A lactate step test is not enough, as you need to know your running economy and VO2max to judge what's the real root cause to your lactate curve shift (left, right or no shift).
Yes, a bit below MP everyday might well be the method that yields the highest CTL, at least on paper. There are several reasons for this. They range from genuine (it probably yields most load) to inflated TSS numbers (improvement is not necessarily translated into an higher threshold unless it is specifically updated, as there are less hard efforts and the algorithms of whichever platform may not pick improvement up, so accumulating more TSS becomes easier).
But going by Sirpoc's book, clearly the conjecture of NSA is not that it yields the highest number of TSS on paper. In fact, in this regard it's beaten by a traditional template in Sirpoc's example given in the book, and by extension would be beaten by the below MP approach.
Instead, it is supposed to have an advantage in the proverbial long run by allowing the beat go on indefinitely, without fatigue and/or injury. So one key question is: is below MP everyday sustainable that way, to cash in the theoretical advantage?
Chasing CTL or TSS for the sake of TSS was never the point of TSS. It's just a tool to aggregate and help see the forest. Also one pithy Coggan aphorism something to the effect that it's called training stress score and not adaptation score for a reason.
I hope this post gets the attention is deserves. This is the point of the book. It's the most sustainable load. That illustration is perfect, because it shows you why traditional training is a short term fix and ultimately why NSM is the long term fix. We have all been in the situation of that graph I would imagine, where all is going well and then you nose dive down, because you needed a reload, or felt burned out, or it's just thr end of a traditional block and you start all over. This is it in a nutshell.
You 'outrun' any other training system for hobby joggers by the aggregate over time. That's it's simplicity and genius. If you have to sum up why it's so good, that's it. Over 3 weeks, traditional running training looks good. But by week 20 I guarantee you, NSM provided you stay healthy was a better idea.
There's actually no chasing CTL here. That seems to be a myth people have decided on. It's just chasing whatever load is sustainable, over an infinite period of time. Subthreshold is the simplest tool to get us there. The Lt1 reps daily might seem good on paper, but the general consensus seems to be the fatigue cost and then the need for some sort of rest from it all, will leave you short of the volume/load or however you want to account for it, over let's argue a 6 month period, versus vanilla NSM.
I actually just re-read the book and I'm more sold on it second time around even.
Just to add another datapoint for people worried about losing top end speed. Been following the Sub-T lifestyle for 6-7 months. Reps typically around 3:35 to 3:40 per km. Just tried 3x 1 km hard efforts (with very long 1 km jog rest) and hit 3:04, 3:06 and 3:05. Not a single stride or hill sprint to be seen. Age 44.
I had a similar experience. I have been on the vanilla NSM for 17 months. I just ran my best mile in 9 years and not far off my pb which was set in 2006. I'm 47. Without even going anywhere near that pace in training.
Just to add another datapoint for people worried about losing top end speed. Been following the Sub-T lifestyle for 6-7 months. Reps typically around 3:35 to 3:40 per km. Just tried 3x 1 km hard efforts (with very long 1 km jog rest) and hit 3:04, 3:06 and 3:05. Not a single stride or hill sprint to be seen. Age 44.
I had a similar experience. I have been on the vanilla NSM for 17 months. I just ran my best mile in 9 years and not far off my pb which was set in 2006. I'm 47. Without even going anywhere near that pace in training.
Just to add another datapoint for people worried about losing top end speed. Been following the Sub-T lifestyle for 6-7 months. Reps typically around 3:35 to 3:40 per km. Just tried 3x 1 km hard efforts (with very long 1 km jog rest) and hit 3:04, 3:06 and 3:05. Not a single stride or hill sprint to be seen. Age 44.
maybe with some strides and intervals, you'd have run 2:58,3:00,2:59 though. There's no way to know unless you go back to the old training to compare. That said, the whole thread is a cult, I'm speaking blasphemy here.
Yes, a bit below MP everyday might well be the method that yields the highest CTL, at least on paper. There are several reasons for this. They range from genuine (it probably yields most load) to inflated TSS numbers (improvement is not necessarily translated into an higher threshold unless it is specifically updated, as there are less hard efforts and the algorithms of whichever platform may not pick improvement up, so accumulating more TSS becomes easier).
But going by Sirpoc's book, clearly the conjecture of NSA is not that it yields the highest number of TSS on paper. In fact, in this regard it's beaten by a traditional template in Sirpoc's example given in the book, and by extension would be beaten by the below MP approach.
Instead, it is supposed to have an advantage in the proverbial long run by allowing the beat go on indefinitely, without fatigue and/or injury. So one key question is: is below MP everyday sustainable that way, to cash in the theoretical advantage?
Chasing CTL or TSS for the sake of TSS was never the point of TSS. It's just a tool to aggregate and help see the forest. Also one pithy Coggan aphorism something to the effect that it's called training stress score and not adaptation score for a reason.
You see, that was exactly my point. While the method clearly works, there is still some misunderstanding about why exactly that is. I've had people tell me that CTL can be ignored, and that it is the main reason for the improvement (even Sirpoc came in for a visit to tell us that).
So if there are different ways to increase CTL, some even more successful at doing so, why threshold? Maybe it's not even that the threshold running is the key to the reported success here, maybe it's that Sirpoc finally got you slow enough to recover during the rest of the week? And some others to stop pretending that 1 session a week is enough to progress?
Anyway, just a food for thought, because often times any suggestion to change in this plan is met with 'certain doom' of doing it, while we can't even clearly agree WHY this method works where others failed (e.g., would you fail Danniels' if you ran your easy paces easy?).
maybe with some strides and intervals, you'd have run 2:58,3:00,2:59 though. There's no way to know unless you go back to the old training to compare. That said, the whole thread is a cult, I'm speaking blasphemy here.
I don't understand this. Maybe people find it hard to understand. I ran a recent 3k pb with no speedwork or interval pace stuff.
The point being, the reason I ran the 3k pb was because I REMOVED those things and focused on what matters, which is my lack of aerobic capacity.
Sure I could have ran a bunch of more pacey stuff, but I would have sacrificed the easy gains somewhere along the line, which outweigh the improvement the pacey stuff for most of us. Maybe I'm being stupid but I assumed this was pretty obvious at this point? You have to make some sort of choice as to your path, if you mix and match you just end up with neither the best of both worlds and it becomes any other training.
Now, if I wasn't improving on just the huge aerobic base, then the conversation is different. But the gains like this for most of us are ridiculously easy that it almost feels like cheating.
You see, that was exactly my point. While the method clearly works, there is still some misunderstanding about why exactly that is. I've had people tell me that CTL can be ignored, and that it is the main reason for the improvement (even Sirpoc came in for a visit to tell us that).
So if there are different ways to increase CTL, some even more successful at doing so, why threshold? Maybe it's not even that the threshold running is the key to the reported success here, maybe it's that Sirpoc finally got you slow enough to recover during the rest of the week? And some others to stop pretending that 1 session a week is enough to progress?
Anyway, just a food for thought, because often times any suggestion to change in this plan is met with 'certain doom' of doing it, while we can't even clearly agree WHY this method works where others failed (e.g., would you fail Danniels' if you ran your easy paces easy?).
Certain doom is gaslighting in itself. The book certainly isn't saying that. Not the one I read anyway.
I think I've read enough from others doing this method for a long time, experienced enough myself, that there is a pretty fine margin of error for this training. Sure, you can change things and I have, but you definitely feel a shift in that balance.
Who knows why it works so well? That is a mystery to me. As someone else pointed out, there's 9000 posts for a reason, need people keep discovering it and trying it. People report back after 9-12 months, sometimes more and the ball keeps rolling. I'm definitely not qualified on the 'why'. I'm not convinced I even care. I just know my times have improved a crazy amount across the board versus any other training I've ever done.
There is nothing magical with subT or this method, just you can do a massive amount of this aerobic work with relatively minimal fatigue. Therefore over the long term you generate more load which you can absorb. As most of our events are 98%+ aerobic this directly benefits us.
Hi guys! Two things. Firstly, a quick update on NSM for ultras.
Now I'm sure sirpoc absolutely did not intend this, but it worked great for me! I think the key is NSM still brings a fantastic base and all you then need to do is pace the ultra sensibly along with fueling. I ran a 80k race last weekend and finished the course in 29 minutes faster than previous years, just using NSM as a base and a much longer run on a Sunday than recommended and a super stretched medium long run usually on one of the easy days. Other than that, it would be considered classically "vanilla".
A bit like you marathon guys, I just felt super strong! It's probably optimal for my lifestyle and keeping me healthy, opposed to anything more aggressive ultra wise which I also found can take over all my spare time just recovering. Anyway, just thought I would add this as it seems it's testimonial season so thought I would share mine for any other weird ultra obsessives like me :)
My second point, is has anyone seen sirpoc training lately? I feel like he has made a huge jump back to London level. A while back how he posted he's basically going to do vanilla + 2 sessions cycling, what he called a "free hit". His reason being the recovery is sped up cycling in the morning, to the point by lunch the fatigue has vanished.
He ran yesterday 4*3km , finishing well under LTHR and averaging around 3:18-19/km. I know he raced a couple of weeks ago and it was "only" 15:04 but it just seems that kind of workout seemingly relatively comfortable is way above that. I just wondered if that really is it, the next key when you are maxed out is not necessarily running doubles but cross training to unlock a bit more. I know he said ask him in half a year, but it just seems like there might be something unlocked in just a few months.
Not everyone always agrees btw, but by Letsrun standards the debate is pretty civil!
Would you mind sharing a little more detail about your ultra build? How long did you go on your long days? What was the elevation gain like on the course? Did you incorporate any hills into your training? What was your weekly mileage like?
Or maybe if you’re in the Strava group could you make a post there so I can scour your training 😁
So, running 40 - 60 minutes at a pace that is sustainable for roughly an hour is not hard?
Only on LRC...
It isn’t that hard.
You guys just dont know what threshold should feel like so you always overcook.
Only on LRC…
For the many of us who haven’t measured by lactate recently, there is the possibility that LTHR is lower than we think. The Norwegian zone system uses 3.5 mmol or 87% of max hr as the cap.
Hi everyone! Have been doing NSM for 9 weeks very consistently. Averaged about 35 miles per week with 3 sessions... 5x6min, 3x10min and 10x3min. 5k time has come down from 24:05 a few weeks before starting to 23:27 after 4 weeks and 22:43 after 7 weeks. Still slow but enjoying the training. Sunday my family decided to do the West Palm Beach Marathon as a family. I took the longest leg of 8.3 miles. My eldest daughter isn't a runner but really wanted to do it so she took the shortest leg of 4.9 miles. She was nervous at the start so I said I would run/walk her leg with her. It took 67 mins.... Very proud of her finishing her leg (And, my youngest doing almost 8 miles and wife 5 miles)!!!!! We crossed the line and I continued on my leg. Daniels equates to around 7:50/mile pace from my 5K but I immediately struggled to get into that pace... I settled around 8:30 pace for the first 1.5 miles... then the wheels literally fell off! I ended up run /walking 0.4mile/0.1mile the rest of the way. Just felt like I had no energy! It was a little warm at 70F but not sure it was weather related. I have run hundreds of races from 5K to 50K and this just felt as if I had no strength in my legs. By half way my heartrate was averaging Zone 4 during my running sections. I know there are lots of different reasons this could have happened but I have never experienced anything like this during any of my races before. Could it have been that the stop/start slow run/walk with my daughter just whacked me out of it? Still an amazing experience to run a marathon as a family!
So, running 40 - 60 minutes at a pace that is sustainable for roughly an hour is not hard?
Only on LRC...
It isn’t that hard.
You guys just dont know what threshold should feel like so you always overcook.
Only on LRC…
Great. How do you develop an understanding of what it feels like? I suppose it’s not likely to be all that easy or intuitive if so many people get it so wrong
Great. How do you develop an understanding of what it feels like? I suppose it’s not likely to be all that easy or intuitive if so many people get it so wrong
Well, to practice you have to do a lot of Max efforts at a bunch of different durations to feel how you feel. Sounds corny, but 3 minutes all out is vastly different feeling than a 20 minute effort, right?
And perform honest hard efforts of 40-50 minutes. Races up to an hour are good too. Gives you a chance to control your breathing.
It really comes down to whether you can feel your breathing change and how subtle that change can be around threshold. It’s way different than when you get close to VO2 max and start hyperventilating. I think it’s even more subtle than the first ventilatory threshold when you go over conversational pace.
Ive done other things to verify my thresholds, but 99% of people don’t have access to the equipment.
Hi everyone! Have been doing NSM for 9 weeks very consistently. Averaged about 35 miles per week with 3 sessions... 5x6min, 3x10min and 10x3min. 5k time has come down from 24:05 a few weeks before starting to 23:27 after 4 weeks and 22:43 after 7 weeks. Still slow but enjoying the training. Sunday my family decided to do the West Palm Beach Marathon as a family. I took the longest leg of 8.3 miles. My eldest daughter isn't a runner but really wanted to do it so she took the shortest leg of 4.9 miles. She was nervous at the start so I said I would run/walk her leg with her. It took 67 mins.... Very proud of her finishing her leg (And, my youngest doing almost 8 miles and wife 5 miles)!!!!! We crossed the line and I continued on my leg. Daniels equates to around 7:50/mile pace from my 5K but I immediately struggled to get into that pace... I settled around 8:30 pace for the first 1.5 miles... then the wheels literally fell off! I ended up run /walking 0.4mile/0.1mile the rest of the way. Just felt like I had no energy! It was a little warm at 70F but not sure it was weather related. I have run hundreds of races from 5K to 50K and this just felt as if I had no strength in my legs. By half way my heartrate was averaging Zone 4 during my running sections. I know there are lots of different reasons this could have happened but I have never experienced anything like this during any of my races before. Could it have been that the stop/start slow run/walk with my daughter just whacked me out of it? Still an amazing experience to run a marathon as a family!
for beginners, I actually think a more traditional approach, even with a slightly lower mileage like 25-30mpw would give you a better bang on the buck. You don't even have to do those grueling vo2max intervals or 20 mins tempo at T pace. Something like 1 mile at T pace (1 hr race pace), 1 min rest or 40-60 mins at aerobic threshold (think 30k pace) would do wonder.
I would probably die on the hill that impact of load is the prominent driver of gains. I don't think that's particularly revolutionary though. People have been using this principle in different endurance sports for a long time, in various guises. Subthreshold probably solves the load versus fatigue balance, to get where we need to be on limited hours without over cooking ourselves or being unable to appropriately absorb the work we are doing. Again, coming from sweet spot and the cycling time trial world, this isn't really a surprise to me.
As I've posted before, the range significantly below and above threshold, we have talked about many times, has flaws in just about any system you can use to track load. Whether it be a coincidence or not, myself and Hard2find actually started discussing it again at the weekend. He had his own "Eureka" moment that makes sense, of how to solve that problem. Update coming one day. Maybe. Ha ha
thank you! I have seen training like this even in swimming lol...
My biggest issue with long high end aerobic intervals is just how taxing they are. As a few others have pointed out, for me personally, this is what drives me into the ground in marathon build. E.g 20-25km as part of a long run at ~90% of MP or sometimes harder, which can get out of control really quickly. Especially week after week.
I totally agree that those long runs at 90% MP can be a real drag, especially when you're trying to get in the other workouts too.
Based on Davis' own writing, I don't know how much bang for your buck you'd actually get from those. It really looks like his book points to time spent between LT1 & LT2 being the biggest driver of most marathon (and other distance) fitness components. 90% MP would be noticeably slower than LT1. And in fact, if I interpret Davis correctly, this pace would be mostly indistinguishable from any easy pace with respect to performance adaptations.
The "long high end aerobic intervals" would be something more like 4x5k around marathon pace or a tad faster... just as we see in Sirpoc's marathon block. Or maybe something like 16k of alternating kilos a bit faster and a bit slower than MP.
It'll be interesting to see if runners do more 4x5k or 4x20 min. at MP versus something like the classic 10 EZ and 10 @ MP as your peak marathon workout 3 weeks prior to the race. Hanson's is still good for some runners, but it may be too speedy versus NSM for some.
One way to think about it is in the old days of Letsrun you'd have a bunch of threads with people (some pretty fast, well trained guys at that, too) saying they could just run steady mileage, nothing near race pace for months on end and then race close to their PRs if not outright improve on them.
This method is basically a more thought out, more modernized, more refined version of saying what if we did that, but instead for 2-3 months the entire year, and then more until it simply stops working?
I'll admit I was definitely skeptical at first too and took a while to work out things, and still think there's some room for individualization re. the inclusion of 1 min reps (see the podcast where Andy spoke with sirpoc about this), but after reading the book for myself the more it all makes sense.
No periodization is just stupid. An infinite base phase is just sub-optimal. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.