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.
depends on the level of the runners. If you're a 3:30 marathoner, running 25k at m pace is not that big of a deal, but if you're running 2:30 (m pace being far closer to your LT), that would be an overkill and it's wise to break it up
2x Dynafish Xiaonian + 2x Li Ning Red Hare 8 Pro for a grand total of £250 including shipping.
Li Nings are solid, my older pair have 100kin them and I have no complaints, they are slightly firm but the light weight and relative stability makes up for it
The dynafish though WTF these are 177g in my US size 8, over 100g lighter than my puma mag max bricks (279g) despite being in the same "max stack super trainer" category, hell they are pushing the puma fast r-3 (165g) close, and that shoe stripped back as much as it could. The foam is more responsive than most carbon plated trainers and this has no plate. The rocker is crazy too. I can see why this has had rave reviews and many consider it to be the shoe of the year, can't wait to test it out on my long run. The fact that this costs a third of a megablast is outrageous.
2x Dynafish Xiaonian + 2x Li Ning Red Hare 8 Pro for a grand total of £250 including shipping.
Li Nings are solid, my older pair have 100kin them and I have no complaints, they are slightly firm but the light weight and relative stability makes up for it
The dynafish though WTF these are 177g in my US size 8, over 100g lighter than my puma mag max bricks (279g) despite being in the same "max stack super trainer" category, hell they are pushing the puma fast r-3 (165g) close, and that shoe stripped back as much as it could. The foam is more responsive than most carbon plated trainers and this has no plate. The rocker is crazy too. I can see why this has had rave reviews and many consider it to be the shoe of the year, can't wait to test it out on my long run. The fact that this costs a third of a megablast is outrageous.
I will risk the Alfie downvotes to reply to this. But I saw sirpoc post randomly on running shoe geeks on Facebook and he said the Xioanian is the greatest running shoe he's ever run in, so I bought it. Mine came last week and it's simply ridiculous for £78, I ordered the do-win PB pro and two pairs of challengers to spread the postage cost and I don't think I paid more than £235 total. I have the megablast which was £220 on its own and the Xioanian is far superior, in every way + i got probably the best race shoe and two other great pairs of shoes for almost the same price! The Megablast upper is awful and cheap in comparison.
Considering the spirit of the thread is best bang for your buck, I figure this is a safe space to not be judged for Chinese shoes and getting value for money!
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.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I think the Friel Test is garbage for running.
It might be accurate for cycling, but having been someone who would regularly overcook 30 minute continuous "tempo" runs in years gone by - being well above LT2 HR for the last 20 minutes of an all-out time trial doesn't seem that difficult to me.
Maybe I'm pulling numbers out of my *rse here, but I suspect I could get close to averaging 10bpm above what I estimate as LT2 in one of these time trials.
I might even try it one day - if there are no races on the calendar and I need something to break up the training.
Doesn't the book say 96-98% of a Friel test to use as your LTHR? Which makes perfect sense training like this, where your LTHR is in effect your safety net, underestimating is always going to be better. I always assumed this was the case anyway. I didn't think anyone was using 100% of it.
From Joe Friel's blog:
"All that's required is running (or riding) as hard as you can possibly go for 30 minutes ALL BY YOURSELF."
"...your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes. That's an approximation of your LTHR (also often referred to as anaerobic threshold or functional threshold heart rate)."
The book says "If you are being extra cautious and want to give yourself a safer buffer zone, I recommend using 96-98% of the last 20 minutes from the Friel Test."
I agree with this, but I don't think many people are being extra cautious.
Doesn't the book say 96-98% of a Friel test to use as your LTHR? Which makes perfect sense training like this, where your LTHR is in effect your safety net, underestimating is always going to be better. I always assumed this was the case anyway. I didn't think anyone was using 100% of it.
From Joe Friel's blog:
"All that's required is running (or riding) as hard as you can possibly go for 30 minutes ALL BY YOURSELF."
"...your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes. That's an approximation of your LTHR (also often referred to as anaerobic threshold or functional threshold heart rate)."
The book says "If you are being extra cautious and want to give yourself a safer buffer zone, I recommend using 96-98% of the last 20 minutes from the Friel Test."
I agree with this, but I don't think many people are being extra cautious.
There is another, quite reliable way to determine LT1 and LT2, developed by Mariano García-Verdugo Delmas, called the Diper Test.
It is an incremental or ramp-style test. I used this test to determine the thresholds for an athlete I was helping with his training in 2022. Using the test, I determined that LT1 occurred at 160 bpm and LT2 at 180 bpm. I am still in contact with him, and a few weeks ago he had a gas exchange stress test in the lab. Coincidentally, he received the results today: 158 bpm for LT1 and 177 bpm for LT2. His VO2max was 65 ml/kg/min, which aligns with Alan Couzens' calculator (link), which estimates 66 ml/kg/min.
Another club dedicated to NSM has been created so that all Spanish speakers can share their experiences and questions, and invite friends to learn about it and start using it if they wish.
The new club name is Metodo Noruego de Umbrales Individuales
Yeah, the Dynafish 2.0 is something else. Can't remember the last time I was this impressed by a shoe, possibly never.
Xiaonian, Challenger 5, and PB Pro is a killer combo for the price of, what, a single Puma Fast-R3 or less.
not to break up the Norwegianness of the thread, or the sheer Britishery of the pints-n-mars-bars mentioned therein, but any recs on dynafish sources for a poor american languishing under tariffs?
I mainly have been doing 5-6 6-minute intervals with 1 minute standing recovery for my LT workout.
I'm curious - I saw earlier in the thread that 10-mile pace was recommended for these, but the book seems to indicate half marathon pace. The difference isn't substantial but I'm curious which I should be aiming for. I'm in shape for around a 1:27 half marathon most likely.. So my duration for half marathon is admittedly a fair bit longer than sirpoc and the faster folks. This makes me think 10-mile pace is maybe the way to go, but interested to hear of what others think
I mainly have been doing 5-6 6-minute intervals with 1 minute standing recovery for my LT workout.
I'm curious - I saw earlier in the thread that 10-mile pace was recommended for these, but the book seems to indicate half marathon pace. The difference isn't substantial but I'm curious which I should be aiming for. I'm in shape for around a 1:27 half marathon most likely.. So my duration for half marathon is admittedly a fair bit longer than sirpoc and the faster folks. This makes me think 10-mile pace is maybe the way to go, but interested to hear of what others think
This was covered a few weeks ago. The initial guidelines were "pace based". But obviously HM pace is different, depending on if you are sirpoc or me (I'm very slow).
The new guide in the book, based on your 5k time as a reference point (very useful) is around 90 min pace, for the 6 mins, no matter who you sfe. This is mentioned being as less aggressive and scales better across a broader range of people in my opinion. It'll almost certainly lead to less people overcooking, using this rather than lactrace or the original guidelines. Especially the 10 min reps.
10-minute reps from that table are noticeably slower, to the point where I think it starts to encourage increasing to 3x12 or 4x10, which is the first recommendation for how to add sub-T load.
So I received my copy of John Davis' Marathon Excellence for everyone".
I've only read the intro, but already here I'm skeptical ... It's probably just an EU vs. the US thing, but it reads like a marketing leaflet.
"People asked me for advice, so I dived into the classics of training revisiting Lydard, Daniels ... and then I studied the training plans of Elite (Paula Radcliffe was the only name I recognized, tho that is 20 years ago, isn't it?)
And thus I came up with the Marathon Excellence plans .. Followed by writing the phrase "Marathon excellence" a zillion times .. You too can partake in "Marathon excellence", "Marathon excellence for you!" .. "Marathon excellence plans" ... "Ready for some Marathon excellence?" .. "Step right up to Marathon excellence!"
...
Not judging the book yet and hopefully it's just an attempt at a sales pitch in the intro ... But ....
Oh well ... end small rant.
Fingers crossed that it's just me being Scandinavian .. :D
10-minute reps from that table are noticeably slower, to the point where I think it starts to encourage increasing to 3x12 or 4x10, which is the first recommendation for how to add sub-T load.
Slower and fits better IMO. 10-12 min reps have always been where I've seen people say "too hard" or "overcooking them". It makes more sense like this, as the whole premise of the book is that it is better to end up below target in the long run, than consistently over.
The whole thing to remember is this isn't tinman, who wanted you to run within a fraction of a second of every rep pace. It's a broad guide, to apply to as many people as possible. Also like the 5k as a reference point, as a hobby jogger it's probably our most frequent starting point or most up to date reference.
Btw, fantastic job on the book. Even as someone who is very familiar with all the content in the thread, I learned a nice amount to take away from it.
"All that's required is running (or riding) as hard as you can possibly go for 30 minutes ALL BY YOURSELF."
"...your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes. That's an approximation of your LTHR (also often referred to as anaerobic threshold or functional threshold heart rate)."
The book says "If you are being extra cautious and want to give yourself a safer buffer zone, I recommend using 96-98% of the last 20 minutes from the Friel Test."
I agree with this, but I don't think many people are being extra cautious.
There is another, quite reliable way to determine LT1 and LT2, developed by Mariano García-Verdugo Delmas, called the Diper Test.
It is an incremental or ramp-style test. I used this test to determine the thresholds for an athlete I was helping with his training in 2022. Using the test, I determined that LT1 occurred at 160 bpm and LT2 at 180 bpm. I am still in contact with him, and a few weeks ago he had a gas exchange stress test in the lab. Coincidentally, he received the results today: 158 bpm for LT1 and 177 bpm for LT2. His VO2max was 65 ml/kg/min, which aligns with Alan Couzens' calculator (link), which estimates 66 ml/kg/min.
I mainly have been doing 5-6 6-minute intervals with 1 minute standing recovery for my LT workout.
I'm curious - I saw earlier in the thread that 10-mile pace was recommended for these, but the book seems to indicate half marathon pace. The difference isn't substantial but I'm curious which I should be aiming for. I'm in shape for around a 1:27 half marathon most likely.. So my duration for half marathon is admittedly a fair bit longer than sirpoc and the faster folks. This makes me think 10-mile pace is maybe the way to go, but interested to hear of what others think
it depends how fast you are. I would just use 1-hour pace (or slightly slower) to avoid ambiguity. So it depends how fast you are. For Sirpoc, that would be HM, for average hobby joggers, that would be 15k-10 miles.
not to break up the Norwegianness of the thread, or the sheer Britishery of the pints-n-mars-bars mentioned therein, but any recs on dynafish sources for a poor american languishing under tariffs?
Any Chinese shoes that are decently stable/stable-ish? I loved the DS trainers (RIP) and the Hyperion GTS (now also RIP), but mild stability “performance” trainers seems to be a nonexistent category at least with western brands now. Hoping something from China can fill the void, the $ savings would be a nice bonus
Back to NSM, been following vanilla for about 2 years now. Huge gains, racing 10 milers and halfs at faster paces than I was 5k’s before. It works, just keep plugging away at it. Hoping to find a copy of the book under the tree next week to learn even more and springboard to more PBs and my first marathon in 2026. Big thanks to sirpoc for sharing the method!
it depends how fast you are. I would just use 1-hour pace (or slightly slower) to avoid ambiguity. So it depends how fast you are. For Sirpoc, that would be HM, for average hobby joggers, that would be 15k-10 miles.
That’s as slow at 10k pace for many hobby joggers.
That’s why using any race pace fudge factor is terrible. 15 and 25 minutes 5kers, 70 and 100 minute half marathoners, etc. way different areas physiologically for both racers.
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.