Curious about the validity of 7x 75-90 min easy runs. Typically, these will yield a 50-60 load for me, respectively. 350-420 weekly load.
On the flip, doing vanilla 320-340. Hypothetically, I'd be able to stack more load, and total volume would obviously be higher.
My question, is would this be more beneficial for someone who is specifically extremly aerobically underdeveloped, but has some speed (me)?
I trained like this a long time. Just 90 mins easy every day with a two hour long run.
The below is just my experience.
I don't think you will plateau in 8 weeks, or 8 months. It will make you very fit over a long period of time. You do have to be consistent and really crank the volume though.
But fitness and "race readiness" are two different things.
If you just jump into a 5k off this kind of training, your result will reflect maybe 94-95% of your fitness.
With NSM, if you just jump into a 5k, your result will reflect maybe 98-99% of your fitness. To me that is the big advantage of this system (there is also the time-optimization, which is a big plus for some people. I don't care about it because I have no life and a bs job, but the "race readiness" factor won me over).
If you are willing to spend a few weeks sharpening (you don't need a lot), it can be just as good though. Or just do a little bit of quality.
This type of training is as old as the hills. If you are interested, I would look into the ancient wisdom of the 60s/70s. Tom Osler in particular, and Ernst van Aaken. It could probably be argued that Tom Osler was the Moses of hobbyjoggers during the golden age, the sirpoc of his time. There is some line in his book (I don't have it on me) that really stands out, something like "many amateur runners will be best off just training like this (his base template) year-round without preparing for specific races".
Key to both of those guys is one short, relaxed time trial per week. Keeps you used to hard running and the mechanics good.
Keep in mind that there's a lot more knowledge now than there was back then. They didn't really know about threshold or tempo. Training was either all-out or jogging, nothing in-between. And there's some stuff in Van Aaken's book in particular that you obviously just throw in the garbage can (advocating for anorexia and sleep deprivation didn't age well). But also a lot of solid gold in this stuff.
I think if I were to do this today, I'd probably do some combo workout once a week, with something like some reps of Magness rhythm 200s + 15 minutes of volume at threshold or slightly higher (maybe 3x5mins or 4x4 mins), instead of the straight time trial. Or just a fartlek.
Or you could build in LT1 volume, then you basically have Lydiard. Or Hadd.
Many years ago, I did very similar. 9 months of nothing but easy running. 90-110 mins every day, with a 135ish mins long run. Circa 12 hours of running each week. I took a rest day when I felt like it, maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. I was in excellent shape when I started racing, without any peaking work. This felt sustainable, until I started including more regular races. I had to stop as my lifestyle no longer gave me that amount of time for running. When I dropped down to 6-7 hours per week, with workouts, my race times got slower.
I trained like this a long time. Just 90 mins easy every day with a two hour long run.
The below is just my experience.
I don't think you will plateau in 8 weeks, or 8 months. It will make you very fit over a long period of time. You do have to be consistent and really crank the volume though.
But fitness and "race readiness" are two different things.
If you just jump into a 5k off this kind of training, your result will reflect maybe 94-95% of your fitness.
With NSM, if you just jump into a 5k, your result will reflect maybe 98-99% of your fitness. To me that is the big advantage of this system (there is also the time-optimization, which is a big plus for some people. I don't care about it because I have no life and a bs job, but the "race readiness" factor won me over).
If you are willing to spend a few weeks sharpening (you don't need a lot), it can be just as good though. Or just do a little bit of quality.
This type of training is as old as the hills. If you are interested, I would look into the ancient wisdom of the 60s/70s. Tom Osler in particular, and Ernst van Aaken. It could probably be argued that Tom Osler was the Moses of hobbyjoggers during the golden age, the sirpoc of his time. There is some line in his book (I don't have it on me) that really stands out, something like "many amateur runners will be best off just training like this (his base template) year-round without preparing for specific races".
Key to both of those guys is one short, relaxed time trial per week. Keeps you used to hard running and the mechanics good.
Keep in mind that there's a lot more knowledge now than there was back then. They didn't really know about threshold or tempo. Training was either all-out or jogging, nothing in-between. And there's some stuff in Van Aaken's book in particular that you obviously just throw in the garbage can (advocating for anorexia and sleep deprivation didn't age well). But also a lot of solid gold in this stuff.
I think if I were to do this today, I'd probably do some combo workout once a week, with something like some reps of Magness rhythm 200s + 15 minutes of volume at threshold or slightly higher (maybe 3x5mins or 4x4 mins), instead of the straight time trial. Or just a fartlek.
Or you could build in LT1 volume, then you basically have Lydiard. Or Hadd.
Many years ago, I did very similar. 9 months of nothing but easy running. 90-110 mins every day, with a 135ish mins long run. Circa 12 hours of running each week. I took a rest day when I felt like it, maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. I was in excellent shape when I started racing, without any peaking work. This felt sustainable, until I started including more regular races. I had to stop as my lifestyle no longer gave me that amount of time for running. When I dropped down to 6-7 hours per week, with workouts, my race times got slower.
You might have started increasing workouts but your overall load was probably lower.
The whole point of this thread is about load management and getting the most load for the amount of time you run. Running 12 hours a week, all easy, might seem like it's not strenuous but it is adding, probably substantially, more load than 6 hours with some intensity. It's quite obvious
For my last marathon, I followed the last 3 weeks of the marathon special block almost exactly and it worked perfectly; I felt amazing and at my fittest on race day.
I'm planning things out for my next marathon and I can’t find a half marathon in my area 3 weeks out. I’m considering a couple of options. There’s a competitive 10 miler that is 2 weeks out. If I were to do that, I’d move the 5 x 5k to the week before and probably move the 15 mile progression back by a day. This sounds like the most fun option, but I’m hesitant to tweak the plan; I feel like I have a good understanding of the regular plan and how to adjust it over time, but there’s still a sort of mysticism for the special block and I’m afraid any tweak will make it worse.
The next option is doing a solo HM time trial 3 weeks out–I saw this is what Grandma’s Guy did. This sounds pretty bad to me, but I’d do it if I’m convinced it’s the best option. Then I could follow the special block exactly again.
The 3rd option would be to do a big workout like 4 x 5k in place of the HM. I could probably do another workout or two then before the 5 x 5k, so the cumulative load would be the same and this would be a lot easier to execute mentally. But I’m concerned part of the magic of the special block was doing the HM followed by the 5 x 5k. Any feedback would be appreciated.
No, because he clearly isn't absorbing any of the training.
All training load is not equal. The more load is not always the best option. You need a sustainable load you can actually absorb.
Respect your work so much dude. Really cool to see you commenting on here and would love to see SIRPoC have a sit down chat with you. Maybe on one your videos or podcast.
Good luck on your marathon build. 2:2X marathon incoming
Curious about the validity of 7x 75-90 min easy runs. Typically, these will yield a 50-60 load for me, respectively. 350-420 weekly load.
On the flip, doing vanilla 320-340. Hypothetically, I'd be able to stack more load, and total volume would obviously be higher.
My question, is would this be more beneficial for someone who is specifically extremly aerobically underdeveloped, but has some speed (me)?
I really think you should run the experiment for a few months. The responses you’re getting are the exact same responses you would have received if you proposed the NSM schedule years ago.
”yeah, this would work okay for building a base but you’d need to add in more 5k pace and faster work to race a good 5k/10k or do harder long runs to race a good HM/Marathon etc.”
People saying they’ve done this before, perhaps, but a hobbyjogger running sub 70% HRMax for an easy run is already exceedingly rare. To do that 7 days in a row indefinitely, I really doubt it’s been done in that controlled and intentional a way before to glean meaningful data from. If it works it is another data point in what is a paradigm shift in running training. If it doesn’t, it might help understand a lower limit on what constitutes specificity, or a rethinking of the training load calculations for easy running.
No, because he clearly isn't absorbing any of the training.
All training load is not equal. The more load is not always the best option. You need a sustainable load you can actually absorb.
Respect your work so much dude. Really cool to see you commenting on here and would love to see SIRPoC have a sit down chat with you. Maybe on one your videos or podcast.
Good luck on your marathon build. 2:2X marathon incoming
As I said, Stryd calculates mechanical power, period. IOW, it is completely agnostic to physiology.
However, Stryd power is highly predictive of the energetic cost of running (Garmin somewhat less so) because mechanical power output is the most important driver of metabolic cost
As a Stryd user, I couldn't care less if the reported number is mechanical or metabolic. It doesn't matter if it's validated against the power my body is truly producing in the run, if that can even be measured. The argument about whether or not it's true watts or just a calorie counter is irrelevant IMO.
What is important to me is that the number on my watch matches my RPE and is consistent and reliable across different efforts. Provided I race and/or test periodically to ensure a valid CP/FTP, then I know when I train to a percentage of that CP/FTP, I'm repeatedly hitting the same effort.
And that's been my experience. The power number Stryd sends to my watch has been predictable and reliable. It's changed a few different aspects of my training for the better and I'm seeing consistent, measurable progress.
I really think you should run the experiment for a few months. The responses you’re getting are the exact same responses you would have received if you proposed the NSM schedule years ago.
”yeah, this would work okay for building a base but you’d need to add in more 5k pace and faster work to race a good 5k/10k or do harder long runs to race a good HM/Marathon etc.”
People saying they’ve done this before, perhaps, but a hobbyjogger running sub 70% HRMax for an easy run is already exceedingly rare. To do that 7 days in a row indefinitely, I really doubt it’s been done in that controlled and intentional a way before to glean meaningful data from. If it works it is another data point in what is a paradigm shift in running training. If it doesn’t, it might help understand a lower limit on what constitutes specificity, or a rethinking of the training load calculations for easy running.
Honestly, I enjoy running experiments on myself. I'm a running nerd at heart as well as a coach, so even though its just a personal, anecdotal data point, it still expands upon training specificity, even if it's my own personal training.
I'm also pretty anal and will stick to the hard fast HRMax rule, regardless of pace. No shame in 10 or 11 min miles if that's what the body wants. Plus I know that I need the low end aerobic work as the past 5 months of NSA are the first time on my life my easy runs weren't flirting with 160+ bpm.
I keep a log here on letsrun and I'm on strava for anyone who wants to follow along. My curiosity is getting the better of me, I fear, so I'll give it a whirl.
Curious about the validity of 7x 75-90 min easy runs. Typically, these will yield a 50-60 load for me, respectively. 350-420 weekly load.
On the flip, doing vanilla 320-340. Hypothetically, I'd be able to stack more load, and total volume would obviously be higher.
My question, is would this be more beneficial for someone who is specifically extremly aerobically underdeveloped, but has some speed (me)?
fwiw I sort of did this - came back from a month completely off and decided to do 12 weeks of easy running only, an hour or so a day and 80 minutes on Sunday all below 70% MHR. I realise that's not a long time for an experiment though. I found that I barely got quicker over 5km, I shaved off about 10s total, but my easy pace improved a lot. At the start my easy pace was only generating around 0.55 TSS/minute and now it's up around 0.8. I've stopped now and started incorporating NSM workouts again, it got very boring.
Going to give this a whirl after struggling now for 18 months and really don't have a clue why which is a first. Went from 56yo 2:46 marathon in the tropics (hot) to throwing in the towel about a month ago and stopped all exercise for a week. I have been running only easy until my first NSM run today.
* 3x10(60 rest) - 6:22/mi (143HR), 6:21(149) & 6:24 (155 ). Felt pretty close to marathon effort. My max HR is 182ish.
Had to hold myself back a couple times where usually I would have just inched up the pace. Three of these and a long run for a nearly 60yo seems a little excessive. Maybe if I keep the efforts at right around marathon pace? Also, the long run would be on a treadmill at around 15% incline on most weeks ( might do half on TM and then the remainder on the roads ). Not a big fan of the long run and might skip some weeks if I have other 80-90+ minute runs.
Have a clicking feeling in my right knee but I bet it won't be an issue. Haven't had an injury that I wasn't able to continue running in 10 years. I hope this NSM experiment ends well but honestly I can't imagine it won't produce better performances than my last and slowest HM (1:23). At 52yo I raced many HM's around 1:16:30.
Many years ago, I did very similar. 9 months of nothing but easy running. 90-110 mins every day, with a 135ish mins long run. Circa 12 hours of running each week. I took a rest day when I felt like it, maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. I was in excellent shape when I started racing, without any peaking work. This felt sustainable, until I started including more regular races. I had to stop as my lifestyle no longer gave me that amount of time for running. When I dropped down to 6-7 hours per week, with workouts, my race times got slower.
You might have started increasing workouts but your overall load was probably lower.
The whole point of this thread is about load management and getting the most load for the amount of time you run. Running 12 hours a week, all easy, might seem like it's not strenuous but it is adding, probably substantially, more load than 6 hours with some intensity. It's quite obvious
Going to give this a whirl after struggling now for 18 months and really don't have a clue why which is a first. Went from 56yo 2:46 marathon in the tropics (hot) to throwing in the towel about a month ago and stopped all exercise for a week. I have been running only easy until my first NSM run today.
* 3x10(60 rest) - 6:22/mi (143HR), 6:21(149) & 6:24 (155 ). Felt pretty close to marathon effort. My max HR is 182ish.
Had to hold myself back a couple times where usually I would have just inched up the pace. Three of these and a long run for a nearly 60yo seems a little excessive. Maybe if I keep the efforts at right around marathon pace? Also, the long run would be on a treadmill at around 15% incline on most weeks ( might do half on TM and then the remainder on the roads ). Not a big fan of the long run and might skip some weeks if I have other 80-90+ minute runs.
Have a clicking feeling in my right knee but I bet it won't be an issue. Haven't had an injury that I wasn't able to continue running in 10 years. I hope this NSM experiment ends well but honestly I can't imagine it won't produce better performances than my last and slowest HM (1:23). At 52yo I raced many HM's around 1:16:30.
How did you determine those Reps? Do you know your threshold heart rate, have a recent race time or just go off RPE? I would have thought the heart rates could be a bit higher based on your max.
15% incline on a treadmill??? Is that a typo or are you deliberately trying to offload specific mechanical load?
For my last marathon, I followed the last 3 weeks of the marathon special block almost exactly and it worked perfectly; I felt amazing and at my fittest on race day.
I'm planning things out for my next marathon and I can’t find a half marathon in my area 3 weeks out. I’m considering a couple of options. There’s a competitive 10 miler that is 2 weeks out. If I were to do that, I’d move the 5 x 5k to the week before and probably move the 15 mile progression back by a day. This sounds like the most fun option, but I’m hesitant to tweak the plan; I feel like I have a good understanding of the regular plan and how to adjust it over time, but there’s still a sort of mysticism for the special block and I’m afraid any tweak will make it worse.
The next option is doing a solo HM time trial 3 weeks out–I saw this is what Grandma’s Guy did. This sounds pretty bad to me, but I’d do it if I’m convinced it’s the best option. Then I could follow the special block exactly again.
The 3rd option would be to do a big workout like 4 x 5k in place of the HM. I could probably do another workout or two then before the 5 x 5k, so the cumulative load would be the same and this would be a lot easier to execute mentally. But I’m concerned part of the magic of the special block was doing the HM followed by the 5 x 5k. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I don’t think these 3 options will produce wildly different outcomes to your immediate recovery or your goal race. So you’re being smart and reasonable.
Based on any of those options being fine with the appropriate recovery, I would choose the option that YOU think will leave you with the most confidence going into your goal race. Don’t worry about which may leave you x% fitter. Which option will leave you thinking, “yeah, I’ve got this!”.
I really think you should run the experiment for a few months. The responses you’re getting are the exact same responses you would have received if you proposed the NSM schedule years ago.
”yeah, this would work okay for building a base but you’d need to add in more 5k pace and faster work to race a good 5k/10k or do harder long runs to race a good HM/Marathon etc.”
People saying they’ve done this before, perhaps, but a hobbyjogger running sub 70% HRMax for an easy run is already exceedingly rare. To do that 7 days in a row indefinitely, I really doubt it’s been done in that controlled and intentional a way before to glean meaningful data from. If it works it is another data point in what is a paradigm shift in running training. If it doesn’t, it might help understand a lower limit on what constitutes specificity, or a rethinking of the training load calculations for easy running.
There's no reason not to try this. I tried adding speedwork and VO2 back in, just to see if variations were better. As I posted, they probably weren't although I did PB at 1500 by a couple of seconds. But was a I getting good bang for my buck? Probably not, I then got worse at 10k you can't have it all. The recovery cost and overall life fatigue felt a lot worse, which is against the spirit of this method and there's no doubt I should have just stuck to NSM rather than adding in a lot the jazz again.
For anyone who has read the book, sirpoc drops in the example of when he was injured cycling (crash?) and just did a lot of easy riding as he could manage that. He actually got faster, slightly. But the amount of volume he had to do was insane, in comparison to sweet spot training, that you have to ask, is it worth it? Is that good value for money training? Which again, is in the spirit of this thread. It's much more time intrusive and for running, your big issue is going to be it's not as easy as the bike, where you can hop on for 3 hours a day and it be no problem. Even 90 min easy runs will probably cause some issues in the end. It's quite a lot of extra time on your feet.
I would also suggest you are then into the territory of the easy running being the only stimulus, so it's not just recovery, so it'll then also matter where you pitch the intensity. 60% mhr versus 70% then becomes something you might want to worry about, whereas in NSM its just a buffer day between workouts that you can just run easy and forget about it.
I agree, a long term view of all the things talked about, would be nice. Which is why I posted up my (long) account of when I added in speedwork.
As I said, Stryd calculates mechanical power, period. IOW, it is completely agnostic to physiology.
However, Stryd power is highly predictive of the energetic cost of running (Garmin somewhat less so) because mechanical power output is the most important driver of metabolic cost
As a Stryd user, I couldn't care less if the reported number is mechanical or metabolic. It doesn't matter if it's validated against the power my body is truly producing in the run, if that can even be measured. The argument about whether or not it's true watts or just a calorie counter is irrelevant IMO.
What is important to me is that the number on my watch matches my RPE and is consistent and reliable across different efforts. Provided I race and/or test periodically to ensure a valid CP/FTP, then I know when I train to a percentage of that CP/FTP, I'm repeatedly hitting the same effort.
And that's been my experience. The power number Stryd sends to my watch has been predictable and reliable. It's changed a few different aspects of my training for the better and I'm seeing consistent, measurable progress.
I was approached by Stryd recently, but it became clear quite quickly they are not really interested in an actual power meter, which is a shame. They have their share of the market and for the most part, people who don't know better are happy. Good for them. I have no problem with that.
I am on board with the idea that as long as it is consistent and spits out usable information, then I see zero issue in there being no strain gauge or anything that resembles a power meter. The big issue is that once you take it outside of relatively controlled conditions, it performs far below the expectations of what the standards should be.
Height and weight, for example, are not the only parameters that are going to shape things, especially if you are using an algorithm to then determine how wind affects 'power'. The other big issue is going to be where the wind hits you. Stryd didn't seem to have an answer when I chatted to them. The wind is most likely to hit you and affect you most, much higher up on the body, but the wind sensor is this silly little thing on your foot. I went running in Lanzarote with it and the numbers on the hills and wind were bordering on farcical.
If you consider how accurate power can be, take for example wanting to ride within +-2w for the hour record on the track, then when you compare that to what Stryd offers, it's hugely problematic.
This thread has been interesting even for an old head like me, who is interested in such things. I have raised a few smiles though where some people are bluffing their way into pretending they know what they are talking about, or in some cases I am not sure have even ever trained, or more importantly, raced with a power meter.
How did you determine those Reps? Do you know your threshold heart rate, have a recent race time or just go off RPE? I would have thought the heart rates could be a bit higher based on your max.
15% incline on a treadmill??? Is that a typo or are you deliberately trying to offload specific mechanical load?
I based the reps off my recent slowest HM that I listed above of 1:23. I want to be conservative and figured I could increase the paces in the coming months. The last couple of years I've been basing my TH runs off of the 1:16:30 HMs I was running five years ago at 53 and, as you would expect, hasn't produced good results. Not too bright. Todays reps my HR at the end was 159 which is close to my estimate of my LT2 HR (162). I listed average during each interval. Maybe my ending would have been better. Ending HR 150,156, and 159 for the last interval. As for the 15% TM, that is how I train on the treadmill. It works for me and almost eliminates injury risk. I actually walk and run depending on my mood and usually around 5-6 kph. I'm just getting volume doing something that closely resembles running.
I am on board with the idea that as long as it is consistent and spits out usable information, then I see zero issue in there being no strain gauge or anything that resembles a power meter. The big issue is that once you take it outside of relatively controlled conditions, it performs far below the expectations of what the standards should be.
Height and weight, for example, are not the only parameters that are going to shape things, especially if you are using an algorithm to then determine how wind affects 'power'. The other big issue is going to be where the wind hits you. Stryd didn't seem to have an answer when I chatted to them. The wind is most likely to hit you and affect you most, much higher up on the body, but the wind sensor is this silly little thing on your foot. I went running in Lanzarote with it and the numbers on the hills and wind were bordering on farcical.
If you consider how accurate power can be, take for example wanting to ride within +-2w for the hour record on the track, then when you compare that to what Stryd offers, it's hugely problematic.
This thread has been interesting even for an old head like me, who is interested in such things. I have raised a few smiles though where some people are bluffing their way into pretending they know what they are talking about, or in some cases I am not sure have even ever trained, or more importantly, raced with a power meter.
What do you mean by "relatively controlled conditions"? I live in a valley next to mountains and have both sections of flats and hilly terrain. I've taken it on the track, road, and trails, in both wind and calm conditions. It's always been 100% predictable for me. I've never been surprised by the number on my watch. Unfortunate it's been farcical for you, but it's been reliable for me.
Regarding wind at the foot, it's a problem I guess if you're running in areas with tall grass or obstacles that buffer wind effects at your feet. From what I understand, Stryd tested with a anemometer across different body types and took this into account. Agreed it's an estimation, but from my experience, the wind power it reports matches my exertion in the run. Again, I'm not surprised by the number. Here's their white paper on the subject (PDF):
Also, there is no standard to hold running power up to, so I'm not sure what you mean by "how accurate power can be". Running power can't and shouldn't be compared to cycling power IMO. Running is a 3-dimensional (horizontal, lateral, vertical) high-impact activity, where cycling is 1-dimensional (horizontal only) and low-impact. Running economy plays a large role into the reported power numbers and changes in your form during your run will be amplified.