Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Good post, thank you!
Am hoping to gently work this into my base-building. Am prepared to know it'll take 6-10 mos. The stories I'm reading of guys and girls getting blown away during track training during the week at their run clubs (they go slower on NSM easy days) and then blowing away competitors on race days is astounding. (There was a guy who posted a few pages ago about how some of his club mates are now doing this training after they saw him blow them away at a race).

Thank you for this post! I had tried an NSM workout in the past but due to the Garmin going under trees and clouds the pace would still fluctuate even though I had a target pace, and was constantly having to look at it to keep it correctly. I see others on Strava with perfect, even peaks in their intervals, and I don't know how they do it. Unless they train on days with no clouds--that is the only thing I can think of.

Got the cheapest Polar watch myself, somewhat inaccurate. Set it to show interval avg pace. This fluctuates a bit in the beginning of every rep but then stabilises. On a 6min rep i check 3-4x. Last 1-2min running just slightly faster or slower to hit target.

Running on distance myself but within recommendations of the book (+-30s for short / +-60s for med and long). Always same loops for each type of workout. You get the feel for pace quickly.

Good stuff, nice to know it compares well to lactate testing. I'm sorry I didn't discover it months ago! It will hopefully keep me in check now, seems very useful.

I agree on sticking to 3 workout days (1 bike+2 run) but would advise for less time in zone than 1h for the bike workout. Unless it's at the lower end of sweetspot, 1h worth of intervals is proper hard. Plus it takes a bit of established cycling/running "hybridness" to recover from intense cycling and be able to run subT paces 48h later. I would start from 40 minutes (4x10' rec.1'/1'30") and very gradually push to 50 (3x16'40" rec.1'30"). 93-95-97% of FTP for is where I get comparable RPE and HR as subT running for 20-15-10' intervals respectively. But that depends on how experienced you are as a cyclist

agreed

will definitely depend on your previous experience cycling

i was trying to say this probably just didn’t come out correctly

probably could do anywhere from 90 mins Z2, 60 minutes tempo, 40-45 true sweetspot, down to about 30 mins at true FTP and be pretty safe

the main point i was trying to get across is the bike gives you the ability to bump the time up at a given intensity vs only running

You have drag area and drag coefficient to work on.

On area: go low + go narrow.

Go low: you need to rotate your entire body, rather than making a "cat's back". Keep the back flat. But you want to keep your hip angle open (just like in running) or you lose power. This means you will have to sit on your junk for the duration of the race. Check out a side view of Matt Bottrill maybe to get some inspiration. Practice "the shrug" (drop your head between the shoulders).

Go narrow: not so narrow that your breathing is impaired (this is more an issue with TT bars.

Drag coefficient: tight jersey and bibs. Overshoes. Maybe mod your helmet with cling film. Deep dish wheels. Aero frameset (ok we're leaving the "cheap" territory here).

Just off the top of my head. Internet/youtube is full of that stuff.

Shirtboy, all, thanks for your feedback. Did 4min intervals on 60sec yesterday on a basic but solid spinning bike in the gym. Very handy because it adds up to five mins, easy to track without programming anything (by feel, just keeping rpm in check, power figure jumps like mad on that rig). Will do the 20min reps outdoors but it's freezing right now. Sold my good bikes when walking away from cycling.

All very good starting points. Especially if you just want play around short term and just focus on the basics of a good position.

Although, if you see any pics of sirpoc from time trialing days, he was actually very high at the front end, more than most. That must just work for him from all his experimenting. His CdA is almost historically low, a 18:10 '10' and 48:04 '25' off 325/310w respectively. To put that into context, he got almost 2 minutes faster over a couple of years in a 10, with almost no extra power of fitness.

There's a lot you can do in cycling/Tri/duathlon that just isn't at the disposal of runners, even in the short term. You can get double bang for you buck, time crunched training gains via sweet spot and the aero gains.

There are some good answers already. I think you need to play around with it a bit. There will be some individual response when it comes to adding the workouts. A group of my friends and I all ran in college. We kept training for a couple of years after then we’ve all taken 1-5 years off and got back into things last year. One guy in the group really struggled with doing even two workouts a week. He’s a consultant, works like 80 hours a week and travels a lot. He’s also the most talented out of all of us. We often say that with him, he needs training that will allow his talent to show, not training that will burry it. After trying to force it with two to three workouts for a while and getting hurt, he settled on one a week for several months and gradually built volume. We were all a little annoyed when he was the top guy of the group in our most recent 5k. A few guys in the group started with one workout, added a second after a few months, then a third. One guy was able to jump right into three. So there might be some trial and error.

Thank you, this is a huge help. Is there a way of testing to see how well your aero changes are working in reality, or is it as simple as sticking to the same power on the same loop and comparing speeds?

Kind of. Look up the Chung Method. The TLDR is that you ride a closed loop for a few laps without touching your brakes and vary your speed and power within each lap. You can plug your data into Golden Cheetah and determine both your drag and rolling resistance because of some nifty physics.

Power of 10 results indicate Sirpoc NEVER ran an actual 17:30 parkrun NOR a 16:30 (he skipped from 16:55 right to 16:12 in 2 months in the fall of 2023) so I have no idea where you are getting this data from. He also never ran any 3x3k workouts during this time period since all his longer reps were 3.2k until he switched to 3k reps when he stopped doing 1600's during his marathon prep phase in 2025.

=========================

Here is his progression once he starts regular strava posting in the summer of 2023 :

17:24 12 Aug 23 Southsea

3:42/k 1k pace & 3:47/k 3200m actual Strava training paces
15k race pace (3:44/k)

book recommended 3/6/10 min paces for 17:20 -> 3:42/3:47/3:55

-----

16:55 23 Sep 23 Southsea

3:33/k 1k & 3:43/k 3200m actual Strava training paces (1600m paces in between these)
15k race pace (3:38/k)

book recommended 3/6/10 min paces for 17:00 -> 3:37/3:43/3:50

---

16:12 11 Nov 23 Southsea
3:27/k 1k & 3:35/k 3200m actual Strava training paces
15k race pace (3:29/k)

book recommended 3/6/10 min paces for 16:20 -> 3:29/3:35/3:42

--

15:40 14 May 24 Gosport

3:18/k 1k & 3:22/k 3200m actual Strava training paces
15k race pace (3:22/k)

book recommended 3/6/10 min paces for 15:40 -> 3:21/3:27/3:33

Thanks, I use a Garmin and I know it's not super-perfect but didn't realize how crappy it was. I see others on Strava/Garmin with perfectly paced intervals and no jagged ups and downs and wonder how they do it. HRMs could be the reason.

Couple of things. Portsmouth Lakeside, not Southsea. I clicked 17th August. 5x2k at 3:50. So slower than suggested. Also on this course he's taking 10-15s off it seems due to that is more like an XC course.

Also, the bottom one you have to consider he also ran 10k faster just a few days later.

In fact, I think often his 10k is better.

The one thing to note, we are spending too much time on something where most of the time he's pretty much always done, what he's said he's done lol

Now that nonsense is put to bed, does anyone want to talk training?

Has anyone had any luck incorporating 5-10 min bang for buck strength conditions to run alongside this. I don't even know if that exists, but in the spirit of this method. It's something as I get older, I'm starting to thing about. But, don't really have a whole lot of extra time to dedicate.

Fwiw, the method is obviously working great for me so I don't want to eat too much into running time.

There's absolutely no point in taking sirpoc times and then training paces. Absolutely none. Some are faster, some are slower. But you have no idea what conditions they are run in.

We know from the book he is micro managing every small detail. He might have ran 16:00 in a race and known it was worth 15:45 in better conditions (as an example). He uses in the book the example of 15:01 he ran versus a 15:30 in either the week before or after (I forgot which was around). The 15:30 indicated better fitness than the 15:01, give the conditions. So what he used for his paces, literally only he knows. Anyone who tried to replicate exactly what he is doing is going to fail because of this micro managing. He posted on Strava in some comments about how his recent 31:17 10k might be been one of his best ever runs given the windy conditions.

How he's working all this out, I assume, is the last thing he would openly share. Because it is going to way over complicate this for people, who are already, way over complicating it and he will end up. For the average person, just take your 5k time and it'll do but there's no way he's doing this, he's being way more dialled in and specific.

I assume, the newer paces in the book at nerfed a bit as well. Which, would make sense because the whole idea is to get people to not over cook what they are doing.

Check out Alex Hutchinson sweatscience on outsideonline. You don’t need to lift to failure. Few reps high weight good tho. Myself going on 50 also just a few push-ups, pull-ups and abs on the carpet purely for health reasons with the office job and all. Keep it simple.

No, there is nothing unique, it’s all about taking the largest load (TSS) before you break.
If you want to fiddle with the numbers, you can search for the training calculator in original LR thread and simulate your hypothesis

Doesn’t matter really as long as you’re in the ballpark and not overcooking. Maybe you try it on a track some time. Also helps to focus on consist breathing rhythm.

Again, run by rep avg pace, then a lot of the jumpiness will cancel itself out.

For myself while the 6min ones are often within 1s, the shorter faster ones are more varied. Doesn’t matter, just do them and off to the pub.