Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

If there is one example of how NOT to train, this dude is the example. Testing lactate for no real purpose at times. But more to the point, he's totally running himself into the ground. He looks wrecked all the time, in fact he IS wrecked all the time and when he gets going again he is always ramping up too fast.

But the main problem is his easy runs are waaaaaaaay too fast, he's almost certainly doing exactly what sirpoc is talking about. Sure, one easy run like that in isolation is fine, 2-3 probably are, but over time it's the thing that gets you.

His max (based off good data, there's a 10k where he records 202, obviously an abnormal bit) is lower than sirpoc. He's averaging 170bpm for a half, lower than sirpoc but he's running easy days drastically harder at times. I just don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. It shows you that you can have the best coaching available to you (Henrik) and still make such basic mistakes when looking for sustainable training and hold yourself back.

We will never know how good he can get, until he gets out of this cycle. I have told a few people if you want to know how to implement this training almost perfectly, see sirpoc (or just read the book now). If you want to see how to make the mistakes and learn from them, see KI. It's strange, because you can have such different results from what seem like very little variations.

have to agree. Many of his easy runs are in 140s which is way too high for his mileage and quality work. And if it happens once or even twice, it may be luck, but it has happened several times already. It's a pattern.

Nice post, it's really useful information and does make you think. Especially as I've checked and KI has run more KM in total this year than sirpoc. This is very surprising. As KI does always seem like he's complaining, or ill, or injured. Or all three at once. Then he's coming back often quite aggressively. Sirpoc was injured, but I just checked how he came back and it was incredibly gradual, whilst making the easy runs even easier. We are all guilty of it as hobby runners, to cram back in what we think has been missed or lost time to training. But I think that's a great example of how to come back.

I think we all agree that probably very easy, versus easy, makes not much difference, but easy versus steady does and is probably the biggest factor in the recovery of this style of training. The other thing is hill workouts/ speed work also sent KI off the rails. He was still improving so I have no idea why he risked that when he did? That seems crazy to me. You might be right, even though he has all the information available to him presumably, doesn't guarantee you will still train optimally.

This stuff is interesting because we can learn from what works, but also examples of what doesn't work quite as well, then use that information to shape our own training. Although the book does a incredible job of giving us all the tools to really understand this ourselves and shape our own training.

You have to remember with the easy running, that it's a huge amount of our volume. So, if we are running this too hard it's always going to be the thing that gets you. Even a drip feed of easy running too hard than hinders recovery, will add up quickly because there is so much of it.

IIRC he said running too slow is boring (or sth like that), so he does his easy runs faster. Discipline is what sets Sirpoc apart from KI (and the rest of us).

Yes he said that, but the Ing. Family they have a hard cap at 140. His father told this once in an interview. Perhaps you can get away with it if you are young or a full time athlete. So his coach doesn't say anything about it.

Am I the only one who finds this insane? Me and my brother both run, we have wildly different max HRs. If he tried to run at my easy HR cap, he would be cooked in a month.

The more I read about what the Ing family does, the more I wonder how much they actually know or really just copied for Bakken, more than the father cares to let on.

From reading his book, sirpoc see's everything as having some value, it's about how much weight do you apply to each thing. Some things carry a lot of weight (easy runs, recovery) other things carry such little weight, you don't worry about it yet. So you have to stick to the discipline, if you are going to get as much out of whatever talent you have. There's as good an interesting discussion at times in this thread than you will find anywhere on Letsrun.

While I am sure he could have done a lot differently, kids are really the plague. When your kids hang out at kindergarden 6-7-8 hours a day with tons of other children you are bound to get every sickness under the sun. (Which means you also better watch your sleep and training intensity).

Just wanted to give sirpoc the shoutout. The book hasn't arrived yet, but expect it to be great.

Coming from cycling and scandinavia, and being time constrained, the training structure was an easy sell for me. It's just training. But skillfully adapted to running.

What I laud the most is the underlying philosophy of this, umm, maybe call it discourse and the wider community. It's basically about offering hobbyjoggers girders to not only train well but start an autodidact project on themselves. I bet more people are bound to gain intellectual and practical autonomy vis-a-vis tradition and various sorts of economic interests. Which is great.

Did he really say that? I hope not. If so, that's idiotic. What an absolute waste of time to control workout intensity and then not control easy days because it's "too boring". I don't want to come across too harsh, but it really is a ridiculous attitude and what is wrong with a lot of runners. Well it's either pure stupidity, or ego. There's no a lot in between. We all get sick, I would guess a lot of us have school age kids, but c'mon, give yourself a chance and have a look at the bigger picture.

This is also completely stupid. It's like something the coach wizard would say.

It’s only a nuance, but I think sirpoc is not about teaching, but sharing experience. We have many coaches doing the teaching, some of them former elite themselves, but here we have a super mellow and incredibly smart guy documenting his findings in real time for everyone’s benefit. That’s what sets it apart.

Thank you, Sir(poc)!

PS: chewing into the book as we speak

Unlike his brothers KI is just a hobby jogger.

In one of the early episodes Jakob says to him "This is my job, so I do it. I don't understand why anyone would do this for fun".

As far as I can tell there is no big picture to look at.

He is likely doing this as escapism. Why not just let KI enjoy his training and if he under performs compared to his full potential then so be it.

Let him enjoy himself

-

As a side note .. There is off course a depressed Scandinavian vibe to all of this, but if you listen closely KI (unlike other Youtube personalities) is not moaning.

His credo seems to be the equally Scandinavian "Today was s..., but I got the job done, cause that is what you're supposed to do".

I accept all of what you say. But I also agree it's stupid. I mean, why bother testing lactate? Why control workout intensity? Why go to the track and use the pacing lights? Why do the effort of any of this if you are going to ruin the rest of it by running your easy days way too hard because it's "boring" to run the correct easy intensity?

Absolutely, it's a hobby, you can do what you want. But the rest just seems like an insane waste of time if that's your attitude towards the rest of it?

I don't want to hold myself out as any kind of expert, but in one way I am similar to KI in as much that I have young kids in nursery. They are constantly sick, especially in the winter.

However, my anecdotal experience (sample size of one etc) is that since I stopped overdoing my easy runs and putting ego aside, and adhering to the 70% cap on easy runs, I've been sick less frequently and less severely.

I can't prove it but I reckon there is something to running truly easy and therefore reducing that cumulative fatigue, which allows the body to better deal with infections versus overcooking easy days and always being on a bit of a hole.

Obviously now I've said this I'll get waves of sickness lasting into next year but it experience has shown this to be true so far.

This is exactly it. Running easy days too fast will get everyone, in the end, if they are trying to fit in workouts regularly each week. It's a story as old as running itself and almost certainly the #1 hobby jogging issue, closely followed by #2 which is more than the needed share of intensity.

Of course. It's not even really a debate. You are recovering from running more, which gives you the ability to recover from other things in life better as well, getting sick is part of that. You only have so much recovery expenditure across the board.

I doubt he said that, about the easy running. Or it would just make absolutely no sense to put in the effort to making sure he fits in workouts, marathon builds like this, travelling for HMs over Europe to then throw it all away because he can't be bothered to control easy running. If not throw it away, at least significantly damage the good work. Probably something lost in translation?