Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

wow, my post was hard to read. sorry. i'm still waking up. fixed it up:

fwiw lactate values are dependent on individual runners. (as people aerobically develop, they get lower anaerobic energy contributions to their racing, or smth.)

iirc it was bakken who observed that what is described as 4mmol/L correlates to different lactate concentrations in differently trained people.

i believe sirpoc aimed for 3.5mmol bLa when identifying pacing of the sub-t reps? can't find his exact comment, tho.

easy run lactate measurements don't matter, dont waste your lactate strips on em, HR and effort are much more practical. if you're asking for curiosity's sake, easy runs should be below LT1.

this means that lactate levels will actually be below your baseline (around .8-1.2 mmol for most people, anecdotally), since your aerobic processes metabolize lactate faster than you produce it.

if i had to take a guess for curiosity's sake, (which no one should rely on, given that i don't test lactate), .5-1.0 mmol on easy runs might be accurate?

I have watched an excellent interview with a top Norwegian Triathlete coach. He was talking about 1.0 mmol for easy, and 2.7 to 3.0 for threshold. He was very critical of the traditional 2 mmol and 4 mmol thresholds. But, yes, aerobic development is key, and his priority was volume, so intensity has to be low.

That makes sense.

Your post was hard to read (and still is) because you don't have any capital letters at the start of sentences.

The first 5k he ran was 28 something. Either Reddit or Strava I can't remember which, shared the data from the run. This was 2021? I assume it will be covered. I think cycling finished from studying Strava, in 2017. So basically, he was beginner. Absolutely nothing from 4 years previous in a different sport I doubt was worth anything. If it was, it's minuscule. Nobody go 4 year and hold onto fitness. That's obviously insane. I don't think people appreciate how slow a starting point, way before he came to thread. But most people who start make huge progress, no matter how they train. It's the next part that's important. Another post he shared data from his "easy" run. It was something like 7:30/km.

This is why I've always found the whole thing fascinating. As there seems to be confusing that he just came from cycling and started running. Unless I misunderstood , there is huge gap in-between. Many years.

Yeah, one of the podcast he spoke about this. I think after about a month or so of running he tested his fitness and ran a solo 5k and it was 28 something, but also said really from that point it couldn't get much worse and pretty much knew he could improve just running for a while. The gap seems 4 years, between cycling to running.

The important part is obviously from that mid to upper 18 5k mark and onwards, what happened after. That's what made the thread into what it is and changed an insane amount of people's running lives who are also just normal hobby joggers. I've no problem with it as a story, if it helps get the book out to others what's the problem? If you could hand it to someone, it's going to likely bd the best chance just about anyone has to improve in the HJ categor. So I'm all for eye catching bits so they pick up a copy, for people who have no idea about this thread.

Not sure if that's what you're asking , but easy runs shouldn't raise your lactate, the opposite actually.

If you want to test, run very easy for 20 minutes and test bLa. Then run 60 minutes or whatever and test bLa again. It should stay the same within a margin of error. That's the whole point of LT1 and LT2.

S/T can be anywhere between low 2.X and maybe 3.5 for me, the HR at the end of the final interval doesn't seem to matter all that much. For 3x12 or 4x10, bLa is usually at the lower end, 12x3 or 10x3:30 at the higher end.

The whole journey is amazing obviously, but when he started NSM, spoc was a 18 minute 5k runner. So, yeah.

I actually think the initial progress up to a 18 something is just as important, if not more so. Mainly because, and I think I've seen him mention this part on a pod, just about all training works for beginners, it gives you a false sense of security that you are doing the right thing. I really, really hope this period is covered. You can improve from 28 to 19 flat and your training can still have been bad. I think this is most people's issue, at it's core. You train in a pretty bad way, you improve so the assumption is it was magic. If it just starts where the thread started, it's going to miss a whole bunch of context as to why training like this ok the first place.

Ultimately, we all want our own thing or have views on what this book is or should be. I'll refer back to chillruns who did an amazing review here and it was glowing, basically saying it was the best running book he's read.

On that note, chillruns I follow you on Strava and congrats on the 45+ minute pb on the Marathon with what seems like the classic sirpoc build. As someone who will never get to sirpoc levels, inspiring to see how someone can really get the best out of this training still with such dramatic improvement!

Oh and this is the #1 new release on the kindle store for running & jogging as well as exercise & fitness, with absolutely no fanfare or marketing and no paperback link yet, nothing. That speaks volumes for the reach of this thread. Sirpoc saying a few pages back the ebook dropped at a random time off schedule, hopefully the paperback does just randomly pop up as well.

No real skin in the game, but maybe I'm biasd as I have improved dramatically using this method. But I was one of the people who posted offering sirpoc help to find a publisher, back when people floated the book idea for him.

As a result, I read an early draft he sent for me to try and get the house I've worked with take it. They were interested, but as a first time author, they wanted more control than he wanted to give. Rightly so in my humble opinion, he has just done it himself. I think he can keep it honest or how he sees it with full control to steer it.

To cut the long story short, even the early draft I read at the back end of the summer was better than 90% of running or fitness books I have ever read. I genuinely mean that.

Sirpoc shared a couple of graphics with me, whilst kindly helping me with something after I messaged him about a while back, and they looked great. (I'm always impressed he seems to find the time to reply to so many people!). One was a plot of what the spread of intensity of workouts over a long period looked like. It struck me as very well put together and also a great visual to plot what this training looks like in reality, as well as what you/he doesn't do.

Keeping an eye out for the paperback to drop, which I will assume will be print on demand like all Amazon direct publishing books. So if it does drop on the 1st, should have a paper copy to door by middle to late of next week.

I've been in this running game a long time and think this really has the potential to go big, and really help people understand the things that they actually need to understand, when it comes to making their training better.

7am Friday morning, just bought the paperback copy. Will arrive Tuesday.

Been steady reader of this thread for two and half years. Best discussion of endurance conditioning ever. I've learned a lot and grateful to everyone who has kept it going.

Mine is on the way tomorrow, next day delivery here in the UK. Very reasonably priced. £15.99. knowing Amazon, the margins with expanded distribution and print costs, sirpoc can't be making hardly anything out of this. Much respect.

Two books on its way to Belgium! Let's go.

Book. Ordered.

Paperback is on Amazon. Just ordered. Thanks for writing this James!

Another paperback ordered. Arriving Sunday!