You do realise other people have copied sirpoc and run unbelievable marathon improvements? Myself never got close to breaking 3 with Canova and have with this. There's a guy documenting his journey on Reddit, 3:07 PB in a dozen marathons and ditches the marathon pace long run work etc and just copies sirpoc and runs 2:48. There's tons of other examples with quite extraordinary progress. That doesn't mean you have to train like this, but it's sure as good proved damn successful for hobby joggers.

Fwiw, I can't see KI getting anywhere near 2:24. It he breaks 2:30 he has had a marvellous race IMO. As others have pointed out, hopefully he's not as cooked as he always looks. But then again there was folks saying sirpoc wouldn't break 2:40.

Thanks for this advice. I am currently just starting running again after 7 1/2 weeks out, but for the moment in small doses; just 7 x 1 min jog 1 min walk yesterday.

Interestingly in the run up to my recent soleus tear I had been doing some strength work such as weighted calf raises, hops, squats, Bulgarian squats ... mainly to try and deal with some foot arch pain which was not stopping me from running though I had to cut back. Once the pain was reduced I increased the volume of running and started on the 3 sub T workouts each week. However, I was also worried about overloading myself on the strength training plus the increased amount of running with more time at sub T so I pretty much stopped the strength training for a few weeks. After about 5 weeks like this the stiff calf came up. I was wondering if there are some ways you should be combining the strength training with the running. Should you be doing it on the same days as the sub T workouts (risk of overload in one day?) or on the easy running days? Or does is not really matter?

To the poster who wrote about stretching/massage, that is also interesting as for the last few years I had pretty much given up doing stretching. The general feedback I was getting from physios and from some of the threads on LetsRun was that the most recent research was suggesting that stretching was not really useful for injury prevention. When you are time crunched like a lot of us are, you quickly end up dropping things like stretching when you are not sure if they are helping. But I think I will try to get back to doing regular stretching as I am at the point of trying everything to avoid repeated injury.

Canova himself has said we wouldn't coach anyone (nor recommend his coaching) to anyone who isnt aerobically developed/mature. This method is about improving the aerobic system. Canova is about fine tuning and adding layers on top. It is not designed to be followed by hobby joggers.

Also, remember that Canova is coaching at altitude. When he is prescribing 97% MP to his runners, they are basically running M effort. People see a few articles, or a training block plan for an elite runner and think copying it will be the "cheat code"

Within this thread and Reddit there are 10 or 15 examples of real hobby joggers, who we all have more in common with than Johnny Kenyan, and I for one would rather follow NSA than a plan designed for a type of runner we simply are not

Yes I remember reading some articles by Esteve-Lanao around 15 years ago and like you my understanding was that their conclusions were more in line with the polarized training approach (Seiler is a coauthor in the paper posted on this thread) in which you do a lot of very easy running with some workouts at VO2 max type intensity and anything in between these intensities was seen as "wasted" training. I was wondering why this did not align with my experiences back then as at the time I found that doing a reasonable amount of faster steady runs tended to bring me on more than weekly VO2 max type workouts.

As you say, this thread for many people is concluding that a decent amount of running at sub-threshold speeds (which would be in that grey zone of moderately high-intensity training) is bringing people on which is not the same conclusion as in the Esteve-Lanao papers (as I understand them)....

bannibal wrote:
Did you mean to post a different link? The linked study doesn't match most of your summary. It had

Yes sry, I read the paper completely wrong (actually i was asking grok for an essay and this was just wrong), so I read it again. So there were only 12 runners who completed the whole experiment sucessfully. That means they did all trainings in the 5 month period. They were all sub elites and in this experiment there were only running involved. And the different between the 2 groups are just the "easy" runs. One group did it very easy below 70% mhr and the other did it faster but shorter. So both had the same load. The one group with the very easy runs, are the winner of this experiments.

Interestingly (or maybe not), I was recently listening to the "Real Science of Sport" podcast with Seiler - season 7 episode 6 "Rethinking Polarized training with Stephen Seiler" - from earlier this year and he says IIRC that he's changed his view the past 20 years since he came up with the term 'Polarized' and how it's defined. He now sees it a stress vs non-stress thing, with any session of substance above LT1 going into the stress bucket.