Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Not everyone needs a coach, and a method like this may make a coach less necessary for a number of runners. It doesn’t necessarily follow, though, that there aren’t runners who could still benefit from coaching.

I don’t understand why you are guessing how sirpoc defined his FTP, when he defined it in his post?

So this means he defined it as 94% of his 5k power.

Thanks. Not sure how I missed that.

This is about correct. Most guys can do about 94-95% in a 25 mile TT compared to what they put out in a 10. Not many people who ride TTs are silly enough to ever bother with an FTP test, because they know their power curve over the various set distances. Time trialists are great data points because they also know what they can ride for 50s and 100s all out, so we know what real life power curves for hobby riders look like up to about 4 hours.

Coggan defines FTP technically as your power for a 40km/25 mile TT. An hour is probably an average club rider so an hour as also been used. Sometimes Coggan even uses it.

The only ambiguous point is for mortals/Tri guys like me, my 25 mile TT is 58 minutes whereas sirpoc is 48 flat 😳

All true but what are the odds of an average runner finding someone like yourself? Better off doing it yourself if you understand the basics of endurance training. Sure, still can make mistakes along the way but that is part of the fun of all this running for non-elites.

NSM isn't unique at all IMO but the emphasis on staying below TH is what got me thinking. What would happen if I "never" trained above TH on all my harder sessions. I'm 58 yo and was at the top of the elites for my age but over the last 2 years I messed up my training and made many awful decisions. NSM will hopefully get me back on track and I will see where it takes me. The bar is low but already today ran 5 minutes sub TH intervals well under TH around 6:10/mi. Many(me) on this thread are broken runners and throw in the placebo effect and magic happens.

NSM is about as novel as the Egg of Columbus

I don't think anyone claims it massively is? The book I read, certainly didn't. In fact, it makes a clear point in that it is definitely not magic. But what it does do, better in my humble opinion - more than any other running training plans I have seen - is give people focus, guidance and plan to shape their training using the optimal principles they need to get themselves better and stripping away all the things you likely do not need to worry about, as an amateur (which I am now).

If the author wanted to coach me, I think I could get something from it. I don't think I have stopped learning and if your coach is just a second pair of eyes and you share the shame long term goals and philosophy, it's never a bad thing in my experience. We should all be learning.

For instance, the author went from just running, to understanding and seeing the evidence that cross training could help. This is how all good stuff develops organically. The people who are stuck in their ways and "You must train your Vo2 max, just because!" are often the loudest voices, but the ones entrenched and routed in a pattern of training behaviour they can't get out of.

Good training is just good training. It's all mostly the same anyway. Just for non elite cyclists and runners there is a lack of 'good' training, due to the focus on things they absolutely do not need to worry about.

I feel quite vindicated when picking this book up from my wife, as I always said to her hobby runners are mostly training sub-optimally. "What do you know, you are just a pro cyclist, keep your nose out of it!, running is different!!". Yet suddenly she's been training like a British tester, and it's a miracle, she's gotten hugely faster. She will of course, never admit I had a point to begin with.

How long has she used NSM and how much progress has she already made?

Wait is this actually the former hour record holder (not sure how much anonymity is appropriate so I won't say your name)? sirpoc referenced a cycling podcast you were in regarding how to pace hills and headwind/tailwind which I found very informative. You should do a podcast on your youtube channel with sirpoc!

It’s all about speed as opposed to power when tt pacing with hills etc? Ie you want to keep speed high as opposed to steady power

Allie Ostrander caption on a recent reel: "I didn’t feel confident going into this race because I hadn’t had any killer workouts, the most I had run at half pace was 5xMile, and I’d only done 2 runs over 13 miles. However, I ended up feeling strong and being able to run far better than any of my workouts. None of my training indicated that I could run 5:20 pace for a half marathon or close in a 5:06, but race day is different. Don’t forget to believe in yourself & remember that there’s a magic to race day that cannot be explained."

Race pace workouts are overrated/overused, and because I wasn't overtrained or skirting injury for once, I was able to hit the start line fresh and ready to PB: [Geordi La Forge holding up his hand and frowning]

Race day gives me * ~ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ magic ⟡ . ݁₊ ⊹ ~ * superpowers: [Geordi La Forge pointing with his eyebrows raised]

Me and my twin sister (V40) have been doing this training since August, only 2 x sub T sessions a week though, we have had good results so far. She has a half marathon this weekend and I have a 10 miler the week after and then we are both doing a 10k on February 1st too. Will update with our results after that.

Twins would be the perfect opportunity to perform an experiment on how important VO2 workouts are…(joking)

Yes, but you can't go so hard that you blow up.

If you factor in both the physics and the physiology, it turns out that although an isopower pacing strategy isn't optimal on a hilly course, it's also never too far off.

The other thing that such analyses (which date back about 20 years) have revealed is most experienced cyclists are pretty good just pacing themselves by feel. It's therefore really only the exceptions who can really benefit from the sort fancy math that, e.g., BestBikeSplit provides.

Runners travel much more slowly than cyclists, of course, so from a physics perspective there's even less to be gained by deviating from a constant intensity. Still, it can be challenging to do so running downhill especially, and you could argue that the penalty of running harder uphill is less because it shifts the emphasis towards the quads. Once again, then, it really just comes back to doing what your body wants to do naturally - just don't start out too fast.

That's normal. We, the good man, do man-explaining instead of mansplaining ...

Has Allie done NSM and did she PR?

She didn’t do NSM.

I saw the reel too. She isn't doing NSM no but I think what OP was getting at is she stumbled on some core principles of this method (just sound principles in general, I know... don't come at me, "NSA is nothing new" crowd). Namely, you don't need to rinse yourself with "killer workouts" that leave you crying and puking to get fitter and run a good, strong race. Also, the necessity of "target race pace" in training is vastly oversold. But instead of reflecting and learning something valuable for future training, she not only ascribes it to "magic," she claims it "cannot be explained," when actually plenty of people could explain it to her. Runfluencer brain.