Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Probably a trivial question, but I was thinking about it while reading the warmup section of the book: What time do you finish your warmup before your race? Does it change for 5k, 10k, HM?

MAF isn't dumb, just misunderstood, and the creator of MAF certainly doesn't help.

The original MAF, what he did his research on and trained actual athletes with, was based off of metabolic testing to identify the heart rate at maximal fat oxidation. It's only when he broke bad and tried to cash in that it morphed into the age-based formula, with the intention being that anyone could use it without the barrier of taking a test, because saying "you must find a physiologist to give you this esoteric test" doesn't sell books to the general pop.

Additionally MAF training is different in that it's only concerned with one period of training -- building an aerobic base. Yes you're supposed to do it for "a long time" (12-20 weeks), but then you're expected to move on to something else before being race ready. In the old stuff (Training for Endurance) at least, Maffetone never said "do nothing but this for the rest of your life", more along the line of "I'm here to help get you into shape where you CAN get race ready, once you're there, I'm not the guy". Nowadays he also has some books that are more about general health/fitness and casual exercise and periodization isn't addressed at all, but in terms of MAF training for athletic performance, it is very clearly just the groundwork phase.

Whereas this is more of a complex system / conjugate periodization approach. Even though the components being conjugated are stripped down to only the most important ones.

As one of the old cult members from the ancient MAF threads/groups I think this is strictly better (and certainly the figurehead having a high-level of integrity helps). But I also think if people trained with something like MAF first, we wouldn't have endless "I can't run at 70% max HR!" posts.

There was an excellent podcast linked on warmups, on this thread a few weeks ago. Well worth a listen, if you have the time to look back.

For those looking for the podcast mentioned in the post above - it's here.
FWIW - I have started trialling this in my own warm ups ahead of different sessions I do think it's helped me. However, it's still early days and I don't have enough reference points as of yet.

Have you tried it pre race, and did it help?

Only one race - but the conditions were too muddy to get a true feel for the benefit. I have a parkrun TT planned for this saturday and will be testing the warm up - 10mins easy then 2x3mins at SubT - with 60 seconds walking recovery. I'll give an update afterwards on how it goes.

I think some sort of SubT is needed in the warm up before a race. I know from workouts that my first rep can absolutely appalling and I feel my fitness has fallen off a cliff, but then rep 2 i am fine. A little bit of pace in the warm up is needed IMO

Same here, there is a distinct difference between the effort on my first Rep and the rest of the session.

What’s the consensus on priming with a few Sub-T Reps? Aim for the paces of the usual 3 minute workouts?

It makes a lot of sense to me. I jump right into my sub-t workouts after a 15 minute jog and don't feel warmed up until about 6 minutes into a 10 minute rep or by the start of my 3rd 3 minute rep.

I'll be doing a parkrun in a few weeks and plan to do something similar. I was thinking a 15 minute jog followed by 2*3 minutes with 60 seconds rest and maybe adding another 1 minute rep right before the start.

10-15 mins before race, 1.5min out from starting like @ 3 min pace, little rest, 1.5min back to line @ 3 min pace. some easy strides after if you wish

For races I would inject some pace into the warmup as that is the day where you want to "cash in your chips" and run as fast as possible.

For workout days I've experimented with both and found the days where I just go from jogging into the workout to be better for long term development. Yes, you feel slightly sluggish on rep 1 but I find this to be a feature and not a bug. It is way easier to control your effort and RPE with slower first reps compared with gunning for goal pace right away. I find I rarely ever overcook a workout on these days.

Meanwhile on days where I run easy -> LT1 and then hit target pace on rep 1 I almost always flirt with LT2 HR too soon and likely go too quick on one or two of the reps. This puts me in a hole for the next few days, compromising other sessions at the cost of maybe a 1% boost in performance. Is it worth it? Most certainly not.

Of course, I'm probably just a bad pacer, but for me being as conservative as possible helps with long term sustainability, even if it means my first few reps are 5-10 seconds slower than target.

I have absolute the same experience. Since I am doing this, on every workout, my paces get usually faster for every rep (the longer reps, at the shorter they stay consistent). First rep is always a lot slower than the second rep.

Totally agree. Can't remember what section (I'm going to read through again over the weekend) but I think it's on there and described as such. Almost as a safeguard to NOT overcook the first rep. Was it 1-2% slower expected? It aligns with making sense as well, off a 10-15 min jog warm up.

The paces in the book are faster than Lactrace. Are people changing to the book paces?

Twenty-two years ago, Renato Canova shared an experience on this site regarding lactate threshold training. This doesn't mean that training at an intensity higher than the lactate threshold is counterproductive, but in any case, caution is advised because it can be detrimental rather than beneficial. And as has been seen and confirmed in numerous examples, at an amateur level, it's unnecessary.

I was familiar with this experience long before Sirpoc posted here, and when people asked me for advice, my recommendation was very similar to Sirpoc's, but with some differences. Threshold training should comprise between 10% and 20% of total weekly training time, with sessions lasting between 20 and 40 minutes. These sessions were continuous, not interval-based, and typically two per week for someone training five times a week. Easy days were limited to 75% of HRmax. And of course, the corresponding LR (lactate threshold) was also considered. This also worked very well for most people. There were those who couldn't break the 40-minute barrier and then easily surpassed it, even going under 38 minutes. What they did to try and break 40 minutes was train harder and harder, but the results were always inversely proportional.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=269985&page=2#post-45

Hi all - just got my copy of the book yesterday and have mostly read it through. Thank you to sirpoc for such an excellent program - truly a man of the people!

I followed NSM pretty close to vanilla on approximately 40 building up to 55 miles per week last winter for around 12 weeks, completing all of my SubT reps on the treadmill. I didn't race around that time, but I found I was able to increase from around 9 to 9.8mph without increased HR or perceived effort over the course of those 12 weeks - and best of all, as many in this thread have reported - I felt amazing and healthy! Over the next 9 months I trained for a fall marathon and fell into the trap of high mileage days, followed by days off to recover, both physically and mentally. Missed some time due to injury and put on some weight and ultimately didn't really get as fit as I wanted to, but ran a 3:13 marathon. After a break, I'm ready to jump back in with NSM!

I'm skipping a marathon next year and would like to put in some serious time at 6 hours per week - running a time trial every ~4 weeks in order to set new paces for the reps. My intent is to keep the running at 6h/week, in order to prevent burnout and make sure I have energy to lift and get strong too!

I know sirpoc built up slowly from 4ish to 8+ hours over the course of a few years. However, given my current fitness (in decent shape, but far from my potential due to inconsistency) - how long can I realistically expect to improve off of following the program for 6h a week?

I would really like to avoid getting into the 7-8+ hour territory. I will of course provide updates on this thread as to how it is going!

I haven't received my book yet, but I imagine it will be along the same lines as the recommendations you've given here. In my case, those recommendations are: 3' intervals, 10K pace + 10", 5'-6' intervals, 10K pace + 15", and 8'-10' intervals, 10K pace + 20". That felt harder than I'd like; a pace 5" slower for all interval durations works better for me, just right for properly assimilating the training.

Long time reader here and first time poster. I have read every page and have been working towards implementation of the model, but have encountered a problem. I have a lactate meter and measured a few 7 x 4min workouts to try and get a starting point for my threshold, but it is much faster than I had expected. I have been doing nearly all my runs at ~10:00/mile pace (strict <70% MHR adherence), but using a cutoff of 3mmol yields a threshold pace of nearly 5:15/mile for a 4 minute interval. I have calibrated the meter, repeated the test, tried multiple treadmills, and done all I can to disprove the values without success. This pace obviously feels somewhat taxing from a muscular perspective, but aerobically I feel fine. I don't have a lot of structured running experience as I usually get injured, but my current 5k PR is 18:24 from a turkey trot last year so not in the ballpark. I am coming off an injury and have only had a few weeks of mileage, so this is doubly surprising.

My question is how to go about adjusting to this pace while working towards the 3 ST / week schedule, my current thought is to begin conservatively (for example 5:52/mile is associated with a lactate value of 0.8mmol after 4 minutes) and with only one session, but even still I need to find ways to help my muscular system adapt to what is clearly a disproportion of aerobic capacity. Any advice greatly appreciated, look foward to seeing what the method might yield if I can string together some training. I have bought the book and anxiously await its arrival! Cheers.