Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Anyone still recommending top-end sprints or flies or whatever. I nearly pulled a hamstring getting out of the car before my run this morning. This is your target audience when you post in here.

How do you know running strides wouldn't have prevented you from pulling a hammy getting out of the car? Maybe you're lacking in strength in the nether region.

There is a reason people like Bakken and Ingebrigtsen keep their sessions to around 30 mins. If you start doing 35-40 min sessions regularly you will see fatigue increase. The sessions may also stop becoming "subT" as after about 30 mins lactate production begins to outpace clearance.

People seem to be obsessed with 80/20 or 75/25 but this stops having any meaning as you increase your hours.

The "special block" was just that, a short intensive block which Sirpoc knew couldn't be sustained. And as mentioned he had 1 longer session per week.

So many people are missing the entire point of NSM. It's scary how dim some people are even with all the information we have out there.

I must admit, I find the psychological aspect of this thread incredibly interesting (I work in the field of studying human behaviour) as much as the excellent training method.

We have the reluctant hero.

The old coaches often who refuse to accept their life's work and beliefs can be challenged.

Guys like this one quoted. A narcissistic poster who makes some bold claims, may or may not be true, but then brushes over that as "not important anyway because I'm super intelligent", but then has the audience and attention they want.

It's honestly as interesting to me as I've read through the whole thing.

Any good links for Li Ning Feidian 6 Elite, Li Ning Red Hare 9 Ultra or Dynafish?

Look it up at Mulebuy.

Well let's see. How big is the improvement in heart stroke volume, mitochondrial density, glycogen storage, VO2max, running economy, MLSS? How can anyone even run without knowing?

It doesn't matter. Racing is about getting to the finish before the others (or faster than last time). We know that running in the 15k to HM pace improves your fitness a lot. Only thing left is to lace up your shoes every day.

On the recurring Magness discussions: I was a follower back then around the time his book came out. He knows a lot of stuff and does the research. But when he's trying to explain anything, it's always complicated and there are sooo many things to consider. Compare and contrast sirpoc: he definitely knows his stuff judging by all the references in the book. Big difference, he explains things in simple ways.

Appreciate your response.

I obviously don't speak for everyone but I have personally extended the ST sessions from 30 to 40 mins to increase my total volume. With the paces I run at, I'd only be looking at 70km per week off true vanilla NSA (3x 60 min at <70% MHR, 3x 30 min ST + 10 min warm-up and cool down, 1x 90 min LR at <70% MHR).

This is a mental thing for myself which I'm happy to admit - 70km simply doesn't feel like enough to achieve what I want to achieve. During 2024 I comfortably hit 110km/week, and in 2025 100km/week. Dropping down to 70km/week feels like I'm barely doing anything. Could I run faster by doing less? Possibly/probably, but again this is a mental thing I need to get over.

During SirPoc's London build he ran:
- Easy runs at 90s to 2 mins/km quicker than myself, so he's getting a good 3km+ per run more (10km vs 13.2km), over the week that's 9km+ of additional volume

- 3x 3.2km which took him around 11 mins per rep / 33 mins of volume per session

- 6x 1.6km which took him around 5 mins 12s per rep / 31 mins volume per session

- 10x 1km at around 3 mins 12s per rep / also around 31 mins per session

*These are all rough summaries based on a quick snapshot of one of his weeks during the build

If I were to replicate this at my paces my sessions would be:
- In order to hit the same 13km volume I'd need to extend to 75 mins+. I've continued to cap easy runs at 60 mins and accepted the lower volume.

- 3x 3.2km in roughly 13 mins per rep / 39 mins of volume

- 6x 1.6km in roughly 6 mins 10s per rep / 37 mins of volume

- 10x 1km in roughy 3 mins 45s per rep / 37 mins 30s of volume

Due to running off time based reps and not distance, my 40 min sessions are not actually far off (only a couple of mins per session) of what SirPoc did during his build as an equivalent distance, and this is only due to rounding to the nearest minute (i.e. 6 min and 4 min reps) with the exception of the 10 where I've shortened the rep duration and add in an extra one.

As I (hopefully) improve my pace and therefore run further per rep, I will either switch to a distance based approach, or reduce the duration of the rep if I continue with a time based approach (i.e. 4x 9 mins, 7x5 mins, 12x 3 mins etc.).

Fully expecting (more) downvotes for this but I hope it provides a bit of clarity around me reasoning.

As a quick build on the above (it won't let me edit the post for some reason), the SirPoc snapshot does not take into consideration his 'special sessions' of 3/4/5x 5km etc. - these sessions gave anything from 50-80 mins of sub-threshold in an individual session.

You are are a little trapped in thinking about mileage/km over time. Sirpoc is fast. Most of the sessions he does are convenient distances, but take around 30 mins to complete. Outside of, as you point out, marathon specific stuff, which has been slowly recovering introduced since around Christmas time for him.

Also, easy run is just an easy run. Your pace is slower than his, but an hour is an hour.

If you look at where the increase in load and volume for sirpoc has come from, it's mostly easy running. Which has been extended to the limit. Which is why easy running for him is now probably north of 80% maybe even more. You aren't simply piling on more and more sub threshold. In fact the book goes into good detail about this.

The only difference now for him having "completed" NSM is a bit more volume, but it's probably around Lt1 and on the bike. A gateway to traditional doubles. Again, something not even he is rushing and using a safer medium in the interim perhaps to get there.

So many people are in a rush. There's a guy on Strava posting today who has been doing it 14 weeks and already doubling. Part of why this works IMO is the incredibly slow build and not pushing or rushing progress. I think people coming from boom and bust backgrounds really struggle with this concept.

Great post there. Definitely getting the thing about patience and consistency.

On the other hand, the book also has something about various responder types. For myself the jury is still out. For sirpoc we can conclude he’s probably responding quite well:

Now what would mediocre responder types do? How to figure out what type of responder you are? There’s enough topics for the next 500 pages.

PS on Magness: as said before failing to acknowledge Sirpoc shows his true colours or at least insecurity / academic elitism. Magness referenced pretty much every running great in his materials from Gerschler to Igloi to Daniels to Canova. Not giving credit really undermines his story. Or maybe he didn’t really understand the sweet spot concept in the first place.

I think Magness and anyone who has been in the running game for a while, fails to understand the impact of load. They don't seem to believe in it. Which is where cycling was when I first got into it as a teenager, semi dark ages. A decent understanding of peaking for an event, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes up training.

As soon as cyclists discovered how to semi accurately measure and assess load, training became better, people could hold fitness across the down seasons and in general, w/kg in the peloton went up. The actual amount of time spent training has probably come down, (less fatigue), but the quality and recovery from load has gone up.

That doesn't mean every old school running coach is wrong. But there are a lot of them still stuck in ways that you would now have to go back decades to find in other sports. It'll take running longer for them to wash through the system, but most of them are gone in cycling.

Often it's a little strange, as many of the really old school coaches saw mileage as king. Which, as the NSM author points out, is really just a rudimentary way and descriptor of more load.

Sweet spot is important to understand, as all it is doing is maximising the time you have training. It's very difficult to throw much else into the mix when you are using it to it's full potential. Of course it's not the only way a hobby person can train, but it's more than likely the best.

Wasn't Magness whole video basically an acknowledgement to sirpoc?

I still think Magness had good intentions. He could have not given NSM the time of day & after coming on here to defend himself likely wishes he didn't.

I've done some of the Vo2ish stuff he recommended. Keeping workouts vanilla but doing some of the reps harder as you get closer to a race. Such as doing some of the 3 min reps at 10k - 8k pace when prepping for a 5k race. Not sure that's even vo2, but it's out of the typical NSM range, but I feel is still safe aerobically for a couple workouts.

This is nonsense. Lactate production decreases over time (with repeated bouts), due to reduced muscle glucose stores.

TLDR: Forget lactate. It's not a casual factor in fatigue, it's more variable than HR or PE (way more variable than Stryd power), and thinking/talking about it just confuses people.

It would be useful to know whether any improvements are coming from changes in fitness vs. running economy because that may inform choices to further maximize such benefits.

Given the magnitude of improvement reported by many, my hypothesis is that changes in running economy must play a role.

Either that, or many long term hobby joggers are much further away from maximum fitness than I would expect.

Glycogen. Damn auto correct.

No- not at all. I stated in my post, I would need to drive 1 hour to get to a flat area. It is up and down all around me. That is why power works after the run to see how I performed. It is all over the place during the run but nails the power consistently over segments 5 minutes or longer.

If you believe he was only capable of breaking 19 for a 5k as a good/great cyclist with a sound knowledge of endurance training, I don't know what to say. He also had a following as a cyclist and talked about training often. I came from cycling also at 50 and within 1 year was sub 17 using basic 80/20 training. I think his NSM is better than 80/20 and I'm a fan of his training.

You obviously get excited about him not being able to lower his slow 5k time before NSM. That is what sells and if you want to believe it, up to you.

His plan is solid and I bet his book would be worth a read. Where are all his Strava activities before he appeared on the letsrun scene? He was on Strava and bragged about KOMs but they are almost all deleted. Go figure :) I knew the story was full of holes and went to Strava to verify but all his pre letsrun thread activities are deleted.

15 days into NSM and I am confident it will produce great results.

Nonsense! Why they usually keep their threshold sessions to 30 min is because they often do double thresholds and they don't go for the half or marathon.