Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

It becomes more difficult for an older runner to measure genuine improvement. There comes a time when “improvement” is simply not running any slower than the year before.

Age grade tables can be used as a good benchmark. Trying to maintain or improve on an age grade percentage can be useful.

If Sirpoc runs a 2:30 marathon at age 50, that may be better than his current 2:24, if you know what I mean.

Would it not be because he can't increase his CTL any further using the same training method, so he has looked for an alternative way to do so sustainably?

I've got no idea on his numbers, but lets say his CTL with vanilla NSA is 80, and that at the peak of his marathon block he increased that to 90 - he said in the recent video with Jimmy/FOD he thinks that mara block approach is only sustainable for 3 to 4 months before the accumulation of extra fatigue becomes too much and the injury risk starts to increase. When he moves back to vanilla NSA his CTL will naturally drop back down to 80 where he will not be as fit/fast as during the mara block.

It looks like he has found two extra hours to train which he will spend on the bike where he will earn the extra TSS to increase CTL.

He could instead use those 2 extra hours to increase running volume, but from what he's said it sounds like doing so would tip him over into the high risk injury category, even if those 2 hours were done at recovery (60-70% MHR) effort. Hence why he is using the bike as it does not have as much of a physical demand as running meaning there is less injury risk. Others may not have that issue and could cope with the additional running load, which could be through increasing time at recovery effort, increasing time at sub-threshold effort, or a combination of both, any of which would see the person continue to improve as they are introducing more TSS, increasing their CTL.

In a way he will be moving from a single to double threshold approach, however the morning session will on the bike, essentially serving as a primer for the evening running session which is still the main point of focus for the day.

This might get his CTL up from 80 via vanilla NSA only, to 87 via vanilla NSA + 2 hours on the bike. Almost back to his peak of 90 CTL achieved during the marathon block, but in a way that he can do week-in, week-out, which is the essence of NSA.

The numbers are purely hypothetical, and the theory is guess work (haha), however I think this may be the reason behind it as your fitness only improves (and subsequently your race times improve) if you are still seeing an increase in CTL.

Funny, I had no idea who FOD Runner was until a few weeks ago when I started doing YouTube searches for Li-Ning shoe reviews and lo and behold, he popped up. Then I discovered he was a friend of sirpoc and does similar NSA type workouts.

In any event, I really enjoyed your Li-Ning reviews, they seemed very genuine to me which is refreshing in this day and age. We have similar taste in shoes, as I'm also a huge fan of the Puma Velocity Nitro 4.

Watching your videos makes me think you live in some sort of running utopia. Those smooth trails look amazing.

Very clear answer, thanks.

My question is also on the part on when to increase CTL. If now I'm at a constant CTL (e.g. 70), what should drive my decision to increase the CTL (via more sub T or more easy)? Of course there's lot of gray area, but what would be a good criteria to define something as a plateau (that requires an upgrade in CTL) vs. being patience (because the gains will come)?

Thank you, I have enjoyed testing the Li Ning shoes, currently the challenger 5 is a preference for me over the asics metaspeed sky tokyo, which I find quite amazing but its a great shoe! Just need more chinese brands to create boat size shoes for me to test....

This is for the most part, correct. Marathon training works incredibly well as a top up, but I couldn't do it all year. In fact it works incredibly well for all distances, we are seeing people PB at various distances across the board on variations of my own marathon build.

But, it's the one particular area you have to move outside of infinite sustainability, assuming you want to run the best marathon you can. It's still lower risk in my view than most marathon plans, but much higher risk than my "vanilla" method as we are now calling it.

I can, however, probably do the same amount of volume as pre-London build, with a little cross training, at a pretty decent intensity within the original guidelines in the morning twice a week.

The primary driver still being running, but the extra stimulus effectively being a free hit. By midday on the Tuesday and Thursday, fatigue is effectively back to where it was 4-5 hours before. That's how much easier riding slightly above LT1 is than running. The routine I've settled into is clearly sustainable (if I choose to carry on). Whether the benefits are there, compared to just spending the extra time running is unknown. Ultimately, we aren't going to find out for 4-6 months, in the context of me.

Worst case is I just still have a pretty good FTP (hasn't been dropping on 2 hours a week + the running) and I'll race some time trials and have some fun in the spring on the bike. I assume I can probably jump back on and have half a shot at a sub 19 min 10 mile, or sub 50 min 25 mile TT.

Can I ask you a couple of questions re. sweet spot bike sessions, as I'm doing the same thing at the moment.

Do you ride at your bike 'sweet spot', i.e. 84-97% of FTP, or do you ignore power an ride to your running heart rate where you mention slightly above your LT1?

The reason I ask is my FTP sweet spot (around 205-230w) puts my HR at 140-145 BPM, which is what would be my Zone 2 (based on a 5 zone model) for running (138-154 BPM). Shall I continue to ride per my FTP sweet spot, or shall as push the watts a bit harder to increase my HR to just above my running LT1 which is 161 BPM?

i have written quite a bit about this and ramp rate in the book. Or even just a time guide and how long to spend on each amount of hours within the training framework, before moving onto the next. Basically moving up every half hour or so from around 4.5 hours (as a gateway to the full method) up to about 9 hours, which if you follow what I've said will take a very, very long time to get from those two points on the opposite end of an A to B line.

Even for those not tracking load, it's laid out in a way you can basically just go by training hours and time spent at each level. For instance, how long you spend on the vanilla approach at 5 hours, then when to move up to 5.5 (and the appropriate ratios, example week that you might then run) and so on. As said, it's very slow to move through. Maybe too slow for some, but if you are in a rush this isn't going to be maybe the training method for you anyway and that is fine. (This isn't a direct reply to you, just a general point). This isn't the only way to train and if I had a specific goal in a much shorter space of time, there's probably much more aggressive ways to train to get people there.

I hope that makes sense. I have have tried to make it as broad a guide as I can with stuff like this, so you can follow it by tracking load as sometimes diligently and OTT as me, or someone who just wants to get out and run, but also understand when they might need to do more. On a basic level, time training if you train the same way, week in, week out, is basically just another way of identifying when you are increasing load as you up the total time spent running.

Way on the lower end. Maybe around 85-88% of FTP. That's for 10 mins x 3. Obviously, if you play around with the time, you can manipulate the intensity for the same results. You could mix it up if you want to, 5x6 and get closer to 90%. I don't see this as massively important, as it's only my secondary focus for a couple of hours a week.

If I was just cycling they would be 2x20, 3x15. I'm capping it at half hour (stationary bike) and that's enough. I've done a 2x20 and it certainly left me not looking forward to the run. Like anything, there's probably a tipping point.

My HR is probably around 10bpm less on the bike, for the same range of intensity. In terms if I ran a 5k, versus a 10 mile TT both all out, for the same effort where I'm nearly dead, you can take around 10bpm off. The same with most of the markers (e.g LT1 and LT2) in training we are familiar with.

Sirpoc: thanks so much some of this stuff is real gold and useful information. I think I speak for most when I say that we can't thank you enough for all the information you have shared and of course, good luck with the book but I'm not sure you need it, I think you'll be shocked how fast news of it spreads.

My takeaway from this is the sheer patience you have and not forcing training. I don't think that can be understated. The other thing is how far you are thinking ahead or one step ahead of the curve. It's so refreshing to hear someone so clever in their thinking, but also not claiming they are selling miracles or that they have immediate solutions or definitive answers.

Does anyone have any advice on converting from other training methods to this one while keeping load the same. I tried using training peak's tss to estimate it but I'm not sure if what I got makes sense.

Old schedule as 4:35, 16:30 runner, who was probably somewhat aerobically underdeveloped

Easy runs at 7:30, which was probably a little above zone 2, 1 11 mile long run at 7:30, 1 workout that was 3 x mile at 6:00. 5:55, 5:25.

TSS says with 90 minutes of sub threshold running, the equivalent weekly schedule would be 6 hours of easy running, so 7.5 hours total, which seems too high to me. Anyone have any input?

Sirpoc, Serious Hobby Jogger, FOD and JimmyRuns, plus tons of people on this thread have made absolutely amazing gains from running just 90 mins or subT per week. Why do you think, even in singles, you need close to 2 hours 15? Also, isn't a 2.5 hour long run overkill? It's something like a 3rd of your weekly time spent on the long run.

Are you actually absorbing any of the training or just ticking time down to an injury?

Thanks, Sirpoc, I appreciate the help.

What if my starting point wasn't 4.5h? I started for example with 7.5h already and I'm not a fast runner TBH (~22 min 5k) so I don't know up until what point I'll see gains (I haven't seen anything materialize yet, only doing this for 8 weeks or so). Does that mean that the period on 7.5h is probably going to be extended (vs. starting at 4.5) or would it still be the period you described in the book (with the 30 min increases)?

PS: I'm 100% going to buy your book, thanks for your contributions to the running community. The least I can do is throw something your way so you can get some beer

lurker maybe this will help as a reference point. High school PRs were 1:56 (800), 4:24 (1600), 10:28 (lol only ran once), and 16:39 5K on hilly grass. I didn't run for >10 years and started following NSA training principles in Feb 2025. Ran a marathon 2:46 in August doing 2 x 30 min subT/week with 1 long run at ~6:50/mi every other week (other weeks were easy long run below 130 bpm). My average weekly mileage was ~45 w/ a peak of 60. After marathon (and a 2 week break) I increased subT from 3 x 24 min to 3 x 27 min (after 3 weeks) to 3 x 30 min 3 weeks later. 3 x 30 min had me around 7.5 hours of running and it was too much for me, body felt TOO fatigued. I write all this to reiterate what others were posting that patience is critical with this training. I ran 16:48 (so close to your time now) when i did 3 x 27 minutes, so maybe start off with 3 x 27 minute sessions? The only other thing, and it is probably major, is that I started lifting in september (2 heavy legs on SubT days) and upper body 3x/week. So the lifting was maybe too much? All i know is that I will be patient with this training

This was me. I simply did not look forward to waking up and having another day of intervals, even if the pacing is not so intense. Especially so in Houston summer where 2-3x per week as it is, is difficult enough for me. I do think EIM has some merit and I know some masters runners that have made it work well for them, though some have substituted a bit of elliptical cross-training to reduce impact issues. Personally though, it just wasn't for me.

Is there anyone else that is lifting while doing something similar to NSA? I understand the history that peter crouch wanted to run without doing lifts or stretching, but for me personally, I like lifting. Just looking for any advice

Feel much the same. The whole structure was just really draining, the fatigue was too much having done both. No training fits everyone, bit it's overwhelming in my eyes that if you are going to pick between NSM and EIM, following this thread and it's focus is probably a much more logical starting point, especially if you see the bigger picture and want to train with a long term focus.

If you took 100 hobby joggers around the same ability, over a year then vast majority would stay healthier and improve more I'm sure on a sirpoc plan. That probably isn't anything against EIM, I think it would stack up top of the pile as a one size fits all in a head to head over absolutely anything, for those on limited hours. If you fit running almost every day, but work full time, have other responsibilities, if there is a better way to spend your time than this thread, I doubt it's a method we know about in this detail, yet.

The good thing about this thread is far more people have tried it and the strike rate is also much higher for those who give it the thumbs up, opposed to EIM. I do remember a guy who posts here, colder and wiser started an EIM once. Lexel even posted on it.

I assume the book will make early adopters of this method feel quite smug, when it likely goes quite mainstream. It'll be one of those books runners recommended to other runners and gain traction that way. My guess would be if you could pick any running book off the shelf and give your average runner the best chance to improve, it'll be too of the pile.

I've learned so much from this thread and continue to do so. I would guess for myself and many others, not just sirpoc's ( the goat) posts but others as well is all I come back to Letsrun for. The brojos are lucky it's here, the traffic to this one thread alone over time I bet is huge.

It's roughly the same as the Nike Aeroswift sizing.

Slightly shorter than your typical training singlet/vest, but just as wide.

I sometimes wear a small, and other times a medium. For the Flame Air, I went a medium, and it's pretty much perfect.

Yeah, I had about the same experience as old_skool50 did. EIM was not a good fit for me at all, and there are really almost no similarities between EIM and NSA (as I mentioned a few hundred pages ago).