Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Love this post. The only way that I see periodization being used is if you're a HS/College runner trying to run fast times multiple times throughout the year or you're a pro targeting a peak race. Excluding HS kids, who will get better doing anything, college + elites makes up what, ~10% of runners?

Why would we follow a boom or bust plan that is meant for such a small percent of the running population. Perhaps it's because lots of running literature has been written by coaches with experience in primarily the collegiate + pro scene, which OBVIOUSLY has to translate to everyone else.

This methodology is new to me as well and it's quite literally what I'm studying in school. Had a conversation with a professor of mine about this "sweetspot" training, to which he replied "isn't that for cycling?". Planning on sharing my copy of the book with him.

10%?

Sounds awfully high? :)

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The three biggest races here in Denmark all have close to 20,000 participants

They are a 13k and then the half and full marathon,

The "smaller" half/full marathons outside the capital are around 10-13,000 participants and they sell out quickly.

I have no sense of how big the elite field in those races is, but no ways it's 1,000-2,000 that would make it 10%

Thinking on it, you're definetly right. MAY have overshot a bit. But it also further backs my point: plans made for such a small population should not be adapated for wide use.

I couldn't agree more!

Indeed.

mariusbakken.com

The Norwegian Model Revisited

Kristiansand, April 21, 2025 The original article on the Norwegian model of lactate threshold training was written in 2022 and hasn’t been changed since. It was written to provide a descriptive ove…

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Got the book, good read. One thing I don't understand: If you run the same runs every week and only adjust for a potential increase in LT2 pace -- wouldn't the ramp rate always be zero after the first six weeks at the latest?

Your training load wouldn't increase either, that's correct. But the key is you are incrementally increasing volume, intensity remains untouched. That's why you still have ramp rate, but it's low - in simple terms. My view is too many training plans try and increase both volume and intensity in parallel and it's this that causes the problems for hobby joggers.

I think it's somewhere in the book, if you are fully commited to just doing the same thing, you can go old school and not even bother tracking load and just think of it through the prizm of training minutes to identify more (or less).

You’re missing the entire premise. You have to plan training to manipulate CTL and ramp rate. If you do it right, ramp rate will stay between 1-5 Score/day.

First, ensure your workout scoring system is good and represents the daily training load.

Go find a spreadsheet that has PMC. And then play with it.

If your ramp rate is zero and CTL plateaus, then performance will plateau. Simply add more minutes to each workout to maintain the desired ramp rate. You don’t even have to structure anything.

Think of it this way, once you have a well-established CTL, then you know exactly what score today’s workout needs to be to maintain or increase tomorrow’s CTL. And since PMC also has ATL, we can further decide how much over or under today’s CTL we need to be to increase or decrease acute loading.

That's not quite how the load tracking works. At any given time, present to 6 weeks back is 50% of the calculation, and over 6 weeks is the other 50%. Basically a half-life of 6 weeks. So weeks 1-6 count toward 50%, weeks 7-12 count 25%, weeks 13-18 count 12.5%, etc.

So you'll continue to gain training load for several months.

Sirpoc posted about this before, I think it would take about 6 months for, in effect, your CTL/fitness to just finally plateau assuming you did the same TSS every day.

Technically every single run ever contributes to your fitness score, just the further back you go through less weight it carries.

I would say it makes a huge difference, might feel very good and easy after a 75% run but in terms of pace and mechanical stress and summed up week after week it would definitely have a negative effect on me without any benefits from the faster easy run. At least 30sek/km difference for me between 65 and 75%

And I don't buy the whole "it's not fun to run slower" thing..just a bad excuse to get something over with and run ex. 60min instead of 65min in a slower but less stressful state. Why run at all if you don't find it meaningful or "fun". No it's not fun all the time but the pace is not the issue then.

Hi all, very new here. One thing the book doesn't seem to cover is how to "convert" or transition to this training.

I've been doing pretty unstructured training for several years, about 10 hours per week by feel with progression, marathon effort, and fartleks basically whenever I feel like it. 2 hour long runs regularly. Very consistent with my training volume but less exposure to precise hard efforts.

I'd like to convert to NSM and follow the book to a "T", basically. I'm hoping to get to the 8 hour template from the book in the first few months of 2026 and then run that throughout the year.

Do you wizards think it's better for me to start off with:

1) running one of the lesser-volume templates, and then building up.

2) running the 8 hour template, but starting with lesser volume intervals. like doing 3x10 instead of 4x10, 4x6 instead of 6x6, etc. And then adding a rep every month or so.

3) run the 8 hour template at the prescribed volume immediately, but sandbag the paces for a few months (basically run the book paces as if my 5k time is a minute slower than it is (three levels in the book charts), and jump up a level once a month or so).

4) just jump in full blast and run the 8 hour template at the prescribed paces.

I am thinking the best is option 2 or 3, and I am leaning towards option #3. Does this sound sane? I feel like with #1 I'd be regressing my training load quite a bit, and #4 seems risky.

Tbh, you will probably get worse. Which is why it isn't covered, going from more hours than the top example plan, downwards. The focus would more be if you are running 5 hours a week on other plans, to start around 4.5-5 hours and work your way up. The long term goal is to safely increase people's volume, not decrease it. You probably fit outside of the people in my opinion, that this will work for.

You are in the tiny minority already doing more volume than what even the extreme top end of NSM is designed for. Probably a tiny fraction of hobby joggers are already doing 10 hours a week. If you are determined, Iwould just start with the 3 sessions + easy doubles, near the end of the example weeks. Even then, you might get worse, if you are regularly running 10 hour weeks and went down to 8 (assuming regular 10 hour weeks).

I think sirpoc even said, if you are running this much, scan the QR code and go to all of Bakken's writings. That's your most logical step.

if I get worse that's fine, i really want to run the experiment and i don't care that much about my performance (i do care about consistent running and staying injury free). getting some free time back would be a little nice too.

i'm not high-end runner, just run a lot because 1) i like to run, and 2) i don't do a lot of quality currently (it's hurt me in the past but my previous exposure to structured training has been vo2max gutbusters or all-out stuff, going way too hard, which is why I'm excited to give this a chance).

i'm a 22-minute 5k guy for frame of reference. horrible body type and genetics for running, just like to do it. true hobby jogger. i can tolerate a lot of volume though (not sure what i get out of it...), that's the one thing i've got going for me.

You should run your current paces for the reps. If you find it too much cut back

Ok I think I understand this method. But how would I optimise it for a 5k? That's my main distance.

This question comes up a lot;

TL;DR

Sirpoc is the national British Masters Champion at 5k and finished the last km in like 2:50 to drop the lead group and Cheetodust I would guess, is one of, if not the fastest master in his age group in the US. He's even older than sirpoc. Both into their 40s. If they aren't worrying about "optimising" and more focused on keeping the overall benefits, you probably shouldn't be worrying about it much either, in the grand scheme.

Ikke tenk på det i miles per uke, tenk på det som restitusjonstid mellom øktene.
Hvis Ingebrigtsen-familien trener 3 quarterback + en LR, trener du kanskje bare 1–2 quarterback + LR annenhver uke.
Det samme gjelder doble terskler. I stedet for å trene to ganger på én dag, ville du trene to ganger på rad.
Du kan bruke den samme tilnærmingen på individuelle treningsøkter. Hvis de trener 8 x 4:30 hardt med 90 sekunders restitusjon, kan du trene 8 x 2:15 hardt med 3:45 restitusjon.
Men slutt å bekymre deg for ukentlig kilometerstand. Det er en ganske meningsløs målestokk for kondisjon. Tempo på treningsinnsatsen, lengden på treningsinnsatsen, det totale volumet av treningsinnsatsen og restitusjonstid sier 1000 ganger mer om hvor forberedt du er på å løpe fort.

I found some of the poster boys of this method on Strava (sirpoc, grandma's guy, fodrunner, paulluttrell) and think following their training very inspiring and informative. But I just don't manage to find cheetodust. Since he is often named as one of the best runners in this thread, could anybody point me in a direction how to find him? I am not sure about forum etiquette and giving away people's real names but any help would be highly appreciated.